Strawberry Transplants: Not for the Faint of Heart

 

I love having my kids help in the garden. This is the story of what can go wrong --but it has a happy ending.

 

We have a strawberry patch that needs to go. It is overrun by weeds and doesn't get much sun like it did a few years ago. I've also heard that strawberry patches should be moved every so often for a better strawberry yield.

Last fall I transplanted many plants to the unused sections of our seldom-used playground area. Amazingly, they survived the winter.

 

Then came the sad spring day when I was touring a college with my oldest while my husband and boys weeded the gardens at home. My husband texted, "Were the boys *supposed* to remove all the strawberries from the playground?"

 

I wanted to drive home immediately.

 

Despite efforts to replant the weeded plants, most died.

 

New project for me: transplant even more strawberries.

New project for the boys: build a fence from sticks.

 

 

Now it is clear to see that the corners of the playground are GARDENS. The little fence should keep out children, even if it doesn't work on cats.

 

 

Woodland Birthday Party: The Activities

Our Woodland party started off with a calm activity that children could join as they arrived. Along with their snacks, we set up a table full of Playmobil forest animals and trees. I printed several coloring pages with the Woodland theme (found them on the Internet) and asked each guest to color a tree with his or her name on it.

We used the decorated trees on the birthday cake table so that everyone knew where to sit. It was also handy to have a designated 'home place' so that throughout the party, each child could put his or her cup/hat/etc. on or under his or her chair. That made things easy when parents came for pick-up!

One thing my son really wanted to do with this party was a gardening activity.  I found mini gnomes at JoAnn Fabrics and garden signs at Michael's Craft Store.  We painted some of the signs with chalkboard paint.  Each child added contractor sand to the bottom of a tray, topped it with potting soil, and planted lots of rye grass seeds. This was a messy activity, so we did this in the garage.  Once the rye grass grows, the children can cut it with scissors (give that garden a hair cut!) and add other toys to the small garden.

Each child was given a hat and a tunic.  We used the hats as a place to pin treasures we found on our hunt! A garden gnome left clues around the property. The children found buttons, feathers, beads, and the small key charms that were hidden behind this tiny door!

The gnome's final clue lead the children to our basement where each found a bow and three arrows.  Now, you can imagine that I'd be crazy to let first graders loose with weapons, even seemingly benign plastic bows and arrows. But the children were so thrilled with this gift ("Can we really KEEP them???") that they were extremely respectful of our archery rules: take turns and only shoot the cups.  I had a few middle school kids helping me teach the children how to shoot the arrows, and the stairwell kept the arrows contained. It was a non-competitive game with children working together just to get some cups knocked down.  After a while, I allowed some children to also aim at a poster on our basement wall since it was delightful to see the suction cup arrows stick!

 [I got the archery sets from Rhode Island Trading Company. Each set came with a dagger, quiver, and target. I recycled the targets since they had pictures of cowboys-and-Indians; I don't mind each separately, but I'm not a big fan of glorifying that conflict. It didn't fit our theme anyway. My son wanted to do archery because he associates Woodlands with Wood Elves of the Lord of the Rings or Robin Hood genre.

I also threw out the daggers. The daggers were plastic, but sharp, and I couldn't imagine any good coming from handing those out to a bunch of little kids hyped up on cupcakes!]

New Life

Spring means new life. And we have plenty of it around here!

Our butterfly house is full of Painted Ladies.  We plan to release them on Easter when the family is here to celebrate with us.  We've had unusually warm weather around here, so the butterflies should do well outside.

In the shot above, you can see the inside of the butterfly house, with two Painted Ladies clinging to the wall.  The red dye on the wall and floor of the house is leftover after their transformation from rather homely caterpillars to colorful butterflies.  We never before wondered where all that color comes from.  They make it themselves; how cool is that?

Another addition to our menagerie is a second Queen Bee.  Hers is the smaller hive.  The taller hive has two honey-supers on top.  We've been so unseasonably warm this year that we expect to harvest honey well before summer.

And finally, nothing says spring like NEW CHICKS!!!  Three Golden Buffs (aka Red Stars) joined us this week.  Their names are Katniss, Ginny, and Churchill.  You may or may not be able to tell what my children are each reading based on these names.

Happy Spring!

Apple Cider Day

When a family has so many apples that every container is full, it is time for Apple Cider Day!

We spend the first half of the day picking apples.  My husband climbed the trees or used the tall ladder.  I used the smaller ladder and an antique extension pole apple-picker my father gave me. The boys ran apples from us to the containers inside the house, where we were keeping the picked apples away from the wasps.

