Clemmy Helps Dad in the Garden

On Boxing Day (Dec 26 - No idea what boxing has to do with anything) we did a little gardening.  Our garden came with many attractive ornamental plants but we've opted to remove most of them in favor of space for more vegetables.  The soil here is pretty crappy and filled with building rubble but we've planted a summer crop anyway so we'll hope for the best.  

We're doing the usual: beans, tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, broccoli, tomatillo, Anaheim chiles and snow peas.  The caterpillars are really bad this year and have cleared out most of the broccoli and peas.  I don't know what to do with them other than go pick them off every morning.  We've planted spinach twice but it kept going to seed before we could eat it.  I plant Anaheims and tomatillos every summer to try and keep my southwest heritage alive but I don't think our summer is long/hot enough to get a really great crop from either plant.  I started out with two tomatillos this year and Clem has removed one already.  She also picked one of two baby green tomatoes yesterday.   

Between Clementine's love of rooting and the pests, our garden is not off to the best start this summer.  We keep on anyway.  Getting fresh veggies is obviously the best payoff of the garden but we really do it because we have so much fun fussing over it together.  When we were out removing the last of the ornamentals yesterday she "helped" by copying everything we did: picking up and throwing bits of brick we dug up, helping Mom move the piles of weeds to the compost, digging with a hand shovel and sweeping.    

  

Here's the last of the day's chores, potting some basil and cilantro.  I've tried cilantro in every garden we've ever done and it either dies or goes to seed too quickly.  I'm trying it in a pot this summer in hopes that it will stick around a little longer.  

(No idea why there needs to be such a big space between this picture and the ones before it.  I hate autoformatting!!)

Practicing "soft" by touching the basil.

Helping Dad put the soil in the pot.

"I'm helping.  I'll smush my pot into this basil."

Clementine continues to help by picking up handfuls of soil and putting them on top of the plants.  Then she moved on to just throwing her handfuls on the ground.

"I'm bored Dad.  I want that thing over there!"

We have a ton of these plastic pots around and Clementine loves to play with them.

And a little cuddle for Mama.  She doesn't usually have the patience for much cuddling, she'd rather be rummaging or exploring something.

Look at that little tooth!

I'm so pleased Clem loves the garden as much as we do.  She could spend all day out there digging and putting things in her little seedling pots.  We're hoping for many days like this in the years to come.