This year we decided to over double the size of our garden. Right now I am asking myself why would we do that? I have always enjoyed gardening. There is something awesome about planting little bitty seeds and watching them grow day by day into giant plants. I also remember having a giant garden growing up. My mom made us weed, pick, snap beans, peel, husk corn and we would can and freeze everything she could get her hands on. It was a lot of work and some distorted part of me wants my kids to experience all of it. I want them to sweat, be hot, dirty, tired and hate it at times but most of all I want them to get the feeling of satisfaction you can get from good old fashion hard work. I want them to know how to work hard and to understand the importance of it. No sissies around here. Richard asked me one time when I was talking to him about our garden, "Didn't you get tortured enough with the garden growing up?" I guess I did, but I must want to torture my kids too.
This year we did a few new things. We let each boy pick a plant they wanted to try out. Jamen picked a peanut plant, Wiley picked a popcorn plant, and Noah picked an okra plant. We did most every other normal thing otherwise. We have some giant, medium and small pumpkins, we did about 200 onions, 3 types of watermelons, cantelope, honeydew, cucumbers, spaghetti, zucchini, acorn, butternut, and summer squash, corn, potatoes, sun flowers, lima beans, soy beans, tomatoes, strawberries, beans, asparagus, tamatios, and about 8 or 9 varieties of peppers. Everything went pretty well this year except the tomatoes. We still got plenty but our plants died off early. We have been spending lots of days drying peppers and tomatoes, canning salsa and freezing corn and tomatoes. The boys have been good sports about it and great help. I have realized to teach your kids to work hard you must do it yourself. I have also realized it takes a whole lot more clean up after they help. But mostly I have learned that I like to work with my kids. They make me proud and I am very impressed at how hard they can work for little guys. So I guess we will continue the torture with the massive garden.
3 comments:
I am so jealous of your garden. I totally agree with the hard work. It must be done! Our kids have helped a ton fixing up our home. A garden is sadly missed. We're working on preparing the ground so we won't miss the experience next year. Could you just come back to Idaho to help me?!
I think it sound great. Wish I could do it. Too by our lifestyle won't allow it. I guess I need to find another way to "torture" my kids.
Ok Becky!!! I'm tired just reading that blog. My back is sore and my fingers hurt. All the hard work I did in my mom's garden as a kid didn't give me have the urge! I'm very envious though! Hope all is well with your little family. I'm glad I'm not the only one freaking out about school starting. I have to send my "baby" to Kindergarten:)
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