Chives and Cantaloupe!

I checked out the garden again today and it's looking amazing! I do have some bugs eating some of the basil, that dill is dead, and I'm going to have to replace the zuchinni plant with something else, but I'm super excited about everything growing!

I see a yellow flower getting ready to bloom on the tomato plant!

On the left is Phoebe's sunflower. She planted it a little bit away from the rest of them, but we'll let it grow :)

Gotta replace the zuchinni, but the tomato plant behind it is getting tall!

Sunflowers on the right (we really need to space them), tomato plant in top left, onions in middle left, bell pepper in bottom left

I have this as my desktop background right now, it is so awesome! Sunflowers!

My chives are growing more! I saw lots of little green seedlings sprouting up today!

Dead dill in back (I don't know what attacked it, but some sort of animal did), but if you look in front of that, there's a big chive seedling. That one is doing super well!

the whole raised garden, looking green!

It was a cantaloupe seed! Yesterday I thought I saw a little green leaf and it's sprouted up today!

The onions are getting really tall! And the cucumbers look awesome! We still haven't spaced those out yet either.

I wanted to make sure I got a shot of the bell pepper plants

Another cantaloupe seed, this is the one I knew was cantaloupe yesterday. Now it's growing big and tall.

I'm so excited that everything is growing so well! It's weird though, we planted a couple seeds where each cantaloupe is growing and only one of the 3 or 4 we planted in each spot is growing. Oh well, as long as one grows, that's whats good! I guess that's why you put a few seeds down to begin with.

Primary Busy Mom Game

So, I was very recently called to be the Primary Chorister for our ward. In case you're not familiar with what I'm talking about here's a quick explanation. I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and in our church we go to 3 different classes on Sundays. The first is Sacrament meeting, which is where we take the sacrament and listen to talks given by members of our ward. Then, we go to our Sunday school classes. People in our church (oh, a ward is the people you meet with at church and have all your classes with and stuff), have callings, which are basically jobs within the church. My calling is to teach music to the primary kids (ages 3-11). I teach for 20min in both jr. primary and sr. primary classes. The kids do performances throughout the year for Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day and a big performance in September of all the songs they learned throughout the year.

So, now that we're done with that little explanation, I want to tell you about a game I did recently with the kids. I just started my calling last Sunday (4/29) and I played this game last Sunday and yesterday to help the kids remember the Mothers' Day songs they're going to sing in Sacrament meeting next week! It worked really really well. The kids learned the songs pretty good and they thought the actions and the mom were all very silly.

We were practicing "I Often Go Walking" and the first verse of "The Dearest Names" both found in the Children's Songbook from our church. However this would work with any song you want to practice.

I called it "Busy Mom"

The first week I had colored a mom on posterboard ( I cut a big piece in half, I didn't need such a big piece and I can use the other half for something else later). She didn't look amazing and I knew I could do better, so I went home and went over her with construction paper.

I wanted her to look a little bit silly.

I made things that represent how busy mom is. You can make whatever you want. I used some shirt cardboard that I had saved for projects like this, paint, paper plates, all kinds of things that I just had on hand. I have a huge stash of craft stuff. 

I used blue tacky stuff to stick it up. 

                    

 Clock - Moms stay up all night with sick children, sing without blinking.
 Weight - Moms keep us in shape and healthy, sing while lifting invisible weights/jumping invisible rope/do jumping jacks, etc
 Book - Mom reads us stories, sing through a hand puppet
 Key - Moms drive us, sometimes in a hurry, sing fast while "driving a car"
 Ipod - Moms like good music, sing with your ears covered like headphones
 Heart - Moms pray for us, sing revrently with arms folded
 Apron- Moms cook for us, sing while jumping up and down like popping bacon
 Smile - Moms make us happy, sing while smiling the whole time
 Swimming mask - Moms take us swimming, sing with your nose plugged
 Music Note - Some moms play the piano, others don't, sing without the piano
 Pom-poms - Moms cheer us on, clap to the rhythm while singing
 Hammer - Moms can solve problems and fix anything, sing while patting your head and rubbing your belly

I put all the objects in a bag and used popsicle sticks to draw their names. If they were sitting reverently, they could come up and pick something out of the bag and put it on. Then we all sang the song the way that went with what they had picked. We did the same thing for both songs. At the end of Sr. Primary yesterday, we sang the song while plugging our noses, smiling the whole time and with a hand puppet. I saw some kids trying to not blink as well. It was fun and I think that the majority of the kids really liked it.

Garden Growing!

So, our garden is continuing to grow! This morning I went out to take a look and it's looking great! I also looked later on today and it's amazing how quickly plants grow!

The cantaloupe seeds are sprouting! I know one side is for sure, I think I saw some little leaves poking out on the other side of the garden where we planted cantaloupe. I imagine I'll know for sure tomorrow or the day after.

The sunflower seeds are growing sooo well! We'll have to take space some of them out already. We don't want so many to grow so close together. Maybe we can use the seedling we take out and put them in our front yard or somewhere else, so they don't got to waste!

The cucumbers are growing well also! We'll also need to space them soon. I hope I pick the right seedling to keep!

The onions are growing like crazy. We have no idea when to harvest them though. I guess we'll just harvest them a little after the community garden harvests theirs.

That tomato plant just keeps growing amazingly. The zucchini plant wasn't looking too awesome, and then I accidently broke the stem when I was showing Dan how it didn't look to awesome. So, I guess we'll replace that with something else. I have some coupons for some free herbs at the nursery near me, we'll probably use those there.

You may not be able to see it, but in the middle there's a little green leaf. I think that's cantaloupe.

You probably can't see these either. I have 2 little chives growing right now. I the whole seed packet in there. I figure you can never have too many chives growing? I guess I'll find out.

