I love the ‘idea’ of having a vegetable garden, but Nick and I don’t have a good track record for ‘maintaining’ said garden each year. We took last summer off because we had an itty bitty baby and knew that we won’t be able to commit to keeping up with weeding and such… but this year? WE’RE GOING FOR IT again.
Nick and I are both pretty committed to maintaining it this year. And since I’m putting this out there, I expect you all to keep us accountable as well! I vow to not have a jungle of weeds this time around. Of course we also have our helpful and ambitious tiny humans to do the dirty work.
Nick loves teaching the girls about ALL.THE.THINGS. And he knows a lot of things, so they’re in for a lifetime filled with information whether they like it or not.
We planted carrots, onions, garlic, tomatoes, bell peppers, peas, broccoli, lettuce and spinach! I’m sure I’m forgetting something? Oh! A little container garden with cilantro, oregano and basil! What are you guys planting this year? Do you struggle to upkeep your garden like us? It’s most embarrassing because we love to entertain, and people come over and see our highly neglected and overgrown garden… but not this year!
It’s been a week now since we sowed our seeds, and each evening we walk around our acreage and always stop to inspect the garden to see if there are any sprouts. Yesterday, the sun was in such a place that it cast our shadows onto the garden while we were observing our garden, and I snapped this highly artsy photo of our family.
I’m done talking about gardening now, but I took some cute pics of the girls at the park that I wanted to share. The girls still love to give me dandelions, and it still makes my heart swell every time! I wrote a post a couple years ago about why it’s so special to me.
My friend and her son met us at the park, and the 3 kids just sat and picked dandelions. Precious.
Meanwhile, Cypress actually took advantage of the playground. She’s a swinging enthusiast.
She’s getting so big, I can hardly stand it. What happened to my baby?
We’re drinking up spring and everything that goes along with it. Nick is still in the honeymoon phase of mowing… where he actually looks forward to it and feels manly. That won’t last long though with 5 acres to mow. Also… speaking of dandelions, does anyone know of any natural solutions to getting rid of them without chemicals? Nick wants to spray because the broad-leaves are hard on the mower, but I won’t let him because I don’t want my precious children frolicking about in icky chemical-infested grass. Send help.
~Bethany
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It doesn’t work with kids too young, but my mom used to pay me to dig the dandelions up. 5 cents a plant and 10 cents a root. She said it kept me busy for a while too. Lol
With that much land, you should do squashes. Pumpkins, acorn, and butternut squash are really easy to maintain, they just need room and water. My friend plants them and just lets the vines go around the grass.
We’re planting beans, onions, peas, squash, cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes (SIX KINDS!), Carrots, Peppers, Zucchini, cauliflower and broccoli. We might have got in a little over our heads?
I’ve heard vinegar will kill them. Not sure how the grass will fare though.
Natural solution: Dig ’em up. They’re actually really good for the bees, though, because they’re some of the earliest flowers to bloom. And said bees help your garden later. So hand the girls some spades and get digging, all the way down including the tap root!
I can’t help you with the Dandelion dilemma, but my sweet mama eventually spaced her garden rows far enough apart to get a tiller in between. That way we could just till the weeds under when we inevitably lost the maintenance battle. 🙂