One day, my oldest son spent the night at his best buddy's house... in the morning, his mom offered him cereal for breakfast.... he asked her, "Are these ORGANIC Frosted Flakes???" He wanted to be sure he was eating healthy food. LOL.... (Sorry my friend, my kid has caught the bug). Yes, we even found an Organic knock-off of Frosted Flakes at HEB (read: inexpensive local grocery store). Yahoo! Kids are happy, I'm happy.... we'll work on sugar and gluten reduction later!
I decided we HAD to start an organic home garden this year. A friend of mine suggested a SFG. (Don't feel bad if you have no idea what this acronym means... I didn't either!) A Square Foot Garden is a raised bed gardening method developed by Mel Bartholomew and for someone who lives in my part of Texas.... where you hit rock about 1/2" deep, a raised bed garden sounded fantastic!
My hubby put his woodworking skills to work (he loves hand tools and looks for virtually any excuse to make a mortise and tenon joint.... I feel another blog coming on), and I had three SFGardens (two 4x2s and one 2x2). The boys helped plant them all, then we (not so) patiently watered and waited for good things to happen.
The first thing to grow was this plant.... our "Red Bell Pepper"..... yes, yes, I realize it's a cucumber plant. When I wrote down what the boys put in each section, I guess I wasn't paying attention! Gardening is full of surprises. I have to say these are the tiniest little pickle-sized cucumbers. I realize all big cucumbers must have been small cucumbers at one time, and since this is all part of the experiment, I'm letting them grow to see what they will become (but should they be this bumpy??)
Here's another one I'm particularly excited about... the zucchini. We don't get a ton of rain here in Austin, but the last few weeks, we've gotten a bunch and this baby took off! It is huge and has lots of flowers and this one baby zucchini. I can't wait to grill it up... yum yum!
And, who knows what this is??? I bought an organic sweet potato at the store and sprouted it in a jar before planting it.... I thought I didn't wait long enough, but apparently potatoes are forgiving because she still grew. I looked up when you are supposed to dig these up, and it seems we have several weeks to go, but I'll be waiting impatiently! (theme!)
Oh and did you see that great vine growing on the trellis above the kids' heads in the first shot? Those beautiful green peas??? Well, this is what not watering, or is it watering too much(?) does to my garden.... whoops!
That's ok, time to find more seeds and try something new. What grows in June/July/August in Texas? I will let you know!
~Margo
Cool, Margo! When I was growing up, my parents always had a vegetable garden in the works. We also had about a dozen different fruit trees/bushes, so we definitely grew up on fresh fruits and veggies. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but I sure do, now. Sadly, I could kill a silk plant, but that makes me all the more impressed by your efforts!
ReplyDelete