More watering. More planting. More mud.

We started off the day strong at 9AM. Everyone was on board, making "maggot mats" for our broccoli and cabbage, and doing some final mud clob breaking up. We actually stayed fairly on task with our planting in the beginning. Jeremiah and Miriam had their own little section where Miriam was planting some wilting broccoli and Jeremiah was planting some little flowers he picked out. Ezekiel was my main helper but overall the first 2 hours were a beaut!

The cardboard under our seedlings are "maggot mats." We figured since we had killed a lot of cutworms while working our soil that maggot had to be close to. Our bible of kid's gardening said to make this things and place them around your plants such as broccoli and cabbage and cauliflower. We obliged. Also, a little tip we learned from a neighbor, use old carpets for your walkways to keep out weeds in the walkways. You can use straw/hay or plastic even, but carpets have remarkably stayed down really well on our windy site.

That white speck in the center of the photo is Ezekiel at the water spicket. I am standing with our site to my right. They actually cheerfully got water for the first two hours but after that cheer left and grumbling came. We had a sit down to talk about that toward our end and then they all cheerfully joined in the help once again.

As I mentioned after about two hours they were due for a break. What did they do? Dirt + Water = Beaver Dam. The walkway in front of our peas became the "perfect" place for their mud puddles and dam. At the snapping of this photo Jeremiah accidentally put his foot in the water but did not care one bit!

Right when it was time to go, I went to get Jeremiah again. This time he was completely stuck and could not get out. Can you see his shoes in there?

We made it though! Covered head to toe in mud (not dirt) and soaking wet from the waist down, but all are still smiling! What a day!

Things I learned today while gardening with kids...

1. Have a section just to make "however." I had dubbed this front section of our garden as just that and boy am I glad I did. Jeremiah wanted to on his own plant the flowers he picked out and Miriam too wanted to just do it. I was a lot less stressful for them then on the spacing, lining, etc. They could seriously do whatever they wanted and it was great! I gave them basic concepts, like how deep to big and the fact that spacing is helpful and such, but they did it and it looks great, scattered, but great!

2. Watering without a hose is doable. At least in the beginning, while their attentions were good and cheerful, they made great water gatherers. It really saved me a lot of time and the loved every minute of it. Plus, since we had read that we are supposed to water all the soil around our plants/seeds/seedlings as well, not just their rows, there is a lot of watering to do. Then, just knowing that we are supposed to water the whole area for a straight 15 minutes after our first planting it mad