We spent some time giving all of our equipment a good scrub with soapy water and then sanitized everything with a horrific sulfuric mixture my husband seems to love.  The scent grows on a person, I guess.

Below you'll see an antique press my father gave us.  Built to last!

You may be able to notice that only one of the sides is up.  The press is made of a center pole screw, wooden slatted sides that come off, and a metal base with a spout.  Once the apples are pressed, the sides are removed and the dried cake of pressed apples is removed.  Amazingly, the buckets and tubs full of apples all eventually fit into this press as the moisture is removed.  What remains gets thrown to the chickens.

Making apple cider is a great lesson in teamwork.  While my husband endured the tiring job of turning the crusher, the boys fed apples from a wheelbarrow into the top of the crusher. I refilled the wheelbarrow with apples from the tubs in the house. 

 Our garage was transformed into our workshop for the day and given a good hose-down afterwards. Things got very sticky!

Crushed apples --stems, seeds, and all-- drop into a clean bucket.

The crushed apples are then dumped into the press.  We put clean wooden boards on top of the apples and feed a metal turner onto the pole.  My older son (who we lovingly referred to as our 'work ox' all day) turned the press by hand until it was too difficult to move.  Then he put a long metal pole into the turner and pressed the apples even further.  (This was a great opportunity to discuss the concepts of 'simple machines' with the kids.)

As he pressed, juice poured from the bottom into bowls.  We then strained the liquid into larger containers.  I filled several freezer containers with cider that we'll drink throughout the fall and winter. My husband started about ten gallons of the cider fermenting for wine and another five gallons for hard cider. 

Delicious, right from the press, the cider needs no sugar added...and as you can see below, some people just couldn't wait to try it. 

Mini Gardens

Who doesn't need more thyme? More 'thyme' for gardening, that is.

This summer at Camp Gramp, the kids made mini container gardens.  First, they each picked a container from Grandmom's potting shed.  She has such a terrific assortment of yard sale finds in there.

Next, they scoured Grandmom's house for tiny treasures with which to make a garden scened. 

Finally, the kids filled the containers with gravel, potting soil, and their treasures.  We planted thyme in the containers because thyme has tiny leaves to fit perfectly 'to scale' with their scenes.

Heat and Humidity

It is so hot and humid here that my camera kept fogging up as soon as I'd open the lens cap!  This is the kind of day that is perfect for washing the car with water guns, making ice cream in a bag, and playing Drip-Drip-Drop, a fantastic game played with a cup of water much the same way that Duck-Duck-Goose is played.  A talented day care provider taught me this game and the kids enjoyed the chance to get wet (or get REALLY wet, depending on their luck in the game).

Thumb Pots

To protect our plants in the squash family, this year we are planting radishes to attract the same bugs who bore into our squash vines.  We planted two packets of seeds in the spring, but now that the radishes are mature, it is time to plant some more.  Who knew radishes were so easy to grow?  They literally pop up out of the ground when they are ready to harvest.  I'm leaving the damaged ones where they are, so the bugs can keep munching.



In order to entice my boys to help plant the radishes, I offered them the chance to use our new Thumb Pot.  We bought it on our trip to Colonial Williamsburg. 

The pot has a large hole at the top (for one's thumb) and several small holes on the base.  By putting it into a bucket of water, the small holes allow water to fill the pot.  To pick up the pot, one covers the thumb hole, trapping the water inside.

Letting go of the thumb hole releases a nice shower of water onto the plants.  This was fun for the boys, and for the cat, too.

Learning to Cook

School is out, so it is the perfect time to teach my teenager how to make some of our go-to dinners, using what we've harvested from the garden.

We started with her favorite, pesto pasta.

 Tonight we used basil (frozen in an ice cube tray from our harvest last summer), toasted pine nuts, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and a little salt and pepper. (Nothing tastes better than fresh basil pesto, but our little basil plants are just getting started this summer.) 

Another pesto we like uses walnuts, walnut oil, and sage leaves.  Pretty much any combination of fresh herbs from the garden with toasted nuts and some oil will make a great pesto.

 

 She made a very simple salad while the noodles boiled. She tossed some fresh blueberries in a bowl of lettuce.  It doesn't get too much more simple, but it'll do.

 Making dinner is so exhausting.  Thank goodness there is time for a lie-down while the noodles keep on boiling.  If she is this tired in the kitchen now, I don't know how she'll manage making dinner after working all day when she's older.  (Add three children running around the house and maybe a cat and some chickens in the mix and I feel like having a lie-down starting every day at around 7:30 a.m.)

