kinderGARDEN Thursday: week 19

As is becoming the norm the last couple weeks, here I am doing Thursday's post on Friday. I believe we now have the internet AND the computer working RIGHT AGAIN, so things will improve. I was able to find my cameras software disc at the other house last night, so I installed today and here we go! The above photo is plants I meant to talk about last week, but since I had to blog on Monday and give my computer up till this Monday, stuff got left out. I bought chives, oregano, and sage at 75% off at our local nursery 1 1/2 weeks ago. I paid $2.11 and they doing great! They were root bound and sad looking but they have grown a bunch!

I'm sad to say that Matthew isn't a part of this post much. We had Dad home with us for 11 whole days! That's most days in a row that we've had him for in 2 years. Sad uh? Well, since he left Monday evening, Matthew has been acting out, big time. I tried to have him help me water the garden with more cooler water, and he watered himself and the steps. Don't judge this post to harshly is my point! Our neighbor gave us some seeds from her beautiful burgandy hollyhocks. They have sprouted nicely. 21 to be exact. I'm hoping to get them started at our old house and my Mom's as insurance.

We were very surprised to see Surprise Lilies (mystery lilies or as our family calls them Naked Ladies) come up this week. One day they aren't there, the next flowers!

Beautiful aren't they!

A guy I went all through school with lives across the alley. His daughter came over this week to play. Matthew and she picked flowers for their hair! They are so cute!

A week and half ago I decided that even though I started our garlic in April, it was done, so I dug up the 3 cloves I planted to find 3 tiny bulbs of garlic! I am working on a location to plant them in the ground this winter and see how that goes for them.

The Inadvertent Farmer in her week 19 post wanted to know about our successes and failures. Well, I've learned that you may get any variety of tomato to grow in containers, but they are going to top out at 2 1/2 feet and they may bloom alot, but only 2 tomatoes are going to grow. That's a total of 2 to 6 plants. There is still a month for things to change, but it's not looking good. Some plants need the space and nourishment of a real garden. I've learned that I'm doing a good job at getting basil to flourish. I plan on repotting the basil into containers for the house this winter. My success with it is making me want to try growing an herb garden. I've learned Matthew, even at 3, can have pride in the garden, but at the end of the day he'd sometimes rather take care of watering the concrete or house. I don't blame him. We haven't had the rip roaring, lush success of some of the real gardens. We have had some purple green bean success, but not much else. Hopefully next year we will be settled at planting time and can have a real garden again. Next year we might try a mantis project or a sunflower house or teepee of some sort he can run and hide in. I've learned that in order to really let go and let him do his own thing, I'll have to make a space that is totally Matthew. So if he wants to plant 10 million seeds in one spot he can and learn from it. I feel so protective of the space, I think I don't always let him experience as much as he could. Over all, I think we've had ok success!