Sunflowers and Pumpkins

We have a few more sunflowers!

This one is from our Mammoth plant. It is about as tall as I am. I was expecting one giant flower at the top. The flower is big, but not giant, and there are many more getting ready to bloom on this plant. I'm not complaining!

This one is from our Autumn Beauty set of seeds. It is fun to see the different colors.

We have a few more plants getting ready to bloom. We also have some morning glory getting ready to flower. I look forward to meeting them all! 

Here is what my kids are excited about: pumpkins!

We planted a hill of small pumpkins. We have lots of them growing! It's a good exercise for my kids to go count them. We especially love that they are growing up the fence!

What do your kids especially love about your garden?

Sunflower House Trial One

Our plans for a children's garden always included a sunflower house. I think the kids were almost as excited about this plan as I was. When the weather warmed up we plotted our site, dug in some compost, and planted three types of sunflowers.

I gave free rein to my expectations because sunflowers are easy to grow, right?

We waited. The weather turned cooler. The corn started to grow, but only one sunflower had popped up some leaves. We waited a little longer, then replanted. We waited some more and got some growth, but nothing like what we planted. Nothing ever grew along the back wall of the house. Below is a picture of our sunflower house. Not much of a house, is it?

Our first sunflower bloomed yesterday. I adore it so I gave it lots of attention with the camera this evening.

We have a few others getting ready to bloom. Our one and only mammoth sunflower to grow has five heads on it. I really look forward to their entrance.

I intend to dig up the back wall of the house to see if I can find any seeds. If they are there we will try germinating the seeds before they go in the ground next year. If they are gone we will cover the seeds next year to protect them from pests. I suspect they are stubbornly lurking in the soil.

My kids are delighted by our sunflower. They seem to have forgotten that it was ever supposed to be a house. They also seem to have forgotten they used to play in the dirt here. They have moved on to a new location that is mostly shaded so they aren't sitting in the sun all day. So there is the silver lining in the cloud of disappointed expectations.

Next year is a whole new chance to try again. And we will!

Crocus and Chionodoxa

Here are some more pictures. I still love the yellow crocus, and I'm really enjoying the chionodoxa that were thrown in with my order. They are sort of blue-veined on the outside. Delightful.

I planted some bulbs last fall and have been eagerly waiting their arrival. Here are some pictures of the ones that have popped up so far. (I forgot to turn macro on for the second shot, so I'll have to try again.) They are a happy sight! I really like the yellow crocus with the Dragon's Blood sedum. I look forward to seeing the next group of bulbs pop up.

We spent the weekend trench edging our hedge bed per this tutorial from Funky Junk Interiors. Fabulous results. I will have to take a picture to share once I finish weeding! We also added dirt to all our garden boxes to get them ready for planting. Our next task is to clear the children's garden of rocks and the old weed block fabric the previous owners put down.

I have so many projects I want to work on, but a limited amount of money to spend on them and a baby due to arrive this summer so our focus will be doing better with what we already have. The hedge bed is already better than ever, the children's garden I know will be great, and I plan to plant and eat from our garden all summer long. Right now we are just waiting for our asparagus to show up so we can start!

What do you have planned for your garden this year?

My Beloved Birdfeeder

This is our first winter with a bird feeder up in the yard. It sits in the tree outside our kitchen window. It took a while for birds to hear about it, and I was happy when there were six house finches frequenting it.

Well, we just refilled with a new seed blend, and today I counted 25 birds at our feeder! It fits four to five on the feeder, and then they dump a bunch on the ground. Lots more birds feed there, and lots sit up in the tree, acting as lookout or maybe waiting for their turn. Most of these birds are house finches, which is amazing to me. It seems like a large population of the same type of bird to be feeding at the same place. I guess I thought they would be more territorial, especially since they seem to move in pairs.

Today I saw two new birds. So exciting! I am no expert, but I watched them in my binoculars and flipped through my bird book in an effort to identify them. The first one has a dark head, light beak, and lighter body. I decided it is probably a black-headed junco. The other had a tan body, a little lighter on the underside, and dark at the ends of its wings and tail feathers with white stripes on them. Looking closer I saw patches of soft yellow on its body and decided it is likely a goldfinch, though I couldn't say which type.

I have always loved house finches since first identifying one in Maryland six years ago. I love their beautiful red throats and their lovely song. But I am thrilled to be seeing and getting to know a few other types of birds. Watching these birds is good for my winter blues, and definitely worth the cost of the birdseed!


Friday starts the next Great Backyard Bird Count. I plan to participate this year. Do you?

Finches at our feeder before we added the new seed

Gardening for Hummingbirds

So I have been thinking about the children's garden I plan to plant next year a lot today. I think the kids would love to see hummingbirds and butterflies hanging around our garden, and I know I would! So here is what I have learned, starting with gardening for hummingbirds.

Here in Utah we commonly get broad-tailed hummingbirds and black-chinned hummingbirds. The rufous hummingbird also visits during its fall migration. I read here that it has been conjectured that hummingbirds cover every square meter of the U.S. looking for food (which is amazing to me and explains why my mom gets hummingbirds to her feeder relatively high on the balcony of an apartment complex in the middle of a city).

Recommendations are to place multiple feeders around the yard so no one bird can claim them all. Of course, cleaning the feeders and providing the nectar will require diligence. Also recommended is to provide some sort of dripping or misting water for birds to bathe in.

The question of what to plant is a difficult one. There are many plants offered up as good hummingbird attractors. I would like to plant mostly native plants. I have a lot more research to do here, but I am finding the question of what is native to my area is not as easy to answer as I thought it would be!

This spring I will definitely put up some hummingbird feeders. I will also choose two or three plants to add for their enjoyment. I hope we get hummers!

We Begin

I don't know much about gardening, except that I love it. But don't tell my four-year-old that! She likes to sit by my side and watch whatever gardening task I am doing, helping out when she can, and telling me things like, "You're great at gardening!" or "We're making a great garden!" I love our garden, too. I find great satisfaction in looking at our garden plants and eating from our crops. And I love to plan and try new things to come.

I love watching our kids in the garden. The purpose of this blog is to document our family's interaction with the garden and to watch the most important of our garden crops - our little ones. This next summer we plan to put in a children's garden on the side of our yard. So I have all winter to think and to plan.

This blog is a place to record my plans and how they turn out. It will include resources and observations on gardening and family.

Thanks for reading!