Growing more than vegetables.

i am so behind on this blog, you can expect to see a few older blogs come through while i play blog catch up. i actually have 5 or 6 half finished blogs saved in my drafts. So it's just a matter of me sitting down and adding words or pictures. The end of August was very busy for us. Lots of picking, freezing, canning and jam making. Sequoia started back at school, Kenan began a new work project outside the home (wow! what a transition to not have him here all the time), we are still working on house construction and my mother came and visited for several weeks. So although i continued to take pictures everyday, the blogging aspect was somewhat neglected.

Earlier this spring, i posted about our Kid's garden. You can find more ideas about planting a kids garden here.

Sequoia asked for his own garden this year, so we created a space that was about 5x5. i took him to the local garden nursery to pick out some seeds and flowers and gave him a few suggestions on where to plant, but otherwise let him do it himself.

The garden grew and produced extremely well. Here he is standing next to his sugar snaps peas as they began climbing the bamboo tee-pees.

First harvest, he picked enough green beans for dinner. He also picked a couple banana peppers, some chard, lettuce and broccoli. He was very excited, and even more excited to eat some, (not the peppers) of the vegetables that he grew himself.

This little garden produced two more meals worth of beans, at least a pound of sugar snaps, several small heads of broccoli, enough lettuce, cucumbers and yellow pear tomatoes for many salads, and lots of banana peppers. The only things that did not do well were the melons.

While mom was visiting, she helped Sequoia to pull the old plants and weeds, and get his garden ready for fall planting. He was pretty thrilled when we found some purple 'Sequoia' beans at the store, and has planted them in his fall garden along with spinach, lettuce and peas.

Letting kids have their own garden space is a great way to help connect them to nature, give them a deeper appreciation of the earth and where our food comes from, teaches responsibility and patience, and nothing can match the excitement and sense of pride a child has when he picks his first vegetable.