Firsts from the Garden

We are not gardeners and don't really know what we are doing but we have a nice big backyard to grow things in now and decided to plant a number of things this spring in hopes of a good turn out later.

In March I let each of the kids pick out a packet of seeds we planted them in little cups to get them started before putting them into the ground. Sophie picked Morning Glories a lovely flower that I urged her toward because I really like them. Ian picked Sunflowers, Molly really wanted pumpkins and Henry picked cucumbers. I decided we would need some tomatoes. I didn't get seeds I got starter plants of a few different varieties. The 8 fruit trees are my husband's experiment.

The birds and bugs are pretty relentless so despite starting them in cups many of our plants didn't end up surviving. None of the pumpkin plants made it. Poor Molly is disappointed. But everything else seems to be taking root and growing pretty well. 

Here is my tomato patch. 

 The first pickings. Molly quickly claimed the largest one and ate it like an apple.

 There are many more to come!

 Here are the Morning Glories. These two plants are doing pretty well. The one on the left especially seems healthy.

 There are two more late planted morning glory plants that we hope will take off soon. These are great climbers so we are going to need a lattice or something soon to help support them or else they may take over the fence they are near.

 Henry's cucumbers are still a mystery. They seem to be growing very slowly. We still hope they will produce some nice vegitables but for now we are just happy they aren't dead.  Molly's pumpkin plants would get about this big and then suddenly shrivel up and die. We still haven't figured out exactly why.

 The Sunflowers are tall!

 And the flowers are starting to bud. We have high hopes of some nice big sunflowers.

 I went out this morning and noticed a lovely blue Morning Glory greeting the early sunshine.

 And I noticed a lot of other buds just about to bloom.

Our garden is flurrishing in some ways and struggling in others. I keep reminding the kids this is all an experiment as we learn how to tend our garden. But having done little to prepare the soil for our plants I guess we have done pretty well to get anything to grow.