Our Wee Garden, How it Grows!

Our little Martin family garden is growing! It's my first time growing my own vegetables and every day brings delight with some little new growth or tendril or teeny green tomato. Peter continues to love our daily ritual of watering the plants. The hose is probably his favorite toy (of things he's allowed to touch, that is). Here's a little photo update of some of our garden crops: 

An inviting radish

Beans and grape tomatoes climbing our trellis. 

(I don't know if I've mentioned, but part of our eagerness to have a trellis on the side fence was to obscure the shoddy fence itself. It's already an improvement, I think.)

The raised bed, home to some climbing sugar snap peas, 4 basils, cilantro, 

and some transient mint plants.

 The hyperactive tendrils of the climbing snap peas. You can practically see them wrapping.

 Spinach (our slowest-growing crop) and spring onions

Squash

Our big tomatoes

Green pepper

 Cherry tomato seedlings grown on the windowsill

More basil

Aaaaand...The first vegetable harvest! 

Peter's Been Doing...

This boy is a menace in his walker. 

When he's not trying to steal fruit, he is chasing the cat, chasing me and maniacally running over my feet, stealing the dish towels, and anything else he can get his hands on, and that's just the kitchen. We are teaching him, "No," and the kitchen is probably the biggest classroom for that word. Here's some footage:

Charging for the iPhone:

Stealing a tomato

He did actually eat one the other day. I heard a squish and he had stuck his thumb in and was prying it open and smushing and slurping it. So I took it, mashed it a bit, and gave it back to him. Voila, his first tomato. 

Here's a little stop-action sequence of Peter accosting poor Leu. She has learned to flee.

Giving a morning yawp; toting away the hand towel.

In other news:

Feeding himself cheerios and puffs. 

I must put him out of the kitchen to use the dishwasher. Since the bottom of his walker can go under the door, he can roll right into it and help himself. The silverware is the favorite. 

This other shot demonstrates Peter's propensity of late to lunge and reach. He's strong, quick, and heavy, and one must be on guard at all times, as he has no fear of the consequences.

On a more idyllic note:

With his fire truck

 All's well and good when he's sitting up, but he's not mobile yet, and sometimes cruel Mommy uses the fire truck as bait to help him practice. 

Frustration, thy name is gravity.

One of our daily rituals is that Peter is plopped down in the grass while I water the veggie springlings. He watches (especially enamored with the hose) and plucks the grass and sometimes gets to play with the hose. But once in a while we bring our yard towel and some toys in the big shiny bowl and have a little outdoor play time. Hooray for spring!

Growing things

There are lots of things growing around here. Here's my favorite:

I like the little boy, too.

 But seriously, I love this cushy green play mat of a teeny backyard. 

I plop Peter down in the middle of it every day when I water all our little springlings. I love it; he at least likes it. We are starting our third summer in this house, and finally we have our little yard and garden.  Since we're going all out with a bunch of veggies this year, and don't have a ton of space, I created this little map for our planning--gives an idea of what we're working with:

The view from our stairs:

Add this one to the left of the above, and you get the full panorama.

And here's a closer look at the dirt. Several weeks ago we sowed some seeds and...

Little beans are emerging.

Cilantro and wee green onions...

Our radish patch:

Our mint, and a few others that I salvaged upon digging it all up after it took over the world, as--I found out too late--mint is wont to do. Anne, one pot is yours. 

Sugar snap peas, seen here in our raised bed, will be growing up a trellis on the side of the chimney.

The Malabar Spinach (which will grow up a trellis on the side fence) and sweet peas have yet to show themselves. Here at the kitchen window in a punctured ice cube tray are cherry tomato seedlings and the beginning shoots of the red pepper seeds I kept a few weeks ago after sautéing their mama.

 And yesterday we used up a groupon on the rest of our crop: A green pepper plant, lots of varieties of tomatoes, and--leave it to Tom--5 types of basil.  

HOORAY for tomatoes and basil. So that's what we're working on this spring. I can't wait until Peter is old enough to sow and water his little seeds, wait patiently, and be thrilled when they finally emerge. I'm grateful to, and in awe of, the Author of Life who, in power and gentleness, makes little plants and little boys grow.