A new garden year

I am linking up with The Homeschool Village's Garden Challenge :)

April 1st finds us with a few plants started, but the garden is mostly bare.  We've got sunflowers started in pots.  The kids planted these.  I think sunflowers are everyone's favorite garden plant here at home.
We've got tall 6 footers, and some mini sunflowers and some in-between.

 We have about 8 romaine lettuce plants going, already in the ground.  This year we are going to plant them every 2 weeks, to try to get a steady supply of salad fixings going.  Romaine lettuce, any kind of lettuce, is kind of pricey here in OC.

  • I feel like Ma Ingalls  every time I go outside and cut a head of lettuce for a salad.  It is very satisfying. 

We also have some celery and green onions starting. (my photo of the lettuce was boring, I'll include those next month..)

Our blackberry vines are blooming against our back wall.  We had to purchase a special kind of blackberry that would bloom and fruit without cold weather.  Living in OC can be a hardship, sometimes.

Just sometimes.

Do you see who I spied peeking out from under an artichoke plant?  This is Elsie, trying to be inconspicuous.  The fence here is to keep the hens out of our garden.  Hens and gardens do not mix.

We started out with a split rail fence...it was pretty naive of us, really.  We then graduated to a taller deer fence.  Next came the 10 foot deer fence.

Annabelle is looking for a way in, too.  She is seriously displeased.  The girls follow me over when I go into the garden, they are veery interested in all that goes on here.

Well, so far, this is it for the garden...just romaine lettuce, celery, onions, potted sunflowers and blooming blackberry vines.  We are going to be planting some corn this weekend, and then some sugar snap peas.  The younger kids, specially- really love eating the peas. I was sure surprised, but pleased!

Two of my favorite resources for garden with children are:

Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots 
and

Learn and Play in the Garden by Meg Herd

Thank you for visiting our garden, you can link up at The Homeschool Village and visit other posts!