Our Gardening Adventure

The idea began with a Relief Society Activity. I was in charge of  teaching a short lesson about gardening in small spaces. I had to do some research for my lesson and it really didn't sound too difficult so we decided to try it. We got a large bin, drilled some holes in the bottom, put some small rocks and dirt inside and let the kids pick out some seeds and we planted our little garden.

Claire chose carrots, Everett chose brocolli, and I chose cantaloupe. It was super exciting when we saw them each sprout.

Around the same time, Claire brought home a sunflower plant she started growing at school. It was actually two sunflower plants that started in a small cup and we had to move them to an icecream container so they had more room to grow. We had no idea how much room they were going to need by the end. Everything started growing though and it was so exciting. When we planted the seeds, the packets told us to plant 4 or 5 seeds in a hole (so at least one would hopefully sprout). Well I think each seed sprouted and we soon realized our small bin was not going to fit all our plants. We ended up thinning them all out and moving the brocolli to another icecream container (we eat a lot of ice cream). 

It was fun to see the progression of our plants, especially the sunflowers and the cantaloupe!

We made some mistakes and hopefully we can say we learned from those mistakes but sadly our brocolli died, we're not sure if it was the transfer or the heat that did it, but it didn't make it. :( Part of the cantaloupe plant also died, but I think we were able to save it in the end. Kids loved coming with me to check on the plants and water them. Our sunflowers fell over a couple times from bad weather, and we had to transfer it again into a slightly larger pot. Only one of the sunflowers blossomed, probably cuz we just didn't have enough room for it to grow in that pot.  

Overall though, it was a fun adventure trying out and we'll have to try again some time with all our wisdom now. ;)

YUM! :)