Garden

Moving to a new house meant making some new garden spaces.  In the early spring I got a major itch to plant some seeds.  There was an area of the yard that had a little hill of dirt.  It seemed like it had once been a flower bed of some sort.  The soil looked pretty good, so we put some railroad ties down around the little hill and raked it flat.  I wouldn't have chosen that location in the yard for a garden bed, but that is where it sits and it is actually growing on me.  

We planted peas, spinach, red leaf lettuce, beets and a few flowers.  Everything did really well.  The kids are fabulous garden helpers and love the whole process.  We have since created some more beds on the side of the house.  They are doing very well except for being intensely weedy.  This other bed gets a normal amount of weeds, which is fine with me.  These other beds...they are bad...really really bad.  Hopefully, if I keep on pulling and pulling and pulling, they will get fewer and fewer as the years go on.  The kids and I are now in a routine where we eat breakfast, go for a walk (the kids ride bikes or scooters), and then weed in the garden for 10 minutes (Thomas sets his watch).  

In the beds on the side of the house we have tomatoes (lots...like 18 plants or so), giant sunflowers, pole beans (purple and green), armenian cucumbers, carrots (purple, yellow, and orange), several kinds of melons, and lots of herbs and flowers.  I am also trying another compost pile.  My last one didn't work at all.  Hopefully this one works better.  

I should really put some of this gardening energy into making the front of the house look better.  Maybe next year :).  

These are pictures of the kids gathering spinach for our green smoothie.