Thanks for your concerned emails regarding my two-week blogging hiatus. We were enjoying a family road trip/reunion in Boulder, CO. Pictures of that will be up soon.
In the meantime we are enjoying some post vacation relaxation...and tomatoes!
We also started some beans, romaine lettuce, watermelons, heirloom and cherry tomatoes and more spinach. The spinach and sugar snaps we planted a few weeks back are doing really well, especially considering how cold it has been the last few weeks.
I plan on picking up a small mint plant this weekend, if weather permits. I like the fresh mint in my juleps and mojitos... I mean, I like the mint in my iced tea.
Franklin help pour the water over the starter soil pellets, but his interest faded fast. Vincent likes to see the process through to the very end. 
Coco watched and waited...for a snack.
We need to plant the bed in the front yard too. We ripped out the bushes that were there last spring because they attracted bees, and have yet to decide what we should plant.
I am torn between some climbers or flowering bushes.
The roses are thriving and the boys love to announce each bushes progress by counting the buds. I also would like some window planter boxes.
What is going into your garden this spring?
Last spring, Patrick built a Square Foot Garden in the side yard. The boys loved it. We tended our garden three times a week and had a crazy successful first harvest with delicious homegrown tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, beets, radishes, romaine, bell peppers, and a very small watermelon. We made lots of yummy things with our yield. We also planted brussel sprouts. Patrick was pleased when they were a total flop.
For 2011 we decided to start early with a winter crop. This afternoon we planted two kinds of spinach, Sugar Snap peas, and swiss chard. All should be ready to harvest before Easter.
While we were planting our seeds Vincent asked a question that I thought was pretty conceptually deep for a four year old.
He said, “Mom, if I were a seed what kind of a seed would I be?”
A good mother would probably have seized this window of opportunity and explained to him that he started off much like a seed...
I am NOT that mother, so I replied that I thought he was corn, because he has hair the color of corn silks, and he is tall, and very, very, very sweet. That was pretty quick of me, huh? He seemed to like this description.
In turn, I asked Vincent what kind of seed I would be. (Meanwhile, Frankie is happily squirting ants, and occasionally the dogs, with the spray bottle.) Vincent thought for a minute and said, “Broccoli,” because my “eyes are green like broccoli,” and because he “loves broccoli,” and it is his, “favorite, just like Mom is my favorite”.
Our next crops will include broccoli and corn. Patrick may have to build another box.
Have you read the book The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein? I would guess you have as it is very popular in most first grade classrooms. Simply put, the seemingly simple story chronicles a boy growing up and his changing relationship with an apple tree. It starts like this:
“Once there was a tree... and she loved a little boy. And every day the boy would come and he would gather her leaves and make them into crowns and play king of the forest. He would climb up her trunk and swing from her branches and eat apples. And they would play hide-and-go-seek. And when he was tired, he would sleep in her shade. And the boy loved the tree....very much. And the tree was happy.”
As the story continues, the tree gives of herself to the boy until there is nothing left of the tree but a stump. Even then the tree offers her stump to the boy to rest.
Literary scholars have debated the meaning of the story. Some say that it is a story of greed- greed of the boy who continually takes from the tree. Others see it as a commentary on childhood in that a child’s needs and desires get more complex as he grows. Still others see it as a love story- one about a mother’s selfless giving to her child, to the point of depleting all her resources, and still loving the child in the end.
I like to believe the last interpretation.
We have our own giving tree in the back yard. It is an orange tree. Every fall it develops fragrant, milky white buds. Come January, the sweetest, juiciest oranges are begging to be picked. The tree produces so much we always have enough oranges to share with family and friends.
A few of her branches climb over into our elderly neighbor’s yard. I have offered to have his side trimmed back but he refuses. The tree gives to Jerry as well.
Our tree has seen her share of abuse. Franklin likes to whack at her with sticks, and swords. Vincent will pick her fruit before it is ripe. Rain water will puddle up around her base after a storm, leaving the soil surrounding it mucky for days. The dogs have peed on her trunk.
Yet, the tree still gives. Much like a mother.
And the family was happy.
