How Does Your Garden Grow?

The Elders Quorum at our church did a service project this morning and delivered 4 yards of compost to our house today for our garden.

That meant we were finally able to do our early outdoor planting! We spent the afternoon trying to figure out where to plant everything (probably something we should have done sooner!), planting the seeds with the kids' help, and watering. (General Conference was on this afternoon, so we taped that and will watch it later.)

BEFORE. After all the compost was laid, but before planting. Yes, that red, white & blue ribbon in the picture is from Independence Day! We do a big 4th of July grilling day, so I put up outside decorations. I always forget to take them down. Anyhow, the left half of the composted area has a layer of cardboard underneath. The cardboard helps retain moisture, prevent weeds, and the good bugs really seem to like it. The right side does not have any cardboard. The grass over there was mostly gone for the most part, since this area is where our kids' play equipment had been and it was covered with a layer of mulch, but we will have to weed more often since there is no cardboard. Some plants don't do so well with the cardboard, one of the reasons why it's not there.

AFTER. We planted on the side that did not have any cardboard. The list: green leaf & bibb lettuce, spring mix lettuce, spinach, cabbage, carrots, celery, leeks, onions (yellow, red and green), turnips, radishes, red leaf lettuce (transplants due to the magic of Lowe's since mine died), sugar snap peas (from seed & transplants, my own this time) . Here's some of the red leaf lettuce transplants. I can taste the upcoming salad already!

I have some broccoli, spinach, and a couple other items indoors that I can transplant in a week or two. Waiting on the 2nd set of leaves to develop. The spinach takes a long time to bolt (emerge from the seed) and the broccoli, that I thought had died, actually came back to life. Woohoo! After doing the outdoor planting, I also planted some more seeds indoors for transplanting later on after the last frost, which thankfully should be in a couple weeks. They included zucchini & summer squash, green bell pepper, broccoli, cauliflower (a breed that is actually yellowish/green instead of the traditional white), and Chinese cabbage.

Daniel helped Joshua plant some of the red leaf lettuce transplants, the blueberry, raspberry, and blackberry bushes, as well as the strawberry plants we had bought (which already have some large strawberries!!!).

Raelee really enjoyed planting her seeds. She was such a great helper!