Posted by Laurie | May 19th, 2009

Last year we planted a vegetable garden for the first time. It was an exciting adventure for us, I had loved helping my grandpa in the garden when I was a kid, although it sure seemed like never-ending work! So when we decided to have a garden last year we looked into a special method that would allow us to grow a great garden with far less time necessary to work on it. It’s called square foot gardening and it’s really worth checking out (Frugal Dad has a great post about starting a square foot garden!)

So this we planned on doing our planting for our second year of square foot gardening. We doubled the number of squares we are planting – last year we started small and had only 3 squares, this year we have six. Each of our “squares” is a 4×4, so we have 16 planting squares in each square. Some items will be planted in several squares (we’ll have several squares of potatoes for example), some will just need one (like the sunflower square).

This is  what our garden looks like right now.  It’s just the bare bones though – no seeds added yet! Sunday was our planned big day for planting but if you look at this picture, you’ll see why we are on hold!

Sucks to live in Alberta sometimes! Ok, I love living here, but am really, really, really tired of winter! We also bought a new apple tree to plant and it was sad seeing its little blossoms covered in snow.

My boys love helping in the garden and besides being a fun family activity I think it’s a fabulous way for them to really learn about the work needed for food to come to our table, growing cycles, etc. Big Boy picked out sunflowers to plant (last year too – he loved watching it get nice and tall!) Little Boy is excited about pumpkins and Baby Boy just likes the dirt, lol.

My garden offers a special benefit to me as a work-at-home mom. It forces me to take a bit of time during the day to go outside in the sun, breathe the fresh air and pull a few weeds. Getting your hands dirty can do wonders for you mentally, especially when you spend far too much time cuddled up with your laptop! I love my work a little too much I sometimes think, I don’t walk away from it quite enough. Summers are not all that long here in Alberta (obviously since we’re only able to plant our gardens in mid-late May!!) and it’s really important to appreciate them, well I think it is anyway! And having fresh vegetables to eat at the end of it all is a great benefit.

Do any of you other work at home mamas garden in the summer? Flowers, vegetables, whatever? Or are you busy enough “growing” your children and business, lol?

Tags: Boys Boys Boys, dirt, flowers, garden, growing, kids, laptop, mama, mom, square foot gardening, sunshine, vegetables, work at home