Baskets a Plenty

My garden is looking great! Veggies are bountiful and flowers are everywhere. I had some basket orders this morning, they are full and beautiful.

Childrens Garden Club

I volunteered for the garden club at my sons school last fall, its K through 5th and about 50 students. To say the least it was hard to get started, that's a lot of kids. Generally only about 30 show up but still its desperately challenging to keep them all focused at the same time.


After talking with the other volunteers and a friend who runs a few other local garden clubs we have decided to split the ages next year. K-2nd one day and 3rd-5th another. And possibly have a lasso to pull them in, maybe two.

Being our first year we have learned a lot, but a few key things to keep in mind for a successful garden club are,

• Keep the ratio of adult to children low 5 to 1 sounds good to me if you are working with lots of kids
• Teaching the basics of gardening is enough. They love to get dirty! Pulling weeds is fun! And worms a really entertaining!
• Use snack time as a teaching tool, they are quiet and ready to listen. Talk about recycling your water bottles or bringing your own from home (I hope to encourage this next year). Eat from the garden, make home made butter and enjoy things at there simplest.

Yesterday we took the Garden Club to Dunbar Community Gardens. Mr Damian showed them baby chicks, bees and compost, they loved checking the temperature.


Their excitement is worth all the wildness.









Baby chicks

Bees

Very smart looking club

Hot compost

Yes we can!!

I found this great T-shirt image HERE.
I love this!!

The country side in Wales

Just a few pics from my trip to the UK.

New Year

Its been to cold to get much done in the garden right now, so begins the indoor activities. I worked on a pile of clothes to be mended, finished a dress for my daughter, and have been making clothes for my sons stuffed animals.

January is full of birthdays, I had no idea I knew so many capricorns. So homemade gifts have been in the works as well.

This sweet little embroidery was for my friend Courtneys' birthday.

I was reading a bunch of forums and blogs yesterday looking for a homemade shampoo recipe and ended up getting really excited about "no poo" shampooing. Wash with 1 cup water mixed with 1 tablespoon bakingsoda then rinse with 1/2 apple cider vinegar 1/2 water. Its great so far, my hair is clean and shiney. We will see how it goes. A lot of people who have tried this have been doing it for months and years and rave about the managability and health of their hair. The baking soda mixture was like a conditioner, it got the knots out easily.

Winter garden

Sweet little green house

protecting my mustard greens

Jerusalem Artichokes

winter harvest

I have been slowly creating a garden that produces year round. We have an exteremely small yard and I have expectations for a high yeild of food from it. This little green house structure is really doing the job. I have some mustard greens going strong and a few volunteer cilantro plants. There is one more green house row with a few more greens and some lettuce that probably won't make it through the low temperatures this week.

The jerusalem artichokes were plentiful! I planted a couple of rows against our back fence and plan on pickling the rest. Is nice to continue the garden work year round, it keeps you on your toes with excitement about the spring.

The cold weather gets to me pretty quick and I need a pick me up, so I have been looking at seed catalogs Burpee and Bakers Creek Heirloom Seeds.

These are both great places to find good standards and unique plants, I always want to try new veggies but have a hard time giving up space to my tried and trusted stand-bys.

Little Bird Basket orders

Frosty cabbage

Little bird baskets will not be taking orders December 23rd thru December 28th.

Have a great holiday and thank you for all the appreciation. Here's to the New Year and day dreams of a spring garden.