Mother's Day and Garden

Mother's Day was last weekend, but I am just now getting to post about it!  I feel more blessed than I can describe to be called "Mommy" by these three kiddos.   I love my life, I love these kids, and I am BEYOND blessed :).

They made me the sweetest cards...

For Mother's Day this year, Paul surprised me and said he was going to build me a raised bed garden!!!!  This is something I have wanted for a while as it provides more harvest and less weeding.  I am SO excited!! While I took a nice relaxing shower after a long run, the kids and Daddy went to go get the supplies.  He and the girls started working on it while Colton and I went to a birthday party for Colton's friend. Summer took some pictures...

 It turned out amazing!!! 

It is 10 ft by 5 ft

He did an especially great job with the top edge!

A garden was such a fun Mother's Day gift for many reasons.  First, it was such a thoughtful gift because he knows how much I love being outside and gardening.  Secondly, he is so busy, yet took the time to make it for me!  Third, gardening is something I LOVE doing WITH the kids.  They love helping me plant, water, watch things grow, and picking the harvest.  This week the kids and I got our garden all set up, and I have so many wonderful memories of doing it that I don't want to forget:

First, with Colton:
The first task was filling the garden with good healthy dirt/compost/etc.  My strong hubby bought and transported all the bags to our garden.  Last week was very rainy and cold, so while Grandma K was here on Thursday, I decided to run out and till/remove the grass under the garden, spread newspapers, and fill the garden with dirt. Because it was drizzly and cold (40's), I figured I would do it alone, however Colton repeatedly said how much he wanted to come out and help me.  It was seriously one of my favorite times with my little guy.  He helped shovel up the grass and put it in the wheelbarrow, raked the dirt, helped spread out the newspapers and keep them from blowing away, and helped spread the new dirt as we poured it in from the bags.  We looked for worms, laughed about spreading "cow poop" (yes some of the bags had manure in them!), and chatted the whole time.  I love getting one-on-one time with him and he was so cute working hard and getting all dirty ;).  At age 3, I can definitely say that he has moved from needing total complete guidance, to being a person I love hanging out with.  I love my buddy.

The following day was a bit sunnier and warmer, so the kids and I got our plants.  I chose most of them but let them each pick out one packet of seeds - Colton picked carrots and Summer picked daisies.

I am trying square foot gardening this year, which is a relatively new trend in gardening.  Instead of making paths between the rows of vegetables to pick them (which creates more weeding), the garden is created so that all plants can be reached from the outside so that you never need to step on any part of the garden and can completely fill the garden with plants (less weeding).  Furthermore, it is not necessary to put space between rows (more wedding), but rather there is a certain number of each type of veggie you can plant in one square foot.  Usually one large plant (like a tomato), 4 medium plants (like strawberries), 8-9 small plants (beans, peas), and 12 tiny plants that will be thinned as they grow (carrots).  Alternating the squares between large and small plants allows each plant to have the nutrients it needs, while also maximizing harvest in a small space.

Here is a pic of the garden all filled with dirt and squared off for planting.  I just hammered nails around the outside every foot and strung twine across to make the grid.

The dirt was really easy to dig holes in and the kids loved helping.

We planted our tomatos.  peppers. and bush cucumber (doesn't spread as much as regular cucumber) from plants, and did our sugar snap peas, beans, carrots, lettuce, cilantro from seeds. Much of our garden will be filled with 3 varieties of strawberries which I ordered from a strawberry farm out east for cheap bulk pricing - they come on Wednesday and then we will plant them.  Yum!

Colton's favorite job was watering the plants...

He spent most of the afternoon watering or washing something ;)

And now, one of my favorite memories with Summer:
Summer is so responsible.  Each day she remembers all on her own that she wants to go water them, and can do everything all by herself.  One morning I saw her go out in her sweet yellow dress, with her bright red watering can, and it was such a cute sight I had to take a picture!  Here she is watering the pots of flowers we have strategically placed in a sunnier area of our yard.  We are hoping to grow some cutting flowers this year so we can cut flowers to put in vases.  Summer is my flower girl.  Often when we see flowers at the grocery store she asks if we can buy some to put in a vase.  I am hoping they grow this year so we can have cut flowers in our kitchen throughout much of the summer!  We will see ;).

And so, long story short, I LOVED my Mother's Day present and continue to love it as the kids and I can enjoy it TOGETHER throughout the whole summer.

After church on Sunday, we celebrated Mother's Day with my mom at a super yummy brunch buffet!

I am so grateful for the influence my mom is on my life, the prayers, understanding, and encouragement she gives me and my kids daily.  Also a huge shout out to my amazing mother-in-law, who raised the awesome man I get to call my husband.  She also makes such a wonderful grandma.  I am so blessed.