Kitchen’r Garden Update: The Move Outside

Kitchen'r Garden 0 Comments

Things here in Kitchener/Waterloo are just starting to warm up.  Yesterday was one of the first truly no-glove days for the boys and I.  It was great!  We walked downtown (yes, we live in a place where life can be loved mostly without a car!), met Madame at her work around lunch hour, ran a few errands, got some great coffee (and a great explanation of pour over) from Death Valley’s Little Brother , and sat in the square watching the skateboarders do tricks.

The weather was a huge improvement from the day before when we went out back to plant the first few seedlings of the year.  We transplanted the kale, one type of lettuce, “Mibuna†mustard, and broccoli.  We rent our house so we’re not making too many investments in the soil here, just kind of seeing what we can grow with what is already available to us.  Lucky for us there is already a garden area fenced off with fairly decent-looking soil so it seems we should do okay.  We’re just not going to do tons of extra work on it since we don’t know how long we’ll stay in this home.

The plants are definitely getting crowded and lanky from being inside under a growlamp.  These next few weeks we will slowly be transferring them outside.  Lucky for us, our assistant is always eager to go outside and play in the dirt!

In general having young children in the garden is a bit of a balance between joy and stress for me.  I want my boys in the garden as much as possible and as long as they know what’s allowed and what isn’t things usually go fine.  It’s really no different than inside our house – certain cupboards in the kitchen are for playing in (the Tupperware cupboard) but others aren’t (the one with the food processor in it!).

Eventually after enough reminders Mr. E (our 1-year-old) will stay out of the places he’s not supposed to be.  Now I just need to teach him the same in the garden.  (He’s not pictured above because he was napping…).  I think this afternoon the boys and I will spend more time out there, weather permitting.  We’ll see how it goes!