Garden Inspector

Since we are not able to benefit from Grandpa B's garden this year, we decided to try our own.  Our soil here in Grand Rapids is not like Iowa soil so we decided to go with garden boxes following the "Square Foot Gardening" approach.  With this method you can control your soil content.  Maybe we will even attempt our own composting.  (Doesn't that sound really homeschooly and earthy?)  What we didn't realize is that there is a garden inspector that comes around to check things out.  The young fella that came to the door was quite short, but pretty cute.  He had pen and paper and looked pretty official.   His verdict after the "inspection"?  Everything looked good except a couple of strawberry plants and Lydia's transplanted bean plants.  Whew--I think we passed!

The Inspector--I told you he was short1

We planted tomatoes, a few cucumbers (for Nickles Pickles), cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, peppers, onions, carrots, beans, peas, and a whole box for strawberries.    Since these pictures were taken we have had a few hungry bunnies, so we put a short fence around the entire area.  We also have lots of pears on our pear trees and apples on our apple tree.  The squirrels have been eating our little pears so we had to get tough with them.  We set up a squirrel eating center way in the back yard away from the pear trees.  Real tough, I know, but so far it seems to be helping.  We also noticed that our backyard neighbors have a huge mulberry tree that hangs halfway in our yard with lots of mulberries on it.  The kids are excited about picking (eating?) those too.   Now if we can just learn all of my dad's tricks for keeping garden pests away, spraying apple trees, etc. so we can have a bountiful harvest...