March 28, 2010

"Gardening is a matter of your enthusiasm holding up until your back gets used to it."
~ Author Unknown


We have an interesting little planting bed on the south side of our house that doesn't really get seen from anywhere inside the house, except that little piece of window you see which is in the breakfast room. And then you only see out that window if you're sitting in Jason's spot (which I never do since I need to be closest to the kitchen -- lucky me).

When we bought our home 11 years ago, the bed was filled entirely of star jasmine and was just plain boring. I let it stay for about a year before ripping it out to plant a perrenial and annual flower garden. I kept it this way for a few more years but it was more work than it was worth since you have to practically go outside and stand right in front of it to appreciate it. So when Sierra was about 5 or 6 years old, we decided to plant a vegetable garden there. A veggie garden (as we refer to it) isn't the prettiest to look at and they require full sun so this south facing bed with no view to speak of from the house was the perfect location. That year, we enjoyed carrots, radishes, squash, bell peppers and tomatoes. Fast forward a year...got pregnant and had Cameron. No more time for a veggie garden while preggers or with a baby in the house. So, we bought some river rock and filled in the dirt bed to keep down the weeds.

Fast forward to this year...Cameron's almost six years old and has shown a passion for gardening ever since he could hold a little shovel (he even has his own gardening gloves). For the past few years, he helps me outside whenever he gets that chance. He loves to dig holes for new plants, water, pull weeds, whatever. He even helped me clear all of the river rocks from the bed so we could prepare the soil for planting. Today, I finally purchased the plants and Cameron and I together put them in the ground. Here are some photos to show you what we did. I'm so looking forward to fresh organic veggies this summer!


Soaking the ground to get it ready for planting.
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Cameron's digging a hole for the basil.
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Here's the layout of our veggie garden. The brick thingy in the middle is our chimney.
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