Adventures in the Garden

I'm carving out a few minutes to finally write about something fun our family has started: our own garden!

Since these houses are built on an old landfill, we're not allowed to plant anything that we'd eat. I'd heard about Square-foot Gardening a while back and finally bought the book. I've heard from MANY friends that they've had great success with this method of gardening, so I have high hopes!

This is the first garden I've attempted. We've already had a few adventures. Probably the most impressive was when I turned out the backyard hose and flooded the other 1/2 of our duplex, which caused most of our bottom floor to flood. The hose bib had cracked during the winter, so the pipes were broken. Maintenance came and sucked up most of the water. They left us with an enormous, noisy fan for a few days after that.

The big guy let our a yelp when the elusive mouse scurried near him- we've been trying to catch that little beast for months.

our front hallway- good thing there was a heap of dirty blankets to stop the water from spreading too fast!

When they moved the fridge we were reunited with most of our alphabet magnets!

Luckily, nothing was ruined and the kids were happy to eat lunch at Burger King that day.

Tonight we mixed up the soil according to the instructions in the manual. The kids had a blast mixing and shoveling- and they got thoroughly filthy! Good times!

We've attached a sheet of plywood to create a bottom so that there's no contact with the existing soil. It works out especially well since we're putting the garden plots on the sloping front yard.

When we were done, Fred showered them off and then we enjoyed a yummy dinner of spaghetti (sauce enhanced by my mostly-Italian neighbor), and homemade wheat rolls.

I love it when I feel like a good mom. Now if only I could get someone to do the dishes....