Well January flew by; it went so fast I feel like yesterday was Christmas Eve and here we are in the second week of February. What happened in between is a blurrrrr. As usual I'm ready to start digging in the garden, and so is Lily! Daily she's been asking to go outside and play and she wants her garden tools. Unfortunately it's still damp and chilly and her little fingers get frozen faster than mine. We make a good pair.
While the winter chill hangs around we stay warm inside and dream about our garden. I was able to interest her in the seed catalogues that have been arriving. On Saturday mornings we sit on the bench with our breakfast and page through them. She tries to name each vegetable or fruit, she gets extremely proud of herself, and then we talk about whether or not we want to plant each one. As of now she has us planting everything in the catalogue.
In reality here's what we'll probably plant this year: broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, kale, leeks, lettuce - lots of lettuce - spinach, onions, scallions, snap peas, radishes, zucchini, patty pan, lemon thyme, parsley, mint, basil and lots of strawberries. I want to do more, but my gardening eyes are always living in a different reality than I am. Our blueberry plants are looking good. And after growing the GORGEOUS Black Swan Poppies from seed last year, I'm excited to add some new flowers to the yard, but I have no idea which ones just yet.
Some of the seeds I'll buy; I'll use a few from last year, (the ones that still germinate like my sugar snap peas - yippee!) and a friend just gave me a bunch of heirloom seeds to add to our collection. Oh I can't wait to get started. Hopefully Lily and I will start seeds this weekend, but in the meantime we'll put some flowers in our hair and keep dreaming with our catalogues and our gardening books. If you're interested in some great gardening books for your kids, you can check out my article at
Suite101.com. Happy Gardening!
Lily loves the worms, the worms and the water. Not much has changed from last year in that respect. It seems she will play for eons as long as dirt, worms, and water are involved. The poor worms. She's been making "homes" for them. Which is to say, she takes one of the little expanded peat pellets, finds some worms, (and we have tons) and squishes them into the pellet. She then mashes more good dirt in on top of them and says, "Okay here's your home, wormies." Sometimes we are actually in the garden working or playing side by side in precious quiet for a few moments that I don't quite realize what she's done until after she's done it. Like I said, poor worms. Although she did make hot chocolate for them out of dirt and water, and I can bet these are the first worms in the history of the world that have ever had such a delicious treat as Lily's compost hot chocolate, and all in the comfort of their new home! 
Not much actual gardening going on around here as it’s been raining FOREVER. We planted some of our pea starts out, as well as some lettuce, and kale starts and I think I actually shocked them all to death. Yup, once again I started too early, because I am missing an important gene called PATIENCE. Usually Mother Nature looks out for me and somehow my starts make it, but this year, not so much.
The Peas might decide to survive although right now they’re looking pretty pissed off at me, but the lettuce and kale starts, all dead. It is weird and unsettling to see once beautiful, little, bright green seedlings that you and your child nurtured, flopped over, dried up and shriveled. Not fun. Doesn't make for good photography either. Good thing I have more seeds! And good thing the co-op has gorgeous looking starts. So for now we’ll play with the worms and try, try, try to be gentler with our next batch of starts.
Planting Pea Sprouts
Our Newest Sprout, Jasper Kincaid Ohlin
New Garden Gloves from Uncle Kevin 
Lily and Greg Plant in the Grow Boxes
My Beautiful Darlin'
Raised Beds in Front, thanks to Transition Port Gardner Work Party!!
Gifts from Dean and Jennie
Lily plays in the Thanksgiving snow and our 2010 garden ends.
Lily and I, haven't done that much to the fall garden. We planted the plants, watered them a bit and pretty much left it at that. Usually by the time fall comes around I'm ready to be done with the garden until the spring. This year wasn't much different except that we had these new, beautiful raised beds and lots of cold-weather tolerant sprouts to plant. So, even though my interests had turned elsewhere, I couldn't not plant them.
Lily must take after me because she lost all interest in the garden about mid-September. She's been a little hibernator, wanting to stay inside and play inside games. Pretty much the only way I could persuade her to play outside was if there were swings involved. Until yesterday. Yesterday we got our first snowfall. Yesterday and today big fat flakes fell and covered the grass and sidewalks and raised beds. Turns out Lily thinks snow and gardening go perfectly well together.
If I had taken the time to cover the plants, they might have made it through this snow and f-f-f-freezing temps, but I didn't, so the gardening for this year really does come to an end. But losing the plants was worth it to play with Lily in the snow.
I've been trying to avoid spraying anything on these pests to kill them. So, I've been in the garden every day trying to hand pick the cabbage lopers off the plants hoping they will survive. I thought I had it under control when last night I realized they also like my beautiful lettuce plants. The ones on the lettuce were fat and extremely well-fed. AND, what's worse, as fast as they eat, they POOP, leaving thier poop behind on what's left of the plant they just decimated. Gross! Gross! And Gross! (You can see the black poop to the right of the lettuce in the above picture.) I'm on the verge of spraying something organic...The good news is, that Lily is potty trained except for overnights, YEAH!!! 
Last year, (maybe because we had such gorgeous weather,) Lily was in tears most days when it was time to come in from the garden. This year she didn't even want to go outside half the time. And when she did, gardening "tasks" weren't always on her to-do list. This alone would be no big deal, but also unlike last year, she's way more demanding of my every-minute attention.
Independent play in the garden definitely wasn't her thing this year. If she was digging for wormies, then I had to be sitting in the dirt right next to her digging for wormies too. If she was playing trucks and cars in the dirt, then I had to be bent over playing trucks and cars in the dirt too. And not just playing trucks and cars, but inventing and creating the activities for the trucks and cars. And while playing the same cars and trucks or baby doll games over and over and over again can kill more brain cells than drugs, we've had some silly moments and lots of fun, like chasing Dizzy, watching our sunflowers grow and discovering dragonflies. And hopefully it's not over just yet!