My Garden Has Grown!!!

It looks like a jungle!

In my mind I was going to grow a nice, small garden in a tidy box, but the tomatoes have taken over. Of course I found out that there are determinate and indeterminate plant types AFTER I planted an indeterminate (read: garden taker over) type. Rookie mistake. But-- I'm excited to report that my first tomatoes should be ready to eat in about a week. I already see some beginning

to turn color:

Can you see a couple of the tomatoes in there that are yellowish? YAY!

My other box is a little neater:

The green beans are coming along nicely and thankfully I grew bush beans so they won't climb all over my fence. They should stay fairly easy to maintain. And I'm really proud of my lettuce because I honestly thought my lettuce wouldn't grow. When I was planting the lettuce, the seeds were so tiny that I decided to just dig a trench and dump half the packet in the soil. My "iceberg" lettuce looks suspect to me, like maybe the seed packet was mislabeled. I tasted it, and it tastes funny and has a bitter aftertaste. But, overall, I'm pleased. And all this garden growing has led to some positive changes in the household. 

VEGGIE EATING GROWTH CHALLENGE!!!

Big Bro has been a picky eater for some time. For a while he refused to eat anything that was the color green, in fear that it might be a vegetable. We've had our battles and I resorted to blending his veggies into a smoothie. He, of course, caught on (I actually suspect Big Sis told him) and so even his smoothie drinking habits have been ho-hum. But that seems to be changing. 

Today, while we were out running errands, we were discussing how, in general, kids grow over the summer and he mentioned that he expected to be a certain height by the time school started. My immediate response to my kids when they talk about growing is "if you eat your food you'll grow faster and taller" (Big Sis was a picky eater when she was younger as well). Well today, Big Bro was in eager agreement. I jumped on it and told him that I was thinking about making sure I eat veggies at least twice a day everyday so I could be healthy-- and then I asked him if he'd like to join me. He thought about it for a split second and then agreed. Ecstatic and eager to implement our new commitment, I casually mentioned that the garden he helped me grow was starting to produce. I told him that we should make a green smoothie from the greens in our yard for a snack, and that I'd make sure to cook lasagna rolls with spinach for dinner so we could get our greens in today. Before he could complain about the lasagna rolls, I offered to let him make a healthy frozen treat for dessert. And he agreed to that too! 

When we got home, I immediately took him to the yard to cut some of the lettuce. I told him to cut what we needed and that we would use everything he cut. Surprisingly, he wasn't shy. He even stuffed an extra handful of spinach I had in my refrigerator in the blender, in addition to the handful and a half that I added. I don't know if he is truly motivated by wanting to be taller, or if he is just happy to be doing something with me by himself. Whatever it is, we have a plan and we're both excited about it. 

Big Bro writing our smoothie
recipe so we don't forget the
ingredients.

The Growing Smoothie recipe
(named by Big Bro)

And he made a healthy frozen treat too! Frozen yogurt pops with carrots as sticks. We made a modified version of this recipe we saw on one of the kid TV networks the other day. I cut the strawberries and carrots, but he did all the mixing, pouring, and carrot sticking. They took about an hour to freeze.

And Big Bro is very pleased with the result:

We marked the calendar and took some measurements so hopefully he'll take it pretty seriously. I'm happy to have him on board, even if it's just for today. 

June 28, 2015- 48" tall

 

June 28- Veggie Eating
Growth Challenge
Day 1 

July 28- Veggie Eating Growth
Challenge Final day