kinderGARDEN Thursday: week 24

Matthew has watched me garden for as long as he has been alive. This year I wasn't going to plant a garden, because I knew we were going to move right after we needed to have the seeds in the ground. When Kim, at The Inadvertent Farmer, announced the kinderGARDEN contest, I knew Matthew and I would have to find a way. So we decided to try growing a salsa garden, in containers, so they could move with us. We also settled on a few extras, like purple green beans. We hurried up and ordered seeds.

Matthew planted every pot.

Soon after we set all our pots out on the porch for sunshine. That's when we discovered our year old dog wanted to drag them around and the year old cat wanted to dig in them.

We covered them with chicken wire. It didn't help alot, but the hot sauce did. Once we moved, we thought the pots were safe, only to have them overrun with little caterpillars that were killing everything! Awww, the joys of gardening.

For Matthew's birthday, a very good friend came to visit. Matthew showed him every single plant and had him sniff every single plant. Matthew had pride in his garden.

I talked to my co-workers enough about our attempts, that they both wanted some purple green bean seeds. Matthew and I happily gave them seeds. Then a fellow kinderGARDENer said she wished she had some, so Matthew and I sent some to her and her son. That was really fun. I love spreading the joy of gardening.

In one of the kinderGARDEN posts we were encouraged to let our kids take the camera into the garden. I was brave and let an almost 3 year old boy take photos.


He did a very great job. He came up with interesting views. I've let him borrow the camera more often since then.

While waiting for things to grow, which happened very slowly, if at all this summer, we watered.


Sometimes we recycled the melted ice in coolers, instead of dumping it.


We watered alot with the hose.

But when that gets boring, there is always watering through the hollow handle of the watering can.

We got to pick purple green beans (which turn green when they are cooked), peppers, and finally a tomato!

Later in the summer we planted more seeds; turnips, carrots, and radishes. One carrot is growing, turnips are going like wildfire, and I think the radishes are finally sprouting. We may have a fall harvest after all.

We planted hollyhock and poppy seeds, along with irises, in the spring. We planted more hollyhocks and irises in August.

We picked apples.

We picked them several times and finally learned how to can all that goodness we picked!

We picked pears this week. We have more tomatoes, peppers, and purple green beans coming on. This has us begging for a little more time, before Mother Nature sends her fall frost.

It has been hard to condense the last 23 weeks into 1 post. It has been a wonderful experience for both of us. I wish that things had grown better, but the weather and caterpillars were against us. Thank you so much Kim for inspiring us to make gardening work this summer. As we prepare to move again, I can only look forward to doing all over again, in a new zone, next spring. I hope there is a kinderGARDEN contest part 2 next year!

For the last wrap-up posts of the season, go to The Inadvertent Farmer. Do check in next week to see who won.