Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Growing Growing Growing

I haven't had a chance to write in a while because we have been immersed heavily in the process of growing.  Typically I would just be talking about our garden but tonight I have garden news as well as kid thoughts.  Both of these center around growth.  

To start off, lets chat kids.  This past weekend centered around a milestone for my daughter.  She celebrated her fifth birthday.  Birthday number 5 is a very special one I am rediscovering.  As of this birthday, she enters the school-age population and is fully registered to start kindergarten in the fall.  I set up a kindergarten academic screening for her and took her to get her kindergarten shots.  She bravely accepted that she needed shots and only cried when 1.5" needle number 4 was thrust into her thigh.  Those are Mommy moments I wish I could erase but simply can't.  She passed her vision test with amazing success and hears us perfectly despite choosing to ignore us most of the time.  She was also very instrumental in planning her party.  The only requirements for her party were that it be a princess theme (going on year 3 of that theme) and that my sister/her aunt be present.  My sister is her absolute favorite person so luckily she made the trip.  As we held the party, I watched her play with the other young guests and enjoy being a kid.  She is a baby no longer and it is strange to see her entering a new phase in life.  I know that she will take on this phase with enthusiasm but I now realize that time is on the run way, ready to take flight.
Here she is with our traditional on-the-real-birthday cake.  Her party was two days later.
On another growing front, our garden is doing wonderful and terrible all at the same time.  To start off, the wonderful part is that everything we planted in the higher planters is doing great.  The pumpkins are growing, the lettuce and peas are getting taller, and the watermelons are coming in.
Mesclun Lettuce
The lettuce was a plant I was very worried about.  We have fairly hot summers here with many days reaching over 100 degrees F.  So far, we have  had two days that have reached temperatures over 90 degrees F but I am trying to give them lots of water to help protect them.  Also, they are shaded for a good portion of the hottest part of the day so they are still doing great.  Realistically, lettuce in our area really does better planted in the fall but we're still going to try for a decent summer crop.  Just for reference, we are zone 8 for planting.
Peas are getting taller too!!
A little over two weeks ago I put in watermelon seeds and I am thrilled to say that I have 17 watermelon seedlings in my planter.  I know I will have to thin these but it is so exciting to see something I planted from seed is pushing its way up to the sunshine.  Right next to the watermelons are the pumpkins and  I now have 9 pumpkin seedlings.  I am thinking I will thin those out to 3 plants so I don't wind up with a hundred pumpkins.  Again, grown from seed so I consider this garden to already be a great success.

Part of my watermelon seedlings - how cute are they?
I did mention a terrible part to my garden's development.  For some reason, my dogs have decided that the most easterly end of my low, large area planter must be constantly molested.  Almost every day I go out to water and discover they have dug out more dirt and destroyed or almost destroyed a plant or two.  So far, they have eliminated my basil plant, a row of lettuce, 3 marigolds, and several of the potatoes I had in the ground.  Just tonight I had to shovel about ten shovel-loads of dirt off my cayenne peppers, dill plant, and pickling cucumbers to save them from being buried alive.  Geoffrey has a plan to lay some extra fencing over the garden to stop them from digging.  We'll see how this works.  Hopefully I can keep writing about the growing plants and not murdered plants.  
Garden death - they even dug out my sun dial.





2 comments:

  1. So sorry about your garden deaths and the molestations which lead to them. The wire mesh around your ground plants should help. It sounds like you and Geoff are good farmers and good plant parents.

    It is just amazing that Libby could be five years old already. It seems so soon since she was three and I was last in California. I would love to visit again sometime to see Libby and Andrew along with you and Geoffrey. I would like to meet Andrew before he is 18 years old and in college LOL.

    The advancements in technology have rather gotten ahead of me, I'm afraid. I love Facebook and my PC. However, I still miss hearing the intonations and expressions in your voices. I would be excited to find out what Libby sounds like at this age, for instance. It's pretty weird to think that we humans may soon communicate only through our computers and text messages. Is this part of being over sixty? Or is it progress?

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  2. I love how 5-year-olds play together, when they never did before! It's adorable. Also, your garden will be wonderful! Move the basil to higher ground, though...there's nothing like fresh basil, so it mustn't be destroyed!

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