-
Taking care of the bumbles
I’ve always been skittish around flying insects with stingers. I blame my parents who potty trained me in the buff on the side porch, during which I was stung on the bumkin by a bee. When approached by a yellow jacket, I will actually take off in flight until I lose him. However, in the garden, there is one stinger I’ve found peace with – bumble bees! Mind you, the carpenter bees are still evil assassins that chase me for no reason, but the bumble bees are my friends After reading that bumble bees are essential for pollinating many of my garden vegetables, such as the tomato which they pollinate…
-
Gardening with Kids: Teaching Observation Skills
There are several items that my youngest goes to almost every time we are in the garden. I’m thinking about now setting up a crate for his special objects. This morning I want to show you one of his current favorites and share a game my older son really enjoyed. This magnifying glass has been great fun for Wookie. He goes from plant to plant looking at the different flowers, which gives me a chance to toss in a lesson in colors and size. He also loves observing insects, and for a kid who doesn’t say much yet, he has mastered the word “bee”. My four-year-old Scooby and I recently…
-
Toddling Through Tuesday
I hope my friends don’t envision me constantly coming up with gardening lesson plans and creative activities for my boys. I’m honestly not that motivated, as evidenced by my near inability to pry myself out of bed this morning and then again after Wookie awoke from his afternoon nap. I’m a very tired mom, due mainly to insomnia and the exorbitant number of Clif Kid Z Bars I consume. All that processed chewy, sweet goodness must be killing my metabolism. At best, I leave the door cracked when I go out to the garden in the morning. Most of the time, Scooby remains engulfed in cartoons, but usually Wookie toddles…
-
Creating a Lizard Habitat
We have managed to attracted a diversity of birds and pollinators to our garden, but I’ve only seen one or two lizards in the past year. There are several benefits to having lizards in your home garden. Lizards prey on insects and rodents They help propagate native plants by aiding in pollination and spreading seeds They typically don’t feed on the vegetation but on the pests that may be eating your vegetation They are one more critter for kids to learn about! To create a lizard habitat, I first selected an area of the garden where there wasn’t a lot of foot traffic and there was plenty of vegetative cover.…
-
Growing Habitat
The first time I saw a male cardinal perched in the peach tree I had planted in the back yard, I couldn’t help feeling a little light-hearted. I was actually so excited that for a moment I contemplated interrupting Joe at work to tell him there was a bird in my tree. What made me most excited was seeing that this tree, which I had planted to commemorate a baby lost to miscarriage, was no longer my tree. It had been adopted as part of the growing habitat in our back yard. Everything we do to the land on which we live shapes, alters and transforms habitats. When we took…
-
What a week!
It has been one crazy week here with battling sickness – all three boys have had their ups and downs – planting the garden and preparing for a women’s conference at our church. By this Saturday, my garden helper Scooby was all better and incredibly excited to help me plant tomatoes and seed corn and beans. How do I know he was excited? Today when I picked him up, his teachers knew all about his hard work. I gave him his own packet of pole beans and a poking stick, and although he may have put 15 beans in one hole on purpose for the sake of seeing “lots of…
