Monday, June 05, 2006

Garden Girls

Ok, so here are the pictures from last Tuesday's adventures in the garden with the neighbors... Miranda and Ainsley had been telling me how much they'd love to come out and help me plant in the garden after they helped dig potatoes and pick beans last year, plus they helped me put together the hanging baskets and some flower pots this year. How could I turn them down!?!? I'm a total softie, and they're such good girls! Claire said it was ok, so she loaded up the girls (including Connor) after I got home from work, and I loaded up the back of the CR-V, and we headed on out for our afternoon adventure!

Here's Claire and Ainsley planting taters (you can see Miranda down at the far end of the row with her potatoes):

And here's Miranda with a choice potato, just begging to be planted:


The girls wanted to know how far apart to plant the potatoes. First I tried giving the potatoes plenty of space. Then we realized that there wasn't enough space for all the potatoes I bought....so I said "two outstretched handwidths apart". And then I think we realized maybe that wasn't even enough space. So, um, are these potatoes going to rot because they're too close to each other?
Rather than help Claire and Ainsley run string around the teepee, it looks like Miranda's doing a dance? Note how high up their legs the mud goes!

Ainsley's got GREAT technique at putting string on the teepee! After all this was done, we planted scarlet runner beans.
Connor had one job, and she did it GREAT! Fill the moat with water! Well, ok, it was more like "water the plants at this end of the garden, or just hold the hose, look cute and spray anyone who walked by." Trust me - there was PLENTY of mud when she was done!

Miranda got within range of Connor's hose... This was the last picture I took. By this point there was so much mud and water it was dangerous to bring the camera back out of the car. I think I had about two inches of mud gummed up on the bottom of my shoes when it was time to leave... The beans didn't seem to mind - they're sprouting nice and fast this week!

Hopefully tomorrow nite I'll get to post pics from today's trip out to the garden. Was out there about 4 1/2 hrs, and it was a BEAUTIFUL day - nice and cool and sunny. However, "cool" does not equate to "not burnable"...and I forgot to put on sunblock. So I'm a bit red! Tonite's cool weather should help with getting to sleep at least...

8 comments:

Peter said...

And just to confirm: that is not Jeph in the white t-shirt in the first photo!


LOL

Stunned Donor said...

Good to get the kids started in the garden now, since the only good jobs when they grow up will be planting potatoes anyway.

Stunned Donor said...

All snark aside, I plant my potatoes about eighteen inches apart, but the nursery up the way claims you should plant them even farther apart.

Jeph said...

Yeah, so uh, maybe 5 inches is a bit too close hunh? I wonder if that'll just result in low productivity, or if they'll have more dominant ones that will overrule others, or if it'll all just rot underground?

Um, it's an experiment! ;-)

THANKS for the clarification Peter!!! ;-)

Stunned Donor said...

By the way, are these the potatoes from your countertop experiment or did you buy some seed potatoes?

Jeph said...

The potatoes you see the girls planting are ones I bought at the garden center. The countertop experiment potatoes went in in the next row over as a last minute "oh shit, I forgot to plant these!" as we were getting ready to leave and washing off all the mud.

I've since come across the OTHER batch of countertop potatoes (yellow taters) I intended to put in...grr!

Stunned Donor said...

So let me get this straight, you buy potatoes and never eat them and then you plant the potatoes, which presumably you won't eat either and then you'll plant those until the entire continent is covered in your orphan potatoes?

Jeph said...

ROFL! NO no no.... Just sometimes, on rare occasion, they sprout before eaten. Those russian fingerlings were purchased with the intention of sprouting and planting...totally different!