Kindergardens

This weeks challenge for Kindergardens was to let your child take the pictures.  Children are drawn to things that adults would never see or take notice of and their perspective is so different.  It's fun to see what catches their eye.  Since I can never be on time for anything in my life, this post is no exception.  In fact, I sent the kids out into the garden just this morning with the camera while I finished cleaning up breakfast!  I told them to take picures of things they liked.

Here are a few of their snapshots.

The pool. :)  I know, I know.  It's almost July and we still don't have it open!  Don 't worry, its filling up as we speak and the cover comes off tonight!



A fairy house



the tippy top of a tomato plant and a bush in the background



watermelon leaves



A vine growing up a fence. My youngest told me she liked it because the leaves are shaped like hearts.



Overgrown lettuce!



onions




cucumber- it's almost time!!



Here are a few pictures I took!

red zebra tomato- I love that the stripes are so vibrant even when it's not ripe!



german pink tomato



flower on a pepper plant



Yumm! zucchini



lots of tomatoes! I never even bothered to take the price stickers off the cages..



patty pan squash bloom. See all the bugs in there!



My first tomatoes! These 3 are cherry tomatoes and they were super sweet!



Birdies! We had 3 Robins in a nest under our deck in May and I forgot to take the nest down. Now, a new family has moved in! 3 more birdies. These guys were just born yesterday. The 3rd egg has a hole in the top and the little guy in there is trying to make his way out. Last night, there was a leg sticking out of the hole!! I need to remind myself to take this nest down when these guys fly the coop! I don't need anymore birds out there eating my veggies off the vine.





I am not sure what kind of bug this is but I spied him the other day walking up the retaining wall.  He was about an inch long and was pretty fast.  But not as fast as my camera!



And finally, I made homemade laundry detergent this weekend. I have been using it for about 2 years now. Previously, both myself and my yougnest suffered from exczema. Since using homemade laundry soap, we haven't had any issues! There are no extra chemicals, no extra dyes and no extra scents to worry about.

I grate the fels naptha so that it melts quicker. Doesn't it look like cheese!

baby stuff

There are quite a few babies coming this summer, so I have been making these cute onesies as baby shower gifts.  They are pretty fun to make and they are super cute and well received by expectant moms.  So far, I have 3 down and want to make a couple more.  Since I have barely sewn anything in the last couple weeks, I wouldn't count on that happening.  :) 

All embroidery designs are from Urban Threads

First up are 2 gifts for my cousin.  I'm so retro and food fight.



And for my sister in law, it's Elvis Duckie



He even has rhinestones on his "suit"!!



Pathetic huh?

Kindergardens

So, you know I haven't sewn much when my last 3 posts are all Kindergarden related!  All my free time is spent in the garden, as it is every year at this time.  And last weekend was spent painting the living room.  The embroidery machine made it out to make up some baby gifts, but beyond that, it's all gardening.

The girls have been working on their fairy garden and we recently painted some fairy houses for them to live in.  Now, I read that fairy houses should be made of natural materials and blend in with the environment so that they are barely detectable, but my girls weren't having it.  Anything made by them is sure to be colorful and sparkly.  They did actually ask for glitter and I had to compromise by mixing some glitter paint into the dark blue paint so that it only had "some" sparkle. 

We painted 8 houses total and I then water sealed them with some clear varnish stuff.  They were planted in the fairy garden this weekend! 















Around the rest of the garden....

I have never grown onions before, so I never knew what their flower looked like! It was by chance that I stumbled across some purple onions this year and I decided to plant them just to try it out. The flower is actually very cool. At first it's just a little round ball with a bunch of bumps under a thin skin. Then the thin skin starts to peel off letting some of the little flower buds out..



Peels a little more...



And then, voila! All done!



See that little guy? It's a baby patty pan squash.



Right next to his zuchini cousin.



My volunteer whatever is coming along nicely!



watermelon!



Okra. With a side of weeds. Hey, I am just keeping it real. This is how my garden looks sometimes. But no worries, it got weeded right after this picture was taken. I just wanted to be straight with you all..


Another volunteer! This guy is a tomato and he cropped up at kind of a bad place also. Right next to another tomato.



Finally, moon flower. A gardening friend gave me a few sprouts of this a couple weeks ago. She was walking downtown and saw a lawn person pruning the plant so she asked him if she could have a couple of the shoots he was throwing away! He gave her a whole bag of little sprouts that he had dug up. So she gave me a couple and I planted them. Wouldn't you know it, they are doing marvelous! They bloom at night and are beautiful!



If you haven't already, go swing over by The Inadvertent Farmer for some other Kindergarden fun!

Kindergardens

We have had some visitors to our garden lately.  Visitors who like to play in the hose while I am trying to water.  Visitors who had to go home wet....  Luckily, said visitors mom didn't care and even had a spare outfit in the diaper bag!

Besides growing a garden for food, I like growing a garden for the enjoyment it gives to others.  Most kids who come over are fascinated by the veggies they see growing all around them.  Some kids don't even know how veggies are grown.  They never get the chance to pick peas off a vine, or pull carrots out of the ground.  I like to tell the kids that I grow purple carrots and watch their faces as they try to process what purple carrots look like!  Most kids, unfortunately, only see produce in grocery stores.   And I am here to tell you, you aren't going to find purple dragon carrots at Dillons.  Nor will you find Moon and Stars watermelon, or zebra striped tomatoes. 

After kids have a minute to think about purple carrots, they start asking a million questions.  Why are they purple?  How do they become purple?  Why haven't I seen them before?  Where do they come from?  Do they taste different?  I am happy to help kids learn about gardening and to venture outside to find veggies you don't get at Dillons.

 

Baby Avie!









KK looks like she is thinking "don't let her pick that flower!!" 





Fairy garden.  Those dang fairies are sprinkling grass seeds in the garden beds at night.  I am sure of it!



The girls are building a "fort". The pine tree has been dead for many years and the bark is peeling off in big sheets. So the girls are pulling off big hunks and proping it up against twigs to enclose a space under a weed/bush that got out of control. They like to sit in there and read and play in the dirt.



Water works!






Dang kids, I am trying to water. 









Ok fine.  If you want water, I'm going to give you water. 
Mom= 0
Kids= winning!





In other gardening news, we had our first pea harvest!



Potatoes that started in the compost pile. Doing good so far!



Squash blossoms



first cherry tomatoes, first tomatoes period!



Previously mentioned purple dragon carrots



Finally, look at all those cucumber blooms!!