A Child's Garden

This is Jude, our only son, in a family with 4 sisters. A week ago Dante was taking Jude to meet his grandma for an overnight, and said

" Uh-oh, Jude this means I'm gonna be alone in the house with all those girls. You got any advice for me?" and Jude simply replies, " Just do whatever they tell you to, or they get really mad." He's gonna make an EXCELLENT husband some day.

This year I really want a space just for the kids to garden. I got the book " Roots Shoots Buckets and Boots " by Sharon Lovejoy through an interlibrary loan. It is really inspiring and I think a good project for Grandma to help us with. Here's what I'm most interested in:

Sunflower House

Ingredients:

1 seed packet 12 foot " Russian mammoth" sunflowers

1 seed packet 5 to 8 foot "Valentine", "Velvet Queen", or " Evening sun" sunflowers

1 seed packet 1 to 2 foot " Elf ", " Music Box Mix ", or " Sundance Kid " sunflowers

1 seed packet " Heavenly Blue " morning Glories

Equipment:

1 40lb bag aged manure ( or in our case a wheel barrow load from the manure pile )

3 bags shredded bark or straw

1 roll twine

And / Or Moon Garden

Ingredients:

Inside the crescent

2 seedlings Jasmine tobacco

2 seedlings evening primrose

2 seedlings four o'clocks

2 seedlings evening scented stocks

The Borders:

2 six-packs white alyssum

2 six-packs white petunias

2 six-packs white yarrow

The Tent:

6 seedlings, moonflowers

rope

(5) 6-foot bamboo poles or 2x2 inch lumber

We have several spots for gardens thanks to the roto tilling our pigs have done in various paddocks around the farm. We are doing less pigs this year because we simply can't afford all the grain that they require. It is tough because the farmer pours out all this money for at least 6 months feeding them while they grow, out of pocket with out making a dime on them until they are butchered , which also requires cash ahead of time before you can even pick up that lovely meat. Not to mention the costs of labels, and spices and sea salt for sausage. Anyway, needless to say we need to take it easy this year with pigs.