Start them early!! Seeds and Kids!!--Dianne

Trying to get your kids interested in gardening????

Right now is a great time to start some seeds.  I put some in peat pots,  squash and cukes, 6 days ago, and they are up with two leaves each.  Both are great plants for kids because they quickly get to see growth and get to eat their crop quicker than most things.  If you get the plants to climb, it's fun to watch daily, or every two day progress.  You could take pictures of them and the plant every 5 days for a fun record.  Have them do some writing along with it. As you can see, one pot didn't germinate, but that's okay, who really needs 12 cucumber plants??  If you come by in about 2 months, I'll load you up with both cukes AND zukes...

Some other fun things for kids to do would be to get a two liter bottle, and when the squash or cuke has started to form a "fruit,"  have them position the bottle so that the fruit grows inside the bottle.  It won't hurt a thing and looks really cool when it grows.

If you are growing pole beans, I recommend Kentucky Pole Beans,  arrange long sticks in a circle, then "tee-pee" them at the top,  that way the kids get a cool tent to sit in as the plants grow.  I did it with sunflowers one year, really fun.  We made a plant "house."   I planted in a big square, leaving room for a doorway.  The kids loved it. 



I just read in a gardening magazine about someone who had a forsythia hedge in front of her house.  So when the forsythia had finished blooming in spring, she planted gourds and squash next to them, and used them as a living fence.  Sturdy enough for the new plants to grow up, and they don't rust, or have to be taken in in the fall!

I have three teens this summer, so I keep finding things for them to do.   Here is a great list.

Follow around behind me and pick up the weedings.  Somedays I can weed, AND pick up, but some days I just can't.

Mow, dang-it.
Wash the front porch.  Wash the house on the outside,  reserve for a hot day, and expect some horsing around.  But the house gets clean, so what?  Oh, and get the car and van while you are at it.
WEED!  Here, just this bit, and then you are done.   Give them an area, they have to do a good job within a specified time limit, don't make it too hard.  A homeschool mom told me I should MAKE my kids help me in the flower beds. I told her that was MY hobby ,  not theirs.  I can't think of a better way to turn kids off than to make them a slave to the garden.   Now, helping occasionally can't hurt their future intake of ice cream, and it instills some good work habits they will need as later homeowners.
Please, help me with this big pile of mulch and we'll see if you get something for it later.

If you don't get a summer job, the barn needs painting.  We'll pay. 

Do your own laundry, fix a meal, run the sweeper.  Mom's in school this summer, and needs help. 

Pick strawberries.  Now, I know I won't get a full bowl, but I bet at least two of my kids will have strawberry beds at their own homes later.  Fresh strawberries are a small part of heaven.

Picking tomatoes later is a must.  Sometimes I just don't care about the complaints, it just has to be done.  I always think of all the hard work my grandparents did in the fields of Norfolk, England, before, during, and after WW II, and tell my kids to get on it.

Please admire my garden occasionally, and tell me it looks wonderful, and keep your big-footed friends out of it. 

Dianne, who just scraped off a layer of dirt.

And don't forget Who gives you the sun, the rain, the soil, and the growth.  Be thankful.

Strawberries? Seriously???? in April??? and the new Combs' vineyard --Dianne

Okay, people,  this weather thing has made life very interesting.  Yesterday, just before church, on April 29,  my daughter comes to me and says, "Hey, Mom, red strawberries in the garden!"  So we had to investigate, and sure enough, there were some!!  Alas, some of these have already become one with my insides, and so no longer appear as such.....

I also cut iris at church yesterday, in April!!  Just seems weird!.

I plunked some tomatoes into the garden yesterday from their in/out-the garage wheelbarrow.  I moved the white hooped row cover over some of them.  I am thinking that this year I will use posts for support, instead of my old fencing material.  I never seem to find just that perfect tomato support system. By the end of the summer, I always have a jungle. 

A list of tomatoes I have planted:  Park Whoppers,  Better Girl , Golden.  I still have some more to get into the ground.  I'm not putting so many in this year, I still have boxes of jarred juice in the basement, and canning time will hit right when I start up fall semester.  May hit the Amish auction in Guion, Park County, if I feel the need for large amounts at one time.  I usually get canner tomatoes for $2 a box.   I'm sure that this week they must be selling hanging baskets for about a dollar.   Sounds great until you have to cram a lot of 25 into your car!  Also, bedding plants should be going for very cheap.

Bill's brother, Bob, the engineer, and his family have lived on the family farm since they got married.  Bob decided a few years ago that he was not going to farm any more, and someone else rents the land from him.  However, he and his wife, Debbie, along with lots of friends and family, have been  put in about 600 grape vines for their new vineyard!  They live near the Wild Cat Creek Winery in Clinton County, east of Lafayette, and have decided to become grape growers.  I'm not sure what kind they are growing, but it sounds really ambitious.  We're about to get a bunch of rain this week, which should help with their just-planted vines.

I'm hoping that this on/off spring weather doesn't affect what they already had in the ground.  My big grape arbor looks like someone took a blowtorch to it.  I heard Welch's people on TV last week bemoaning the big freeze in the midwest, and how it will affect their crop this year.   We keep running out with tarps to throw over the potatoes, but I think for at least this week, we should be fine.  I keep my eye on the nightly low temps, and for this week, we seem to be staying in the 50's, hence the tomatoes have gone out.  I put canning jars over some of them for mini- greenhouses.

I am slowly getting control over the weeds that also came up early.  That stinkin' $%#$@# ground ivy  that is the bane of my gardening life has made a grand appearance this year, we have had some vicious wars in the front garden, I can tell you! 

AND, he's Ba-a-a-a-a-a-ck!! yes, that annoying groundhog has shown his face around here again,  having spent the winter rent-free under my barn floor. 
   Sure, eat up, fuzzball, I'm gunning for you, my furry little munching friend.  May you be sprinkled with the pellets from my son's gun so much that you go live somewhere else.  No sweet potatoes for you  to snack on this year, my fine friend!

Oh, and I've been very cautious in the garden, since Oh, Shi===, the snake, has progeny lurking about.  Robbie saw one first,  I could hear him yelling over the noise of the tiller!! 

Just had a wonderful rain, so weeding should be better tomorrow.

Now get out there and get dirty, folks!!


Dianne, Dirt and all!