The day of the first garden...

This week we planted our first real family garden. We've wanted a vegetable garden for a long time, but never seemed to get motivated enough to actually do it. For whatever reason, this was the year I overcame procrastination. I borrowed a million books from the library, downloaded several articles from the OSU extension services, and borrowed some gardening magazines from my neighbor. We started by picking a good spot...

Wouldn't it be great if we could skip pregnancy and grow kids in a garden instead!

Adding a few railroad ties, tomato cages, seeds and seedlings (and about $75)...

And - Viola! - our very first family garden!

Initially, I wanted to keep the variety of crops simple - tomatoes (two types - Rutgers and Pink Lady), cucumbers (one bush and one burpless vine cultivar (a cool new word I learned from my books!)), green beans (Blue Lake and Kentucky Wonder), and sweet peppers. Although, I let No.1 and No.2 pick out seeds so now our garden includes corn and carrots too (Danvers, Danvers short, Chantenay, and some sweet hybrid that's guaranteed to succeed). It would also have included cantelope, watermelon, broccoli, cauliflower and daisies, all of which the kids bought seeds for, but we ran out of space (it's only a 4'x8' plot). Now, if we can keep No.3 from pulling all the leaves off!

And, oh, I couldn't resist adding a few cute pics of the kiddies!

Our custom trellises that second as jungle gyms

Notice the bite taken out of the foam water toy

If you're wondering where No.1 is, he's inside playing Lego Star Wars...the worst mind-numbing invention ever created. And we don't even own a Playstation - it's all free online. If people can sue McDonald's for making their kids fat, can I sue Nintendo for making my kids dumb? *Sigh* So much for family togetherness.