Garden 2013

Jacob built raised beds for our garden this year.  He did a ton of research beforehand and I think they turned out great.

The beds have greatly reduced the amount of weeding and everything looks a bit more organized.  I can't complain about that!

Here's Jack collecting some radishes from the garden.  He doesn't love the taste of the radishes, but loves to pick them and takes a taste every time!  

First crop of the season

Today we picked strawberries for the first time this season.  We had about 10 ripe berries and Jack ate quite a few of those before we could get them inside to wash them off.  I really didn't mind that he was eating the dirty fruit, but I didn't enjoy that he popped most of them in his mouth without allowing us to take off the stems first.  Yup, he ate the whole strawberry:  dirt, berry, stem, and all.

Beautification Award

Allow me to brag on my husband for a second:  We were given the College Hill Gardeners Beautification Award! 

 I can only take minimal credit for watering and weeding occasionally.  Jacob is really the reason were given this honor.  Last year he designed and built a beautiful rock wall in our front yard.   He filled that bed with flowers, bushes, trees, and vines to make it look wonderful.  He also replaced our sidewalk (thank you Ryan and Dad for your help on that one) and maintains a beautiful lawn.  

Congratulations Jacob!  

My mom insisted that I take a picture of Jack by the sign since he is, "The most beautiful thing you have done to your house!"  Not to take away from all of Jacob's hard work, but I'd have to agree!  

Jack is 7 months!

We have a happy, babbling, and mobile 7 month old in our house now!  Jack reached two big milestones this month:  rolling over from his back to his belly and sitting up on his own.  He's enjoying his new independence and takes full advantage of his mobility.  We should probably be thinking about baby-proofing the house.  For now we could start by dusting, vacuuming, and cleaning the carpet.  I guess our days of keeping him contained on his clean quilts and play mats are over!

Rolling from the red truck to the hardwood

Proudly smiling at the crowd of people watching him sit

One perk of sitting independently:  Splash Park!

Woodland Mound with his buddies

Jack loves to play peek-a-boo now and gives big belly laughs when you really surprise him.  Covering your eyes and saying peek-a-boo gets a smile, but jumping out from behind the couch wins you big laughs.  We've been able to capture some of his laughs on camera, and if I could figure out how to take the videos off of our camera, I would share.  

Jack can now drink  from a straw which was much easier for him than the sippy cup.

A cool drink on a really hot day

Selfishly, I love that Jack can sit on his own.  He is now my helper in both the garden and in the kitchen.

Jack helped me harvest these strawberries.  Sadly, he didn't get to enjoy them.

We put him to work young around here:  Pureeing  his own mangos
I feel like he's saying, "I've got this, Mom."

With all of this heat and humidity we thought that this was the perfect month for his Graeter's onesie from our cousins Jim, Sue, Jimmy, and Emma Ernst. 

Seven month smile

The spoon is great... now where's the ice cream?

The beginnings of spring

We started our vegetable seeds last month and have been watching them grow quickly.  There is a delicate balance of water, light, and heat needed to get them to grow the right way.  We learned this last year when we watered and heated too much and grew leggy, weak plants.  They were fine inside but didn't handle the transfer to the outdoors as well as we had hoped.   

This is the first year that we have started our tomato and pepper plants inside.  We normally purchase them as seedlings from the greenhouse.  It looks like our vegetables are growing strong by developing the leaves and roots they need to be able to grow and survive outdoors.  

The mess in our sun room is starting to drive me crazy, but I'm hoping it will be made worthwhile when we cut into our first tomato this summer!

Heat mat and sun lamp

Tomatoes and peppers sprouting

Tomatoes and peppers at about two weeks of growth

Jacob planted our flowers on Monday.  It is amazing to me that some have already sprouted and grown already.  I can't wait to have fresh cut flowers in our house again.  It is such a treat to be able to walk into your own backyard to cut flowers whenever you feel like it!  Hopefully we'll have strong plants and an abundance and variety of flowers to cut this year.

Flowers sprouting - day 3

Tomatoes - nearly one month

Research

This week our seed packets arrived for our summer gardens. We have had fun dreaming about the warmer weather and making plans for all of our flowers and vegetables.
Jack has been doing a bit of research on his own. He is learning about Growing Vegetable Soup. We are planting most of the vegetables that are written about in this great book by Lois Ehlert. We have visions of Jack playing on a blanket in the backyard while we toil in the garden this summer. Hopefully in 2012 he will be interested in helping us dig, plant, water, harvest and cook our vegetables. Until then, he is just like his daddy. He is planning, researching, and learning all he can before we take on this project.

In the past we have procrastinated and purchased seeds at the last minute at Home Depot. This year we ordered everything we wanted as soon as the seed catalogs arrived last month. We are hoping that the extra planning helps us to have a fruitful harvest this summer. I am pretty sure that I will be more excited to get out there every day this year since I won't have a big belly in my way!
For those who are interested, these are the seeds that we ordered:

Vegetable garden: Tomato, yellow squash, zucchini, red pepper, green pepper, pickling cucumber, carrot, peas, parsnips, Asian greens (toy choi + baby pakchoi) green bean, and yellow bush bean.

Cutting garden: Echinacea, sunflower, snapdragon(2varieties), salvia, zinnias(2 varieties), lavatera, larkspur, cosmos, coneflower, and agastache.

I can't wait to see how it all turns out. Oh, and Pinetree Garden Seeds accidentally sent us corn seeds too.  If we can find the space we are going to plant it.  It could be kind of fun!

I'll let you know how the garden grows. And I'm sure we will be posting pictures of Jack eating the vegetables!