Watering "Can" for Little Ones

A few weeks ago, my mom and dad brought me one of the greatest/simplest/useful recycled projects I've seen in a while. I have a four year old that LOVES to help out around the house. This also includes watering our outside flowers. Sometimes it is just easier to do it all myself at the risk of him coming inside soaked and wet because he spilled the watering can all over himself and maybe got some on the flowers in the process. 

Here's what they did....it's super simple!

Buy a juice in a large container that has a wide mouth lid. This one is a 1.75L container.

Poke about four holes in the lid.

Fill the container with water and there you go!

So easy, even a four year old can do it (without getting very wet)!

Farm to Table: Green Onions

Dateline: May 20

We were on vacation for a week. I just knew that our garden wouldn't survive the week away, but I was wrong. Everything seems healthy and still growing! Time to harvest some of the fruits (vegetables) of our labor. First up: onions (scallions, green onions....whatever you want to call them). My favorite use for these little guys is wilted lettuce salad. I have a feeling we will be eating that for a few weeks and that makes us very happy!

The lettuce should be ready soon.

Some kind of onion salad that my husband concocted. It was actually pretty good.

Our Little Urban Garden, Part 5

Dateline: April 28

Our little garden is coming along nicely! The onions and carrots are definitely growing at this point (April 28th). It was time to put the tomatoes in the ground (finally). We also planted some cantaloupe and potatoes. Sam has been next to his daddy the ENTIRE process.

Such a sweet moment. Sam decided to take a moment out and pray for our food out of the blue.

Tomato time (my favorite part of the garden).

Our lettuce is starting out, the onions are coming up and the peppers are growing (slowly).

Our Little Urban Garden, Part 4

Dateline: April 14

It was finally time to get some of our seeds in the ground. It has been fun watching our son get into the gardening and growing stuff. He wants to do everything daddy does!

Raking. Sam needs a little help!

A lesson on how to push the seeds into the soil.

Intently watching the seeds.

Time to water everything.

We planted carrots, lettuce and onions on this day. Crossing our fingers that they actually take off and grow well in our little urban garden!

Our Little Urban Garden, Part 3

Dateline: March 26

Something is going right...we have three little sprouts. Granted, I can't tell you which pepper is which. I failed to mention previously that my four year old threw a bit of a tantrum the night the seeds were planted and some of the seeds were displaced from their little holes. It's going to be one HUGE surprise to see what actually took off and what didn't!

Dateline: April 4

Wow, these little guys are doing tremendously well in their little container world. Chris says we have about a 70% success rate so far. I'm not sure what stage we actually put these in the ground outside. I guess I should start asking those kind of questions and be well informed!

Our Little Urban Garden, Part 2

Dateline: March 15, 2012

Time to start some seeds and see if we can make them grow to something 

we can eat in the coming months.

My oldest had to get on the action and help daddy plant the seeds.
He's more anxious about this garden than anyone I think!

Putting the seeds in the beginning soil thingy (I guess I should actually know what it is called
before I put it up here for all to see how little I really know about gardening).

The one slight mishap of the initial planting was the fact that the soil pellets (for lack of the right term)
should have been watered BEFORE the seeds were placed. Lesson learned. Our hopes of anything
actually sprouting are diminishing quickly.

We are *hoping* to grow all kinds of wonderful peppers.

Stay tuned to see if anything actually sprouted or not....

Our Little Urban Garden, Part 1

 Last year, we participated in a CSA with another family. We got all kinds of greens and vegetables that lasted us all spring and summer. It was great. It encouraged me to cook more vegetables, try new things like kale (which I had no idea what to do with) and other random foods we would get in our box each week. My husband grew up on a farm. The idea that people would join a CSA and not grow their own food was a bit foreign to him. All grown up, we live in the city. We live in a subdivision at that. Not much land in comparison to what he lived on when he was a boy.

This year, we got the Burgess seed catalog (which by the way, I have no idea why I ever started receiving their literature in the mail to begin with). We talked it over and decided we would have a garden this year. Grow what we wanted to and not be subject to random foods that we got in a box each week that we may or may not like to eat. At that point, my husband got the laptop and ordered seeds for us to plant in a couple months.

The morning he was going to start tilling our back yard, he had a revelation that kept him awake a good part of the night. Maybe tilling isn't the brightest thing we should do in our yard. We have a gutter that runs off the back corner of our house. The runoff water flows into a pipe that is underground and empties on down the hill. The thought was...."What if I till, hit the pipe and shred it to pieces? We will have a big mess on our hands!" I agreed with this assessment and we are going to do raised garden beds instead. All built by my darling husband.

I love that my little one is in the background with his ears covered while the cutting is being done!

The finished product in place in our back yard.

A stop at the dirt place and this is what your truck looks like. I'm amazed the truck made it back
home without dragging the whole way home.

Filled boxes. Now, we are waiting for the seeds to start sprouting before we transfer them outside.

This should be a fun adventure. For anyone who knows me, I do not have a green thumb in the least bit. I'm counting on the fact that my husband knows what he is doing and I plan on just following his instructions!