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crnerblitz
February 23rd, 2008, 08:23 PM
My Dad who lives with my wife, five kids and me came in from outside this morning and interrupted my morning coffee. He claimed all the asparagus shoots were belonging to Him. I said beg your pardon, but what shoots? Those plants are dormant. Wrong! We went outside and he showed me where 3 of the 10 crowns we planted last spring were pushing up nice pencil sized shoots. Well I just happened to have bought 10 more 2yr old crowns on Friday along with some 1gallon black berry bushes.

My 3 youngest boys (9, 6, and 4) spent the morning lugging compost to the back market garden while my Dad and I planted the 11 (bonus) new crowns. I went and checked on the 4 rows of Oregon sugar podded peas I have in the ground and found many of them poking out their heads. Yippee! My 15 square feet of Longstanding Spinach is doing nicely. Too nice, I seeded it way to thick and thinning it will be a major task.

Its far too early for the lettuce, chard, beets, carrots and Pak Choy to be up but I am watching it closely.

My oldest boy (whom turns 12 in 9 days) and I stuck about another 200 onions in a prepped bed while my Dad rode lead over the rest of my young crew hauling compost to the beds where my Maters and Peppers will be in the market garden.

Once my oldest and I finished that job it was off to the new berry patch on the other side of the yard. I planted 4 Navaho thornless blackberries to go with the sole surviving Apache from the floods of last year. We planted them right in the old prepared holes of the previous year and then put up a fence for them to grow up and give support. I will probably buy another 6 Navaho's to make another row of berries. Yum!

By this time it was lunchtime so we all called it a day. Except my wife had worked the night before at the hospital and was sleeping. She got up around 4:00pm and I offered to help her put in her fruit trees. Thursday we had planted 2 plum trees, 2 peach trees and a pear tree. That left us just 4 apple tree's and a 4th pecan tree to round out the 3 pecan trees we put in last year. My dad also snuck a turkey fig tree onto the property when I wasn't looking.:D

All in all it was a very productive day. In five years or so I may even be able to partake in some of the sweat of my brow. I'll sleep goot tonight!


Kevin

Denninmi
February 23rd, 2008, 09:11 PM
That's nice. It's especially good to hear that someone doesn't let their kids spend the entire day playing video games and watching tv. It might actually be good for them to be outdoors. I think they're also more likely to want to try and eat some of these things if they had a hand in growing them.

tngardener
February 23rd, 2008, 11:00 PM
Sounds like a wonderful day.:)

luvmygarden
February 24th, 2008, 07:13 AM
What a fabulous day you had with your family! I'm rarely happier than those nights when I fall into bed after a full, productive day in the garden and flower beds. Here in zone 6 that's a few more weeks away, so it's nice to get to hear of your fun in the dirt!

Blanesgarden
February 24th, 2008, 11:01 AM
Excellent read Kevin!!!
I to have little helpers, 4 of em. Sometimes theyre in the mood, other times they have to be forced to help out.
Yesterday, we pulled and picked the last of our brussel sprouts, gona cook them up today.
Did some weeding, and ammended a little compost and bone meal to my raised beds. As I got curious, dug way down deep, about 1 foot or more, noticed the earthworms wiggling around, so looks like the soil is fine for this year.
Set some onions out, just a few, will do another batch next weekend.
Planted another mini-rose bush, Kroger had it in a clearance buggy for 1.99.....it looked awful, so I gave it a new home, Im sure it was another day from getting tossed into the dumpster.
Heres a pic of my mini-roses, with tulips popping up around them......later for now.:)

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u315/lilhammerwins/100_0092.jpg

louanne
February 25th, 2008, 06:47 AM
I love mini roses....ihad to leave mine in st louis when we moved here.....I might have to start some here...I have been eyeing then for a year now...was trying to get over it....cause we ahve wild roses here tha I am working on....
I love roses...and they seem to like me for some reason and go nuts...but tea roses are my favorite of roses

I am sooooo looking forward to having iris this year...IRIS= lou anne/ lou anne = iris I HAVE to have them around me or it just isnt myyard

Lanna
February 29th, 2008, 01:23 PM
Sounds like a good day, especially with your help. That's what I'm hoping for as my boys get older. :) We also plan to homeschool ours, so gardening and canning and cooking are very much going to be part of their childhoods.

brenda70546
March 3rd, 2008, 04:25 PM
sounds like yall had a good day out side also the weather finaly blew over it chased us in around noon