Our Work is Paying Off

Our first productive garden in the making. The boys promised to help make 2 squares to start with and help keep them also. In return for helping I promised to help them with getting a chicken coop started. I thought I would be the only one out there tending the garden but they really want chickens.


This was a real hands on experience for them. They helped in preparing the squares. We got out the level, hammer and screws. I let them use the screw drill. I love power tools but I was able to share with them. LOL

We read two books. Both by Mel Bartholomew called Square Foot Gardening and The New Square Foot Gardening. I just had to go over both books. It had such good information in both. While mixing our soil medium we talked about peat moss, compost and vermiculite. They loved the mixing part. What boy doesn't like playing in dirt?

After getting it all ready we planted. This was the best part. We had our squares done and we planted. We all just sat back, watered and waited.

We had sightings of our veggies. Little things popping up from the ground. This time around we just watched as each seed popped out of the soil all curled up and then opened up with one then two leaves. They were excited as they eagerly watched every day at what else might pop up from one day to the next.


Then we went on a last minute vacation. Can you imagine being away from your garden for two weeks. I made arrangements with my brother and nephew who live next door to come over and water while we were gone so imagine every ones surprise when we got back and saw our garden.

Our two squares are filling in nicely. The boys promised to help prepare two more squares sometime soon.

I asked my middle son what each plant was just by looking at it now and he identified just about every plant in the garden. They all can't wait to enjoy their hard work when we sit down at the table.

They also added the garden to their nature journal.