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It is amazing to me how much "schooling" you can get into a weekend of working in the garden! The Pacific Northwest has had a week+ of great weather and we have taken FULL advantage of it! It is time to put in the garden!
And like every year, I expand things, change others that didn’t work, decide we want more tomatoes and less pole beans. This year was no exception! We ripped out a lilac invasion from the neighbors yard(I love lilacs but this didn’t bloom, it was just a an invasive overgrowth). And because of that.... I decided to add 2 new raised beds! Plus when my son tripped over the giant bed's raised edge and popped it off, we decided we didn't need it and to remove it and till the bed. We had to add a fence to keep the chickens from jumping the fence and eating all our hard work! And to top it off, I bought a picnic table kit from Home Depot so we could eat outside more often!
So, the past 2 weekends were spent measuring for the fence, plotting out the correct spots for the holes, learning how to operate an auger and dig to proper depth. Reading directions on the bag of concrete so it could be made correctly, measuring water and stirring until it was the right consistency.
Measuring the wood for the beds, learning how to use the saw and drill, what happens if we do not measure correctly. Handing Dad the right parts and tools for the picnic table assembly and being the muscle to move and flip it!
My 2 teens learned a lot in 2 simple weekends of gardening! To me these are chock full of schooling, life lessons and good old family time! And I do not think that I would look at it the same way before we homeschooled. It would have just been family chore time. But when I sit down and think that they had to measure, do math, read directions, use tools, etc. that they learned and I am sure it didn’t feel like learning!
I love when life's lessons become a unknown schooling lesson! ...

Spring has Sprung and therefore the air is filled with the smell of freshly tilled dirt, an artist palette of colors in the blooms and seeds in the gardening section of your local store!
My article and the nice weather got me thinking of this week's poll topic!
Do you garden? And I am not talking flowers, though there is nothing wrong with that! I love planting lots of those and have an abundance, but they are like cake to me. Lovely and delicious but not necessary to survive!LOL
I am talking about growing fruits and vegetables! Things to feed your family!
I grew up in the middle of nowhere, my grandparents owned the adjacent 10 acres and came from farming families. They had a huge orchard and vegetable garden that not only fed themselves, but my parents and my brother and myself and we canned enough to see all of us through the Winter!
When we first moved to Portland, we lived in an apartment but the need to garden and grow food for my family was there. I started container gardening with tomatoes and peppers. It was great but not enough!
So when we got the chance to move into a house with a HUGE lot, we jumped on it! We now live on 1/4 of an acre in Portland which is huge in the city and most of it is YARD! My garden of raised beds grows larger every year, I use the Square Foot Gardening method to get the most out of every inch. We have chickens and ducks that we also raise for eggs. We consider ourselves urban farmers.
I do not get enough to can for Winter but we do have plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables to see our family of 4 plus my childcare children through a great growing season!
So, my question is....do you garden? Do your children garden? Is gardening in your blood?
OR
Do you hate to garden? Is dirt your enemy? Why would I eat anything green and crunchy!LOL
Click here to weigh in! ...