kinderGARDENS Week 16 & prepping for fall!

Welcome to Week 16!

This week the kids got to do one of their favorite things: seed starting!

Seeds arrived for the fall garden this week. I ordered from a new company this time, and couldn't be more pleased with the results so far. Shipping was uber-fast, great prices on heirloom seeds and fantastic seed packet art along with a handwritten thanks on the invoice! Seems like a small company and their vision is something I would like to support. They also have some fantastic deals in their "clearance" section that are worth checking out - I stocked up on my favorite "Golden Wax" bush bean at $1 a packet! I also purchased my first packet of cover crop and will begin doing the beds this fall. Check out the Sustainable Seed Co. website if you want to know more about the company. Next we'll see how the germination goes and I will report back on that for a full review, I'm a big believer in spreading the word when I have a good experience with a small business!

Back in the spring, I stocked up on these bricks of seed starting mix, the small size is easy to store and keep on hand and at $1 a brick on clearance, quite a bargain! The kids were excited to try it out, we added water to the brick and watched it expand to 8 quarts of seed mix!

oh yeah, back to the kids!

The kids were in charge of filling the seed trays (what a mess!), and planting the seeds, I had to watch to make sure they didn't get mixed up!

Started for Fall:

Waltham Broccoli (free Hometown Seeds)

Piracicaba Broccoli (FEDCO)

Snowball Improved Cauliflower (Sustainable Seed Co.)

American Flag Leek (Sustainable Seed Co.)

Bleu De Solaize Leek (FEDCO)

Evergreen Long White Bunching Onion (old seed)

Bright Lights Swiss Chard (old seed)

Tango Lettuce (free Sustainable Seed Co.)

Val d'Orges Lettuce (Baker Creek)

Oregano (old seed)

Giant Italian Parsley (Baker Creek)

Those that are listed as old are from 2008, not sure if I will have any luck with them. I also ordered my fall peas, carrots, spinach, and Crimson Clover cover crop from Sustainable Seed, but those will be direct seeded.

Other kid events this week:

Kids built a scarecrow while I was mowing the lawn the other night!

Below is what happens when mom allows them to raid the kitchen cabinets:

Loch is my budding chemist!

One of the things the kids wanted to do for kinderGARDENS was to build their own "farm stand" for their play area. The 100º temps have completely put that project on hold, but this past week they have been on me about it and the temps have come down a bit, so our project this week will be for mommy to be able to find the tools we need for that - not an easy task and you will see why soon, I will have to devote an entire post on that adventure!

In case you ever wondered what goes into the standard care package that gets sent to the ship, here's a look! The kids always add their own artwork, and in this case Finn added his favorite cow to the box. I warned him that mail pallets get dropped into the ocean all the time and daddy might not have room for the cow and he may never see it again... didn't care, he said daddy NEEDED the cow! The food is stunningly horrible on the ship, all one color, all the same every day, and many times he doesn't get time to eat during the galley's scheduled hours, so extra munchies are always needed. We put in some homemade beef jerky and Finn was willing to part with some of his precious dehydrated strawberries.

The next week hopefully will bring construction of the Kids Farm Stand...

For updates on other participants' happenings, check out The Inadvertent Farmer blog and link party!