A tiny garden project

I've got this spot at the back of my house where for some reason there is pea gravel instead of lawn. Not sure why my dad did that (we bought the house I grew up in from my parents when they retired and moved up north) but it's basically just been wasted space where weeds grow.

Last year, I put in a salad table and it went well, so I'm doing it again this year. I have visions of one day making that wasted space a pretty and useful garden area.

Well, yesterday, as Jordan took a nap, Logan and I were outside sitting on the deck stairs and we were kind of messing around with a pile of old rocks that were sitting there. We were picking them up one by one and checking out all the bugs we found (Logan LOVED the roly-poly pill bugs!). I started kind of stacking the rocks and ended up putting them in a ring between my salad table and the deck stairs.



"Hey!" I thought. "I could use this spot to put the extra little plants I need to thin out of the lettuce in my salad table. Maybe I could end up with even more lettuce for us to enjoy!"

So, I put some newspaper on the bottom of the ring in an attempt to keep the crabgrass and violets (more about those violets in an upcoming post!) from popping up.



Then I filled in the ring with about 60 pounds of potting soil (a bag and a half).



Finally, I used a tiny trowel to thin out some of the Grand Rapids lettuce plants I have in my salad table, and I also added some extra mixed lettuces I had started in Logan's window in peat pellets, just for fun.

by the way, this photo was taken after my well-intentioned son practically drowned the baby plants by helping water them with the watering can! They're kind of soggy, but I think they'll pop back up.



Before bed, I also put a little green wire fence around the garden. I don't know if it's high enough to keep the bunnies out, though. We'll see. I hope it doesn't become their personal salad bar. I want it to be MY salad bar! That reminds me, I want to get some radish seeds for Logan to plant there.

Also, I must mention, it is REALLY hard to get any gardening done with my kids. Jordan EATS ROCKS and dirt. I don't mean puts them in his mouth and spits them out. I mean he EATS them. Repeatedly. And for some odd reason, Logan was eating grass. Like chewing it up and swallowing it. What the heck?! Then he started pulling baby lettuce leaves off and eating those. I had to stop him before he mowed down the whole garden.

Anyway, hopefully this little project works out and we get some extra salad to eat! Yum!