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!!

Hair pretties and undies. Oh my!

Since my girls love hair pretties I have been making lots of them in summer designs.  Forget sewing, welcome to my hairbow making factory! 





For 4th of July. Still need one more at a minimum. 3 more at a maximum! The girls like to wear 2 each, but I may not have enough time to make 3 more.



Bows with Hair stitchies in the center from GG Embroidery designs







Oops, got one of the ice cream cones glued on wrong side up!





Nin needed some new undies, so I made 8 pairs. All out of scraps!  I experimented with the leg openings and waist band and in the end she prefers the legs and waist bound in cotton/lycra rather than the elastic. So next time, I will skip the cool elastic and stick with the cotton/lycra. 

Ottobre Design 6/2010



Ottobre Design 04/04

Kindergardens

A new week of Kinder Gardens brings much of the same thing.  A lot of work happening here on the top of the hill.  But we have everything planted.  That is, if you can keep me out of the garden stores, we have everything planted.  I have this awful habit of visiting garden centers and coming home with plants, both flower and veggie, that I have no room for. 

For instance, last week I went to Home Depot to find a tomato cage.  I came home with 3 more tomato plants, 4 more pepper varieties, another watermelon, more okra and not one, but 4 tomato cages!  You know, since I had to buy cages for the new plants I got.  Geesh.  But I am finding more and more heirloom varieties in the garden centers which is great since that is what I start from seed.  I did buy an Early Girl, which is a hybrid, but I thought it would be nice to have some early tomatoes.  But, my cherry tomato plant is the clear winner in the tomato category so far.  Because of all my new purchases I had to add an addition to my main bed in back. 

So last week the girls and I dug a 4 x 8 extension.  Okay, it was mostly me, but the girls were in the general vicinity.  Nin was the Worm Captain.  Everytime a worm was uncovered she would pick it up, dangle it in her sister's face to illicit a scream and then run over and toss it in the compost pile.  Kk bless her heart, tried to help and accomplished more than her sister, but everytime we came across a worm she would scream and run for cover.  Geesh.  Girls.

See the right side of the pic, how there is no plank in the front? That is the addition!



We have already planted the 3 tomato plants, 2 of the peppers and 4 okra in there!

Volunteers! Some years, like last year, we have great volunteers in the garden. Last year a tomato popped up and produced all year long for us! It was in kind of a bad spot, a little too close to another tomato, but he did alright! This year, we have 2 cilantro volunteers and one in the back that is not yet identified. At first I was sure it was a canteloupe but now I am not so sure. Anyway, he is too close to the okra so I might have to find somewhere for him

What do you think? Canteloupe?



The girls have had fun playing in the fairy garden recently. Someone, or something, took all the sticks the girls colelcted and began poking them in the garden making structures....



The flowers are doing excellent!





snapdragons





We also put a fire pit in back where the girls built a fort. Hubby dug a hole, lined it with rocks and then stacked some sticks in it. The first night they made Smores! It was 90degrees and very windy, but they were determined!

Hubs even whittled down some sticks for the marshmallows!



Other gardening events!

peppers with onions at the top



zuchini (which always does really great in our garden)



Peppers, with mulch. Hubs raked out a bunch of leaves from the fence, ran over them with the lawn mower then dumped them in the garden. I still need more, but he said I had to rake the leaves. Yeah, that didn't happen...



A potato has sprouted in the compost bin.  It's doing really really great in there, but it had to be moved.  I planted it just as a experiment!



Look at this beauty!



Moon flower from a friend. She got some sprigs from a building downtown that was just pruning and throwing them away. She gave me a few to plant for the girls. They are supposed to bloom at night!



And finally, what is this? Is it a weed? I planted a bunch of hyssup seeds in the front garden and there are a bunch of these. I don't want to pull them in case they are my hyssup!