Tag: dirt

Planting Peas – Part 2

peas in a line

Had some fun a few weeks ago planting these pea plants out in the garden and am just getting around to posting about it.  This is the follow up post to Planting Peas – Part 1 that I posted early on this spring!

Teaching kids where food comes from is important in my family.  Growing up my parents and grandparents always had gardens and grapevines.  My parents raised chickens and we got eggs.  They raised goats and we got cheese.  They raised a cow each year and each year we filled our freezer with meat.  With my kids we will start with peas, soon we will be planting my little patch of garden with tomatoes, cucumbers and squash.  And my pear tree is looking promising too!

Lucas loved digging in the dirt. He especially loved his Mickey Mouse gardening gloves!

Lucas loved digging in the dirt. He especially loved his Mickey Mouse gardening gloves and gardening tools!

I love that he is learning where food comes from!

I love that he is learning where food comes from!

Alaina had lots of fun too!

Alaina had lots of fun too!

We will keep you posted!

 

Planting Peas – Part 1

many plants

My kids love peas! They especially love Sugar Snap Peas.  For a regular week night dinner, I am not opposed to popping a frozen bag of steamed veggi’s in the microwave.  We probably have steam in the bag veggi’s 3x per week in the winter.  But, when spring comes, I can’t help but get the gardening bug!  I am so tired of the dreary weather that winter brings and living in the Northeast, this year is a prime example of how nasty winter weather can be.  But, I digress.

Spring is a happy time.  A time of green!  This year, I decided to get my kids involved.  My son is loving this gardening project.  We planted a whole garden full of veggi’s in our front bay window.  (Our dog’s favorite spot to lounge out… Sorry Rocky!)

Peas are a GREAT starter vegetable if you’ve never planted a garden before.  And an especially great one if you’re getting your kids involved.  They germinate quickly and give you lots and lots of yummy veggi goodness in not such a long time.  And if you are in the northern part of the country, they are one of the first plantable plants outside.  They are actually considered a spring veggi as they don’t do so well in the extreme heat of summer.  Peas are a wonderful source of Vitamin K, fiber, manganese, B-1 (all the B’s really) and Vitamin C to name a few!

Today, I will show you a little of how we have started our garden.  Disclaimer… Peas normally get planted right outside, but we wanted to start early and inside when it was much too cold, so I’ll show you how we will remedy that at the end.

dirt

We started with some ‘starter soil’ that is good for seeding your own vegetation. Placed that in a recyclable paper pot.

peas

We put two little peas in the dirt. My son loved this part!

small plant

It took about a week before we saw a little green coming up through the dirt. And about 5 weeks later we saw this.

big plants

A week later we saw this!  Peas are vine growers, and these are ready to start grabbing on to something!

lucas

My son reminds me every day that we need to water the plants. (No, that is not actual spring water he is watering with… we recycled the bottle and it gives him a lot of control over where the water ends up)

lucas2

Our next step, is to bring the plants outside each day this week and plant them next week sometime…  Stay tuned!