Homeschool Village Garden Challenge ~ March 2012
[image width=”250″ height=”250″ frame=”simple” align=”right”]http://www.startsateight.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/HSV-Garden-Challenge-250-copy.jpg[/image]
Yay! I am so excited that the Homeschool Village is doing their Garden Challenge again this year! We participated last year, and it was so much fun not only gardening, but chronicling our progress too!
Here are their Participation Rules: since we are a homeschool community here to encourage homeschoolers we are asking that only current homeschooling families participate. Please always link your posts back to our site so your homeschool friends can participate too!
TODAY sponsored by Master Books: link up a blog post and let us know what your plans are for your garden.
(we define “garden” as any space where you are breaking ground and planting. So if you have a few herbs, a tomato bucket, or an acre of beans – just let us know).
The fun part of gardening is planning where, when, and what you’ll plant. Do you have a lesson to go along with your garden? What books do you want to read together?
** Please know – your garden progresses when & how you want it to not by our schedule. **
[sep]
There is never really anything for us to report in March, and even April here in NY. Last year was a big year as we expanded our one 4×4 square foot garden into 2 4×8 raised bed gardens. Due to the increase in space, and a favorite book of Ava’s, Pumpkin Jack, we decided to try and grow pumpkins on one side of our garden.
So after we were done with our pumpkins in November, we dumped them out in our garden with the hopes of growing pumpkins of our own. That is what I decided to take a photo of for our March posting here. I went out to the garden to check on our pumpkins. As you can see in the photo they have pretty much totally rotted away. Hopefully some of the seeds have found their way down into the soil so that they make take root and start growing!
[sep]
The next link up is Thursday April 26th sponsored by Apologia. Link up & share your progress! Did you “break ground” or still growing starter plants? Are the kids excited, do you see any buds, or are you fighting army worms?
April 3, 2012 @ 10:27 am
What a fun, fun, fun idea! I was reading a statistic recently about the number of children who know how to garden. It was pretty dismal. I think knowing how to raise one’s own food is a VERY important skill. A necessary skill. Thank you for challenging that statistic. And for sharing with us on NOBH!
Diane
April 3, 2012 @ 9:31 pm
Thank you Diane! I am sure that the kids and I could learn plenty from all of your experience on the ranch!
April 4, 2012 @ 7:21 pm
Fun ideas and I want to do a garden similar to yours. Thanks for posting on this subject.
April 4, 2012 @ 9:04 pm
Thank you LeAnn. If you click on my link to our garden challenge posts from last year, there are many tips and things that we used to create ours. I own the book SquareFoot Garden as well. It was really helpful, and we used the “soil” mixture they recommended as well.
April 5, 2012 @ 1:32 pm
love it – so glad you wanted to participate again (but am I missing you on the link up??)
April 5, 2012 @ 5:26 pm
LOL! Yes Stef I somehow managed to forget to “link up”! Thanks for noticing! I am linked up now! 🙂
April 5, 2012 @ 8:57 pm
What a fun experiment to do with your daughter(?)! I love how books inspire learning. 🙂 I planted a jack-o-lantern pumpkin last year and was amazed at the amount of vine it put out! You may think about trying to trellis it to keep it from overwhelming your space. I had a pumpkin hanging off from one of my tomato cage (2+ ft off the ground) last year. I supported it with a sling as I was afraid the weight would damage the stem. Worked great and gave me the idea of trellising other heavy produce this year. I look forward to seeing how many pumpkins start from your experiment! 😀
April 5, 2012 @ 9:08 pm
Stacey (The Full Circle Gardener) thank you so much for the great tip. We vined beans, tomatoes and cucumbers last year but I never thought of doing so with pumpkins. IF we get anything out of the pumpkins I will keep this in mind!