Saturday, May 12, 2012

Growing Things That Aren't My Kids

I do not have a Green Thumb.  I have the opposite of that, whatever it is called.  Brown Big Toe?  Yet my kids LOVE flowers and plants and every Spring they beg to plant flowers.

One of the things Rob and I love the most about the home we live in is the low-maintenance yard.  You know what doesn't come with low-maintenance yards?  Garden space.  Truthfully, I'm okay with that.  I am A-OK with planting things once a year in some pots, watching them struggle through the summer, then saying good-bye to them in the Fall.  It works for me.

Anywhoodle, to appease, I mean, meet the educational needs of my kids, I agreed to get a germinating box and some seeds so we could start growing our own flowers and vegetables.  I let them pick out the seeds we would use.  They chose Johnny Jump Ups, Violas, Zucchini and Green Beans.  

Here my children show off our high-end gardening tools, also known as butter knives.

After just a few weeks of diligent watering and attentive care, here is what we've grown:

Aren't these the most impressive zucchini you've ever seen?

Yeah, I'm totally lying.  I just bought these potted plants the same day I bought the seeds (yesterday) and was planning to spend the day re-potting them in our hanging baskets for the front porch.  But it's a little overcast and cold today so we decided to wait.  

It's probably for the best, as I'm sure as soon as I try to re-pot these flowers, they will suffer a long, agonizing descent into death.  I'm not able to give my kids the year-long garden and flowers they want, but they certainly get a great education into the Life Cycle of Plants.

3 comments:

  1. We lived in apartments for 7 years and everything I grew was in pots--we all enjoyed it. My kids especially liked growing things they could eat--we found that strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and cherry tomatoes all did well in large pots. I think peas work as well. Lots of fun!

    --Sarah (came across your profile on WTM)

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  2. Thanks, Sarah, that's encouraging. I keep telling myself that THIS will be the year I successfully grow something and will manage to keep it alive. I always hear kids are more likely to eat veggies they grow themselves, but at the rate we're going, my kids would have to learn to start eating pansies, as that's all I can (barely) maintain...

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    Replies
    1. Try raspberries! They're easy to keep alive and will reproduce themselves and come back year after year. And kids love just picking and eating them.

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