Cute Garden Stakes

Our vegetable garden is finished, and while some of the plants are looking alarmingly limp and yellow, others seem to be thriving. Regardless, the girls and I are finding gardening to be great fun, and we decorated our garden yesterday with these adorable garden stakes.

We found the blank plastic stakes for cheap at our local hardware store. I drew simple vegetable shapes on construction paper which E helped to cut out and A helped to glue on with mod podge. When the glue dried, I gave the labels a good coating of clear gloss spray paint.

I love how colorful and hopeful they look out there: the promise of a bountiful harvest... so long as I can keep the plants alive!


The Surprise Gardenby Zoe Hall

I've come to love Zoe Hall and Shari Halpern (illustrator) for preschoolers. Their books are simple, fun, and so engaging for little ones. Together they have written several books, all of which explain something about nature to small children.

In The Surprise Garden three children plant different "mystery" seeds in their garden and wait to see what grows. They sort and plant their seeds and mark each type with a different colored stake. Then they carefully water and tend their garden, watching the various plants sprout and grow. In the end they have an amazing harvest of fruits and vegetables: all gorgeously illustrated in Halpern's cut-paper collages. 

How to square foot garden

I have wanted a vegetable garden for years and in our new, sunny yard it's finally a possibility! Last weekend I roped my husband and father-in-law into building me a square foot garden.

Square foot gardening is becoming a popular way to grow vegetables and herbs in your own backyard. The technique uses raised beds laid out in squares to grow the plants in a small amount of space and with relatively little work. For a 4'x4' bed, all you need are two 10x2x8' untreated wood boards cut in half, four metal corner pieces to help reinforce the corners, nails, twine, and 8 bags of miracle grow soil.

Grab your favorite helpers and drill your box together using screws and those metal corner thingys. Pick out a nice sunny spot in your yard and dig up the grass, or in our case weeds masquerading as a lawn. We laid cardboard down as added protection against weeds. Then fill your box! (Or get your hubby to do it.)

Now you need to mark off your square foot sections. Drill a screw or hammer a nail into the boards at one foot intervals. Then run your twine between the nails to create a grid.

You will be assigning plants to the different squares. Doesn't it look so neat and tidy? It brings joy to my order-loving soul. :)

Now, plant! Of course we had to start with E's peanut seedling, a recent school project. I have my doubts as to the success of her endeavor, but hopefully the tomatoes, squash, and basil my friend Michelle started for me will produce a delicious harvest... right outside my kitchen!

For more information on square foot gardening, you can check out the official handbook All New Square Foot Gardening.


My Garden by Kevin Henkes

Did you catch this book when it came out last spring? I admit I did not. But I'm so glad I finally got my hands on a copy. The writing is beautiful. Kevin Henkes is a master, of course, but this has to be one of my favorites.

Written in first-person a little girl explains what her perfect garden would look like. The flowers would change colors, the bunnies would be chocolate, and anything you planted would grow. In a flight of imaginative fancy, the child takes us into her garden and we all wish we could join her in the fun!

Only the best for our bugs!

It's turning out to be a gorgeous spring here in Virginia! The weekend was perfect for outdoor play, so while A napped, E and I went into the back yard to make garden homes for her rubber bugs. (I'm afraid all real bugs were quickly evicted.) Yes, Tinkerbell somehow got wind of the new condos and - Tink being Tink - made herself right at home.

Making the bug/fairy houses was easy and fun. While I gathered paper lunch bags, scissors, and glue, E walked around the yard and collected flowers, leaves, and berries to decorate the houses.

I rolled back the openings of the bags, tearing and shaping until I was happy with the look. Then E and I glued on the natural materials to finish our houses. When they were dry, we asked the new tenants to move in!

The bugs seemed rather pleased with their new digs.

Tink said the neighbors left much to be desired, but she guessed she'd stay.

Bugs! Bugs! Bugs! by Bob Barner


The inspiration behind buying the rubber bugs for the girls (a Target dollar spot find, btw) was this darling book. I'm not entirely sure why I am so taken with this book. Perhaps because it is simple and yet infectiously enthusiastic. Every page celebrates bugs with short descriptions very young children will be able to sit through and enjoy. The illustrations are gorgeous mixed media artwork, creating humorous goofy buggy creatures on every page. By the end of the book you, too, want to run outside to see these wacky, wonderful bugs! The back of the book includes life-sized illustrations of the eight featured insects as well as a "bug-o-meter" chart that contrasts and compares their basic features.

Yes, I know a fairy book would probably have gone better with the craft (hey, how was I to know Tink was going to weasel her way in?), but I love this book and honestly don't  know of any non-commercial (aka non-Disney/Barbie) fairy books worth reading. I'd love to hear your suggestions!

Adventure - In the Land of Makebelieve

The Book - The Three Pigs by David Weisner

I've warned you before that I am in love with David Weisner. This man can draw. His illustrations are everything a children's book illustration should be: detailed, beautiful, imaginative. I'm a lover of words, but Weisner uses few (if any!) narration. His artwork is strong enough to carry the story.

The Three Pigs is a great example. The story starts off as a traditional telling of the three little pigs, until the first pig escapes out of the frame of his story. He convinces the second two pigs to join him outside the scene and together they discover a world full of pages from storybooks. They hop in and out of classic stories and nursery rhymes, picking up friends along the way. Eventually the piggies re-discover their own story and decide to return... with a few adjustments to the plot!

Weisner struts his stuff throughout the book, changing the style of the artwork for each of the stories the swine enter. When the pigs are in the no-man's-land between stories, they look like they might just step off the page and into your room. Little Page loves it when one of the pigs looks out us and wonders if there is someone out there. This is definitely a story that thinks outside the box!

The Activity - Let's Pretend!


On our way home from school today Little Page created an elaborate scenario in her head involving princesses and fairies and me as the queen (of course!). She asked if we could play "pretend" when we got home. My first reaction was to think about 20 other things I needed to do instead, but I pushed those aside and said "yes"!

So we donned our imaginations and headed outside into the land of...

Dragons guarding tall towers!

Fairies flying through the air!

A princess hidden in her cottage in the woods...

And the Queen Mum!

I'm linking up to:
- Where in the World Wednesday @ Lemon Drop Pie