Planting Seeds

As a childbirth educator, often times I will talk about sowing seeds in the mind, to encourage growth and ideas. Today I speak literally about planting seeds.

The girls have been begging me for a while to plant a garden. Apparently there is a clip on one of the kids channels- Disney I think- that shows an 11 year old girl talking about the garden she got to plant. Kay, being the crunchy, save the Earth flower child that she is, decided she must have a garden as well. Just my luck, my mother has decided to plant a garden this year as well, so I am taking many of my cues from her.

I asked the husband for a little extra cash and went to the store to start gathering supplies tonight. I got some seed starters, some seeds, a watering can, and a big pot for my "Three Sisters" plant. More on that in a few.

When I got home the girls were REALLY excited. They helped me pick out which seeds we were going to start in the little starter tray (it holds 72 seedlings) and we went to work. We started 6 seedlings of each vegetable. Among out choices were 3 kinds of spinach and 2 kinds of green beans. Can you tell what foods are big in our house?

Tomorrow I will be asking my husband to pick me up some good soil so that I can start my "Three Sisters" pot. It will be the center piece of my container garden this year. For those that don't know, this giant pot consists of a squash plant in the middle surrounded by 5 corn plants. Each corn plant has 2 bean plants next to it. The three types of plants coexist in one large pot- at least 18 inches across and 18 inches deep. The bean plants vine up the corn. It is a wonderful thing and I hope we can make it work for us this year.

I am trying to avoid planting a lot of the veggies that we get with out CSA. I just joined our CSA again and we get our food from HomeSweetFarm, which is local to us here in Texas. They have some of the BEST food I have ever tasted, and it is a treat for the kids to go pick it up each week.

I am hoping that focusing more on produce will help us all eat a little better this year. Summer usually brings a lot of fast food for us. I am hopeful that this year it will bring a lot of outside grilling with fresh, healthy food instead.