Save Those Yogurt Cups

Yogurt cup greenhouses.

Yogurt cups of any sort make pretty good seed starting pots. They're about the right size, they're free, and you get bonus points for reusing something that would have been thrown away.

YoCrunch cups are even better for starting seeds though. The raised, clear lids make a great little greenhouse.    The beans we planted in these came up in record time.

What are some things around the house that you've found a good second use for?

Hurry Up and Grow

We finally got the garden planted, in between all the crazy storms in the last week or so.

This time of year it always looks sort of underwhelming, but in a month or so, things should be really taking off. I can't wait for fresh okra and squash.

Did you plant a garden this year? What are you most looking forward eating this summer?

The First Garden Harvest of 2011 & a Link Round Up

A lonely green bean.

It's almost enough to feed a mouse, as they long as they weren't very hungry.

We actually do have some more green beans that will be ready shortly, a few tiny cucumbers, and a few green tomatoes in the works. The kids like investigating the plants every day or so, to see how things are coming along. V is very much interested in helping mommy plant and water everything. L is considerably less interested, since dirt and mud are generally offensive to his sensory sensitivites. (He did however seem mildly interested when I suggested that I might pay him to help me pull weeds out of the garden this year. Whatever works, right?) 

We're getting a really late start this year, but my husband actually finished tilling the big plot for the garden this year, and hopefully I'll have some pictures to show of it sometime next week.

In the meantime, here are a few gardening links for you and your family:

The Classroom Victory Garden Project, courtesy of the National WWII Museum of New Orleans: History, gardening info, lesson plans, recipes, and more.

Gardening Preschool Pack, from 1+1+1=1

A round up of Montessori themed materials for a gardening unit, as compiled by Living Montessori Now

A huge collection of Montessori themed gardening links from Montessori 21st Century

A crafty garden round up with lots of fun ideas on Craft:

Have any other favorite gardening links? (Yours or anyone else's?) Feel free to link 'em up in the comments.

Gardening 2011

Where have the last few months gone? We had big plans to plant another large garden this year, but with all of the stuff going on here in the background here lately, we haven't made much progress.

I've resigned myself to a more small scale effort this year. A few plants here and there in the flower beds, and some container gardening will probably have to do.

So far I've got a few green bean planted in the flower bed, along with a cucumber plant and some flowers.

Beans, and uh, some grass I need to pull.

We've got a tomato plant in a pot which already has a tomato in it. Last year we planted about a dozen tomato plants in the garden, and and harvested exactly zero tomatoes, so we're already ahead in that department. (No idea what happened last year, huge plants, with no tomatoes.)

Tomato plant and Marigolds.

I've got peppers, more beans, cucumbers, and squash seedlings ready to be planted as soon as I get a chance.

Seedlings to transplant.

I've also got the obligatory Petunias everywhere. My mom always had them. Now I do too.

What are you planting this year?

Our favorite things are green right now...

We've been spending a good bit of time outside lately, while the weather is still nice. In a month or so, it's going to be HOT here in Texas. Here's a tour of some of our favorite things at the moment.





The little pear tree we planted last year already has teeny little pears on it. L's been monitoring them regularly, to watch their progress, although he doesn't eat pears.







Although I've tried to get L interested in gardening with me, for the most part, he's not too interested. This little succulant garden is the exception, though. He says it's his.







The little swimming-pool-turned-herb-garden is doing well, and it's about the only thing not over run with weeds.







We're at the watch and wait (and weed,) phase with the vegetable garden. Everything is planted. The only thing L is excited about is the okra, which is one of the few vegetables he'll eat. I'm excited about the prospect of home made salsa, like mom used to make.







Incidentally, this is the view from my favorite part of the yard: inside the hammock.

WFMW: Recycle Last Year's Kiddie Pool

Well, you can tell it's still a work in progress, but here's how we are reusing last year's kiddie pool. I had my husband drill some holes in the bottom, before we filled it with soil and fertilizer. This is our version of a raised herb garden. No need to till, and minimum weeding. Easy, right?

My kids are helping us (a little,) in the vegetable garden located elsewhere in the yard, but if they were a bit older, I think it would be fun to put them in charge of their own little garden. This would be just the right size.

For more Worked For Me Wednesday posts, check out http://www.wearethatfamily.com/.

While you're here, don't forget to enter my Boca Beth bilingual learning giveaway, and my handmade baby blanket and hat giveaway. Both of them are ending on Thursday. You like free stuff, right? :)

Some like it hot...

Apparently jalapeno plants like the heat. We've had an unbelievably hot summer, and most of my plants look pretty pitiful. On the other hand, we're having a bumper crop of peppers. More than I know what to do with, and I love peppers...Any ideas?

Works in progress

I've been a little scarce lately, and I thought I'd check in with a few pictures of what I've been up to. (FYI, that's shaving cream on the chairs in the pictures, not bird poo. We let L play with shaving cream outside a while back, but now I'm realizing the spots it left on the furniture are a little gross looking...)

We've been working a lot in our new little garden. It's mainly full of different kinds of peppers. I love peppers.

I've also been crocheting a good bit, mainly starting new projects before I've finished the old ones.

Here's the begining of a pair of fingerless gloves:

Some baby hats for church:

The First row of the Sweet Pea Shawl:

And a random vase I made from cotton yarn and an old vanilla bottle. ( I would have shown it with flowers if I had any.)

Several people have left sweet and helpful comments about our concerns regarding L, and I appreciate them. Thank you. We're filling out forms to send to the eval center, and in the meantime, I'm reading a lot.

Cross one thing off the list.

I've been wanting to do some work around the yard, but I keep putting on my one of these days list.

One of these days
when he kids are a little older,
when i have more time and energy,
when I decide I like doing hard work in the blistering Texas heat.

Today I decided to finally start digging up a patch of the yard that I've been wanting to turn into a flower bed.



The kids played while I worked.





We met a few new friends along the way.





After about an hour of hard work, the patch looked like this:



I'm thinking I'll need another day or two to finish digging everything up, and I'll be ready to plant some stuff.

After I was finished for the day, I let the kiddos play in the water for a bit, and then it was time to go in and take a bath.





I really have to start working on my one of these days list more often.

Behold the bounty of today's harvest

The strawberry plant I planted several months ago is doing well. The only problem is that it produces one teeny strawberry at a time.

C and I split this one tonight...I took the bigger half.

Happy Earth Week, everyone.

We spent yesterday afternoon outside. In honor of Earth Week, we decorated and filled a milk carton bird feeder for the back yard.
We also planted some rosemary and wildflower seeds in a couple of pots. I have a brown thumb, and usually kill everything, but this year I'm trying to do better. We have a little container garden on the front porch, and so far it's doing pretty well. Anyway, after that, I raked a little patch in the yard to plant some wildflower seeds in. The ground was pretty hard, so I ended up having to loosen up the soil with a trowel. Once we got down on the ground, we found TONS of earthworms, much to L's delight. We held some of them, and looked at them, and discussed what they did for the soil, and how cool it was that God made worms to help keep the soil healthy for the plants. L had fun watering the seeds, since mud is one of his favorite things.
After the planting was done, he played in the mud for a while.


We're sure enjoying the nice weather here. It won't be long before its too hot to play outside most of the day.