Organic really is better.

That way you can eat whatever it is, right there in the middle of the garden.

The deepest kind of love is the one that starts with fun and play.

So play outside and fall in love with the trees and the soil and worms and the sky. Your relationship with our earth will be one of the best and most important relationships you will have.

Just because it can sting you, doesn't mean it will.

Watching Ben crouched down among the lavender, intently staring at the bees as they settle from flower to flower, their wings humming around his earnest face, reminds me that calm and trust earns much greater rewards than panic and fear.

On hot days it is much more fun to squirt your toes* than to water the vegetables.

*or your mother's toes.  or your baby sister's toes.

What's Growing - Early April

Bok Choy just started.

Strawberries under bell jars.

Fennel which I can't seem to kill.  Made the awful mistake of allowing it to self seed, thinking we would eat the fennel bulbs.  Why did no one tell me that digging up fennel bulbs is harder than pulling out poke weed?  Despite being able to carry over 50 combined lbs of child up multiple flights of stairs, I can't pull out fennel to save my soul.

Also in the ground: brussel sprouts, cauliflower, romaine, snap pea seeds.

Other herbs that have poked through or come back alive for spring: chives, sage, lavender, thyme, mint

What's growing where you are?

Pulling weeds together in the cool early morning hours helps soften the fact that every day the three year old will insist on getting up at the crack of dawn.

Coffee helps, too. 

But honestly, even before he was born, being in the garden with a cup of coffee, pulling weeds before the heat of the day, was my favorite way to spend a morning.  So now I have some company :)

There is no better tasting water than the stuff that flows out of the garden hose.

In fact, it is so good that instead of drinking from an ice cold cup,  he will try to catch the random drips from the leaky outside faucet.

I guess (hope) that this is helping build his immune system and strengthening his stomach for surviving camping in the wild and trips to all manner of foreign lands.

Mr. McGregor

While prepping the herb bed, I discovered a rabbit's nest.  With two baby bunnies in it.  They are living directly under the chives. I don't know if this adds to my moral dilemma (which is:  keep them where they are and sacrifice a bunch of my plants to their rapacious appetites or move the nest and hope the babies survive in some new, far away location), but I found the rabbits on Easter.

Suppose I will need to consult the three year old.  Feel pretty sure that he will insist we keep them.

So long to my early crops.  Bon appetite Peter Rabbit.

Or...

I'd love to hear what you think we should do about the nest.  Please comment!

Quick and practical lessons in mortality.

Earth worms? Good.
Bees? Good.
Grubs? Swiftly sent to the Great Garden in the Sky.

Mommy, Can I Sit up 'dere?!

Plum trees in bloom. Climbing them is a new and intense fascination.