It is truly amazing to watch your kid grow. Some days as I watch Arthur play, crawl, and "talk" I think to myself, "This was my little boy. This is my little boy. This will always be my little boy."I guess a garden is kind of like a child. With the proper nourishment, it will also grow into a strong, healthy group of plants. It's exciting to watch the first seedlings pop out of the ground. It's exciting to watch the plants bud. It's exciting to finally pick the fruit off the plant and enjoy it with the family.
This year, we are growing corn, onions, beets, kohlrabi, cabbage, beans, lemon cucumbers, peas, radishes, lettuces, carrots, okra, and turnips. Some of these are utter wild cards (like the okra and lemon cucumbers), and others are old favorites (like the kohlrabi and peas). I've even consulted a new gardening book that I picked up at Gulliver's last year: "A Beginner's Guide to Successful Gardening in the Fairbanks Area" by Eloise DeWitt. She has an entire chapter devoted to garden friends and foes. Apparently, some plants can't live side by side and others love being around each other. Kind of like people, I guess.
Baby Boy is quite fond of "helping" and "gardening." This weekend, we started our little radish boxes. Last year, we planted radishes, didn't get around to thinning them, and then just sort of forgot about them...so...we got a few radishes, but not as many as we were hoping for. (Hey, give us a break! We just had a kid!)
Here's another one of Arthur and I getting the radish seeds planted. He liked playing in the dirt...he even got to try one of the seeds. He must have liked it because he wanted another one. He's really into bean seeds, too - so much so that one morning I found one in his diaper. This year, I'm pretty determined to have a good garden. I have so much extra time on my hands that I'm even planning a flower garden (mostly irises, but some lilies and delphinium managed to sneak in there somehow). Alright, so I really don't have a ton of time, but I'd like to get the main area of the flower garden finished this year. We have a lilac bush from GVEA that also needs to be planted next to our other lilacs. I'm thinking about calling that area of the yard "Lilac Grove." Rather unoriginal, but naming portions of the yard is fun.
Blessed be.
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