Gardening season has hardly begun and I've already fought with stray cats, squirrels and myself. The stray cats scratched around and did doo-doo in my garden...I've since learned to sprinkle orange peels in the garden. The squirrels dug holes in my garden to bury their peanuts. I have since placed sticks throughout my planters and garden. One fine day we went to the zoo and I killed a good portion of
my indoor seedlings. (That's classic me and gardening...things go along hummingly until one day disaster strikes.) Unfortunately I haven't yet got a remedy for myself!
But thank goodness there are other vegetables to grow! I'm trying a lot of variety this year, which is probably a good thing for me. The speckled romaine is growing beautifully. Hurray! I'm also growing bibb lettuce, but the romaine is growing far better.
The small patch of peas are also growing quite well...must be good weather for peas. My friend Jerusha said her peas are growing really well also. Mine are already climbing up the trellis I made for them.
It took me a few days to recover from the seedling fiasco, but I regrouped...bought 1 pepper seedling to get me started off with an early crop, and now have a few small pepper seedlings that will be a little late but should still produce. I had planted extra tomato seedlings (knowing my tendencies), so those few have saved the day as far as tomatoes go, though they are quite small still.
One thing I learned from the reading I did over the winter was to plant early crops in the same container (or plot) as a later crop. This utilizes space when you don't have much. For instance, I've got some of my green onions growing around my pepper plant. The green onions will be picked well before the pepper plant needs the entire pot for itself. Of course, a good half of the green onions didn't survive my stellar transplant job, but I planted a bunch...and every time I see them I can't help but think of onion spaghetti, yum! That's why I grew them!
My carrots are doing great--I've got a pot full of them that we'll get to pick in the next week or 2, as well as more now coming up in the garden. Swiss chard, bushbeans, spinach and beets are all popping up, escarole and nasturtiums are doing well, more lettuce is appearing, marigolds and herbs are coming up. Indoors I've started miniature heirloom cantelopes, a cucumber plant, and 2 miniature squash bushes...waiting for those to sprout.
I'm trying new gardening techniques and a bunch of new vegetables this year, and--aside from killing off my seedlings--it's already been a lot of fun!
I'm so glad I found the second set. I only bought the readers (not the curriculum) which are quite inexpensive, and they are unique in that they progress through the entire bible. We're not that far into them yet, but I really like what we are reading so far.
I'm so glad I found the second set. I only bought the readers (not the curriculum) which are quite inexpensive, and they are unique in that they progress through the entire bible. We're not that far into them yet, but I really like what we are reading so far.
The illustrations are very simple, black and white sketches, some of which are Mennonite (I'm guessing that's who wrote them). 
The text is great, and I really like the fact that Maddie is reading through the bible and being encouraged to obey God's Word while she is learning to read.
