Mama Bean is KinderGARDENing (13)

We're taking a trip to the garden! Wheee! We've got our bucket of tools, and our bucket for gathering, and our sunglasses and hats, and our shorts and sandals, and a truck to keep us occupied *please keep him occupied* and we are going to GARDEN! See? This picture shows us following daddy to the garden. (Alternate interpretation: this picture shows us picking up rocks and clods of dirt and meandering everywhere except towards daddy and the garden.)

We're at the garden! Wheee! We've got our mosquito net and our blanket shade against the sun, and our hat and soother, and we're ready to relax and watch the FUN! See? This picture shows us sitting happy and sleepy in our bucket. (Alternate interpretation: this picture shows the calm before the storm of fussing and cranky whining between repeatedly spitting out my soother, before napping eventually in the sweet sun and wind, and mosquito free wonderment.)

We're picking radishes! Wheee! We're gonna pick them ALL! See? This picture shows us plucking beautiful orbs of perfect radish loveliness from the earth. (Alternate interpretation: this picture shows us barely beginning the 60 or so foot harvest of unthinned radishes, along with stunted cucumber plants and a ridiculous number of weeds. Please please ignore the weeds. I know I am...)

We're putting radishes in the bucket! Wheee! We're listening to instructions and gently placing radishes in the bucket, which is rapidly filling up after only the first 10 feet, and daddy has a meeting in less than an hour, so my helpfulness is really APPRECIATED! (Alternate interpretation: this picture may in fact show a radish being pulled out of the bucket, and it definitely shows the moment before said bucket being dumped over, and radishes rolling out, much to Bean's amusement. Not pictured: tools and gloves scattered throughout the garden after being pulled from the tool bucket. Also not pictured: ignored. toy. truck.)

We're almost done gardening! Wheee! I am sitting calmly while mommy starts to panic about having three shopping bags full of radishes that she doesn't even really like to EAT! This picture shows me pulling up weeds. (Alternate interpretation: he's not pulling up weeds. He's just... pulling up whatever's in his reach lol. But, it was keeping him happy, and the current condition of our garden ensures that almost everything within his reach is a weed, anyway. No harm, no foul. I wouldn't even have minded if he started pulling up kohlrabi, because it needs to be thinned.)

We're done picking radishes! Wheee! This is the perfect time to play with my TRUCK! This picture shows a few radish plants remaining, because lord know we need to leave a few for radishes down the road, in case we RUN OUT! (Alternate interpretation: I don't know why we left some plants, I think I told myself we were just thinning the rows, instead of decimating them to make room for the cucumbers, which are stalwartly refusing to grow taller than six inches. Also, I'm sorry to show so many pictures of the greens being wasted. If we'd kept the greens, we would have needed three garbage bags instead of shopping bags to get it all home. One bag went to friends, half a bag is in our fridge, and two other bags went to the local food bank this morning - 14.4 lbs to add to Kim's Grow to Give tally!)

This week's KinderGARDEN assignment is about colour - go check out everyone else's contributions to the rainbow. I am mostly proud for having pictorial proof that my kinder(s) came out to the garden plot and did things sort of garden-y while we were working, because for most of this year, we've been gardening alone, as in, one of us alone goes out and does garden work while the other stays with the kids. It was a nice exercise in building parenting confidence to see that we can indeed kinderGARDEN without major meltdowns or terribly destroyed plants/harvests. All in all, a successful week!