Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

We put up a new cold frame/greenhouse! Apparently there is snow in our forecast again later this week.  Here's to hoping that the forecast is wrong! All of the plants are in the first one, just one more to go! So- instead of blogging the rest of this week- I'll be in the garden.  Who knows how long our "heat" wave is going to last! 

 I am so excited to be co-hosting  this lovely BLOG HOP with The Usual Mayhem to get me energized and thinking spring! Today is my final post in this linky series all about some of the arts and crafts we have done for out in our garden! We have a rock garden right off of our front porch. I like to use it as an area to showcase some arts and crafts projects that we have made. Some of the projects are done with the children, and some of them are my own artistic endeavors. Stepping Stones Tutorial We make stepping stones every spring. Rather than using a kit- we make ours out of Portland cement and use some plastic fruit tray containers as molds. Many people have described our location based upon our street name and our stepping stones and colorful tire planters in our rock garden. More Stepping Stones Our rock garden has evolved over time- but has been a great place to collect all of the treasured rocks the children have found on our journeys. ...

It is hard to believe that it is really spring around here, with all of the recent snow fall! However, when you live in Upper Michigan- if you are going to have a good harvest- you need to think spring and garden even when the snow keeps falling! I am so excited to be co-hosting  this lovely BLOG HOP with The Usual Mayhem to get me energized and thinking spring!  I was raised on a hobby farm- and my dad taught me that you start your seedlings on St. Urho's Day, unless of course you are Irish- then you start them a day later on St. Patrick's Day.  Our sprouts have been doing exceptionally well- and we have 2 greenhouses up and running with all of the plants! You see- most of the time, when we plant with the children- we end up with A LOT of sprouts. Typically when I would put in 1 or 2 seeds- they often use 5 or 6. Then, when all of the seeds take- voila- massive amount of plants to separate and transplant. I think we have about 70 tomato plants going...

Our square foot garden is growing like CRAZY! (One of our sun flowers is somewhere between 9 and 10 feet tall! I think we need a ladder to measure!) The cauliflower is growing.... We have PUMPKINS growing vertically!!!! Fresh broccoli is also on the way! I would have never imagined that crowding things in a square foot garden would be so productive! Look at all of these fresh tomatoes! We've already harvested a couple of cucumbers, summer squash, and beans! YUM! Yeah for summer, and yeah for square foot gardening!