Victory Garden

We have joined the fad and decided to plant a small garden this year. We were actually thinking about doing this before it became popular (I promise) since we wanted to start eating more organic produce (which is really expensive in the store) and more locally grown produce (what is more local than your own back yard). We will still try to support the farmers market as well, but it is hard to drag two kids and our lazy selves downtown each week.
So we are going to start small (a four foot by eight foot raised bed) and see how it goes. Not only will we hopefully grow a few things to eat, but it should also be a fun learning experience for Kate. Above is our plan. The Marigolds, Nasturtium, and Sunflowers are "companion" plants that should help control bugs. We have started to grow what we can from seeds and will "direct sow" the other stuff in early to mid May. I built the raised bed yesterday and we filled it with dirt and planted lettuce seeds, some spinach seeds, some spinach plants we had been growing from seeds and some sunflowers Kate had been growing from seeds today. It was a fun family activity (Owen was sleeping, but we will let him get his hands dirty next time). Angela took some pictures, but they have not been downloaded yet. Hopefully we can get them posted soon as Kate was really cute with her shovel and rake.