 Here is the plate she assembled for her littlest brother:

 Gotta love that plate.  It is by a company called "Fred". 

Here is the dinner everyone else got:

Very delicious!

Harvest Shot

It is blueberry season, which means avoiding thunderstorms and our vicious cat to pick for an hour a day.  Sweet rewards!

Land of the Little People

After a weekend of yard sales --"yard sailing"-- with the grandparents, my children typically bring home bags of toys that sellers are happy to unload.  I have more Happy Meal toys in my house than any person should, but since it is a more environmental, cost effective, and healthier way of obtaining toys than actually going to McDonald's, I try to tolerate it.  My parents thought it would be especially funny, then, to see my reaction to my son's latest yard sale find.  To their surprise, I embraced it.

 My son found a treasure in the form of several large pieces of aquarium decor.  (How big this aquarium was, I can only imagine.)  Declaring himself a huge fan of ancient Greek architecture, my son bought the whole lot for pocket change.  Many thanks go to his grandfather for demonstrating superior haggling skills on my son's behalf.

 We put the ancient ruins near this other area in our garden where Tiny Folk frequent.

 Because these items were intended to be under water, they are perfect for the outdoors.  Once the area was set up, it was only a matter of time before a battle ensued...

During the battle, the boys interacted with each other, the cat, and a slug. Great things happen when children play in the garden.  :  )

Window Boxes, take two

This is our second year with window boxes.  Last year they were quite colorful, but I couldn't help thinking that we could make them work for us.  (Notice a theme on our patch of land?  We only keep pets that can pull their own weight; why shouldn't a window box be held to the same standard?)

Besides a few pansies for color and some pretty little nameless white flowers that should spill over nicely to add visual appeal, everything in the box is either edible or on the list as a nectar source for honeybees.  Some, like thyme, even do both.  In some of our window boxes, the ivy from last year overwintered.  It looks a little brown, but I left it in to see how it would recover.

My oldest son helped me with this project and was surprised to see how many flowers are "named after" Harry Potter characters. (Lily, Pansy, Petunia, etc.)  The box beneath his bedroom window has a Lupine in honor of this amazing phenomenon (since his favorite HP character is Lupin). He wanted to install a Harry Potter garden, which is a great idea.  Maybe next year...

Raising Butterflies

My youngest son got a Butterfly Pavilion for Christmas. (Butterfly Pavilion is from a company called Insect Lore.)  In the final weeks of winter, we sent away for our caterpillars and let the fun begin. The caterpillars arrived in late March and spent only a few weeks with us.  My son documented the changes in a little booklet we made.

We originally labeled the pages in his book by weeks, but each change for our butterflies took a little less than a week, which was fantastic for holding the interest of a five-year-old.

Once they turned into butterflies, we only kept them inside for a few days, picking fresh flowers for them daily (dandelions and grape hyacinth, mostly).

When the daytime temperatures were consistently comfortable, we released the butterflies into the garden.  The butterflies didn't want to leave at first, which allowed the kids time to hold them. This was an easy project we will probably do again next year.

Installing Honeybees

As soon as my cat became quite used to her new play area, we've ruined all her fun by installing honeybees.

The honeybees arrived in a package of about ten thousand.  The queen was inside a smaller cage in the center of the cage you see below.

 We sprayed the package several times with sugar water to make the honeybees happy and full.  It also attracted a variety of neighborhood bees and other winged insects into our garage.  Note to self: don't spray tons of sugar water in the garage next time.

Brave husband and brave son (in baggy beekeeper suit!) opened the package and literally dumped the bees into the hive.  (Little brother needed to hang back because we don't yet own a veil for him.)   They made an opening in the tiny queen cage and wedged the queen cage into the hive where the other bees will hopefully find her and rescue her from her little cage by chewing through the candy that blocks her exit.  Finally, a top-feeder full of more sugar water was placed on top of the hive and the lid was sealed with a brick to stop the high winds from wrecking everything.

Now we just need to wait and see if the honeybees like their new home.

Seashell Sidewalks

Got seashells?  My sister gave us a bag full of shells from her recent vacation.  The boys had a great time turning these shells into sidewalks for fairies and dinosaurs in one of our herb gardens. Above, you can see a dino 'back in thyme'.

We've done similar seashell gardens before, so we know to expect wild birds to completely wreck it by winter.  The birds pick up the shells, hoping they might still house edible treats.  It is OK.  It will be fun in the spring to find random seashells scattered in the mulch, and the shells are good for the soil.

Most importantly is that this project kept both boys occupied for a few hours. : )