Kids' Gardens

I've talked with the boys about them having their own gardens this year. Tigger is very excited about it and has named way too many vegetables to grow in his. We had a whole discussion on why you can't grow sunflowers and corn in the same patch. (sunflower roots put out a substance that basically will poison the corn--something like that. I have the book carrots love tomatoes all on companion planting). So, as of now Tigger wants to plant pumpkin, watermelon, corn, carrots, sunflowers. I'm still not exactly sure what Pooh is going to plant. Gardening isn't exactly a big hit with him.

Here they are ready to get started. See Pooh's face? It says it all.



The first thing to teach the boys is preparing the beds. There were weeds coming up in their designated spaces and we have to get those cleaned out. Not exactly fun work but necessary. We talked about how the vegetable plants wouldn't grow well if all these weeds were in the way.


Tigger found two cultivators that he decided were going to be his velociraptor claws. He clawed out his weeds.

There was also hoeing. Notice these before pictures because the difference in before and after is beautiful!


That's actually a sage plant in Pooh's garden. Right, lower corner. That's staying.


Here's the after! Don't they look great?!?


Ok, please totally ignore the out of control compost heap in the background. Oh and all the other weeds. Sigh.


While we were digging (yes, i was helping LOL), we found lots of earwigs-those little guys with the pincers on their rears and earthworms. Tigger was so excited at finding the worms. Everytime I found one in his garden bed, he would come get it and move it to the already cleared section saying "Here ya go little fella." It was so adorable!

Pooh did look at his worms but wasn't especially happy with the whole project. We sang songs to pass the time. Pooh sang 15 Men and the Dead Man's Chest from Muppet Treasure Island. I sang Never Smile at a Crocodile from Peter Pan. Tigger made up some songs about weeds and worms. ;D Pooh brought his special dog Osita over for some cuddle time and to keep him company doing the dreadful deed of weed pulling.

OH! and I almost forgot. Evidently the boys witnessed our baby bluebirds leaving their nest box while I was off getting something! Pooh said there was one Mommy bird and 3 babies that came out. Isn't that cool! I've never seen the babies come out of there even though we've had the box up for about 5 years now. It didn't surprise me that the babies were already out because last week I saw a house finch baby being fed by its parent at my feeders.

Lots of nature study these days!