My Brother's Radishes!!!

This past winter I convinced my brother he should grow a garden. He's a landscaper and great with plants and last year grew two enormous tomato plants. Why not, I urged, try and grow more of your own food.

We've chatted on and on about what he should grown, when he should sow seeds, etc.... A lot of this he was unfamiliar with. I planted my own radishes & spinach and then gave him some seeds for himself and told him what to do.

I've been looking at my garden lately, for some reason the spinach just didn't want to grow. They got to about 3 inches tall and literally stopped growing. Tomorrow I'm harvesting them all into one little green smoothie. The radishes are growing and the other day I picked a little one. Alas, it had already been chewed on by some critter or another. The other ones are slowly developing.

I got a call the other day from my brother wondering when he can pick his spinach. Because his, he says ARE 12 INCHES TALL......A FREAKING FOOT TALL!!!....... Oh and do I want some radishes because he has a bunch. Today when my husband was over there he sent me 3 beautiful LARGE radishes for my salad. I think he was showing off.

I guess you can teach a man to fish!

My Girl Gets In On The Act

After making some mixed flower planters for Mother's Day gifts, my girl asked me if she could have the leftover flowers for her tree house not in a tree (that's what she calls the tent platform on her swing set.) She proceeded to get out some pots and planted them herself. She then put on her finishing touches (as she called them) by putting all the plastic plant markers she could find in the 2 pots. Then she placed them in her "tree house" and watered them. Along with that she has marigolds and peas that she started in preschool. I'm thinking of a way I can make a small trellis in the platform so we can grow them in pots for her as they are actually pretty healthy plants!

Making Food Production a Family Affair!

My brother and I have come up with an AWESOME (I think) Mother's Day Gift for our mom!

He is building her a 4' x 8' raised bed with some scrap wood of and we are going to fill it with a small veggie garden for her. I have also already started a large rectangle planter of salad greens that is growing quite well.

My mom has never been a gardener but she does love her potted plants on the patio. She's good about caring for them and I imagine will be good about a veggie garden (especially one from her kids!) Ohhh....Great idea-I just had the thought to have my daughter make her a sign for it! She'll love it even more!

I just feel so strongly that people should learn to produce some of their own food. As soon as you have the garden, the rest is relatively easy-Water, weed & consume!

I've also been encouraging my brother, who is a landscaper, to grow some of his own food as well this year. So far he is off and running with peas, snow peas, radishes, lettuce, 2 brussles sprouts, broccoli and potatoes!