The Dill is dead. Something attacked it already. I have birds, squirrels and I have a dog. One of those uprooted it. We'll have to put one of those herbs I was talking about there. Or...maybe I'll just move the basil over. The basil is growing like crazy and it's already shadowing the oregano. And I want to move the oregano up anyways because its sunk down and I want it up higher in the pot. The only scary thing is that I have the chive seeds in there and I don't want to mess them up!

Everything but the Dill looking pretty.

Since we potted Phoebe's flower, it's been growing really really well! I thought maybe there was something wrong with it because it wasn't really doing much, but now it's more green and getting bigger. I think all it needed was a new home.

My pansies are driving me nutty. They're like weeds!

The garden bed today!

Garden Updates

Since I just started the blog, I wanted to also post the updates on the garden we started growing last Saturday. It's been raining A LOT, and everything looks like it's holding up really well!

5/2 - The onions all started growing. We planted them from bulbs that we got for free from a community garden that we've been helping in. They had extras and we were glad to use them! We also had learned how to plant them from planting them at the community garden.

5/2 - The herb container on the left. The dill is doing well. Whenever we went to plant it, it wasn't doing well. We had bought our plants at Lowes a week before planting them because that week they were on sale for $1.50. Unfortunately, the dill plant wasn't looking so good, I'm assuming because the soil was very dry when I had gotten it out the day before planting and it must need more sunlight than the other plants. Anyway, I watered it and put it in the sun and the next day it was looking better. After planting, it's still doing well. I had to cut off the leaves that had already grown on it because they were dead, but it's growing new ones very very well! The chives haven't grown it. Phoebe's flower plant is doing well. The strawberries also look good, no fruit yet.

5/4 - These are my crazy magic pansies that were suppose to die over the winter but didn't. In the middle is a rosemary plant. Whenever the pansies do die (maybe this winter?) I'll take them out and this pot will be just for the rosemary. It's perinnial and could grow really big after time, so it gets a pot all to itself. It smells amazing!

5/4 - Zuccini plant in the front looking okay...we'll see how it does. We got the seedling from that community garden. In the back is the tomato plant, it's growing really well. I'll have to start tying it to the stick thing soon. It's grown a few inches just in this past week!

5/4 - The two cucumber mounds. We also got the seeds for these from the community garden. We were so blessed that they had extras they weren't going to use. The plants just started sprouting today and they look amazing! They're growing very well. I'm going to have to figure out more ways to use cucumbers!

5/4 - The onions are doing very very well, and the bell pepper plants on the right are doing good too!

5/4 - The sunflowers started sprouting today too! I imagine they'll grow very fast because they could grow to be 7-12ft in only 75-90 days! We have a row of them in the back of the garden. They're the kind you can harvest, so they'll be beautiful and tasty too!

5/4 - How the garden is looking today. Everything is growing well and animals haven't been getting in them. I did see some bug chewing on the zuccini and the basil, but nothing too bad. Dan sprayed the yard for bugs a couple days ago (we have two huge trees in our yard and get a lot of weird bugs and moles), so hopefully it'll help keep pests down, but keep good bugs in.

Our Garden

 So, we've tried in the past to make a garden and failed miserably. The first year we lived here, we dug up a spot in our yard and our dog decided to dig everything up. Then, last year, I decided to try containers. We had a hanging tomato plant, which didn't hold together and fell apart. We also had a pot with lettuce seeds growing and a bell pepper plant. Well the squirrels went crazy over the lettuce seedlings and also while in the pot, bent over the bell pepper plant. So the most I've ever been able to grow is some basil and one bell pepper. I'm also just terrible at taking care of plants.

We know how much a garden would benefit us, it might save us money at some point (we'll find out), it'll be healthier for us, and we know that our lives will be blessed by following the council of Prophets and make a garden to grow our own food. So, this year we're trying again and we're going all out.

We've spent about $150, but we should be set for the rest of the year and we'll be ready for years to come as well. I already had the pots from last year with my failed container garden.

So, last Friday (4/27) Dan and I spent time putting together the garden bed. We got it from Home Depot, it was only $35 and it's a 4x4x7 cedar. No tools needed (except for some little decorative end pieces we haven't screwed in yet). We also bought these long stick things that we found hiding at Lowes. It was about $5 for 6 of them and they're maybe 6ft high.We put some nails on them in 3 places on each (top, bottom, middle) and Dan hammered them into the ground about 6 inches or more deep on the outside of our garden. Then we had bought 4ft high plastic netting (it was 25ft in length). We got this for about $20 from Lowes. It was easy, we were able to wrap it around all the sides to keep our dog out of the garden and she's hasn't gotten it it at all since then!

Then, on Saturday (4/28) we put the soil in (just some regular garden soil, it was $3.50 a bag and I think we got 13 bags, which was actually 4 too many, and we used it for the pots and the garden bed). Anyway, we planted everything in there. It was fun family time, even though we were tired from walking like 4 miles that morning (March of Dimes walk) and Dan was being rushed to go to work.

4/28 - Garden bed has everything planted in it

Phoebe watering her plant. The started growing a flower during a nursery class lesson a few weeks ago. She has hers in that painted pot there.

Another picture of the garden bed, everything planted.

We had tons of fun doing this. Here's what we've got growing:

Garden Bed: a row of sunflower seeds, a tomato plant, 2 bell pepper plant seedlings, 2 rows of yellow onions, 1 row of white onions, 1 row of red onions, 1 zuccini plant seedling, 2 cucumber plants from seeds, 2 cantaloupe plants from seeds

12in. pot: basil plant, oregano plant, dill plant, chive seeds
12in. pot: 2 strawberry plants
18in pot: pansies that didn't die from last fall (we had a very warm winter and they survived), with a rosemary plant growing in the middle of it