Fall Planting, A New Experience

I'm a Utah girl. And, as a Utah girl, this time of year is when you break out the sweaters, scarves, and hats because the first snow is a few weeks away.

But, I don't live in Utah anymore.

So, this time of year you are thinking about maybe getting the sweaters out. Maybe. But the biggest adjustment for me is that here you are doing your Fall Planting for your winter crops.

What?! Winter crops?! (at least that's what the snow bound Utah girl says in my head)

Yep. I've spent the past few days getting the garden at the preschool pulled up. No more tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, cucumbers, etc. And today we started our fall planting. We planted lettuce today.

Over the weekend, I very creatively and carefully got some new soil for my container garden. (I'm still experimenting on getting the right type of soil for my container garden, the Spring choice was bad. My peas died... and I only got 2 tomatoes and 2 peppers.) I transplanted some broccoli and spinach, and planted some spinach seeds in the optimistic hope that I'll be able to have a staggered harvest of spinach since I love it so much (but only raw... whoever cooks spinach is really doing themselves a disservice).

I'm going to plant some lettuce too... If I'm lucky and can get a couple more containers on sale. I'd love to get a deep one for carrots. We've planted carrots in containers at the preschool and they did great!

So, here's to a new experience for this Utah girl! I'll keep you updated on how the container garden goes ;) Maybe you can learn some from my trial and error with it!

Egg Planting!!!!

Today is Easter, and it's Spring. So here's a fun spring project that I found a few weeks ago when researching activities for the SKIES program's class titled "Spring Planting". Unfortunately, I do not have the original website that I found this on, so if you recognize it from your blog, let me know so I can hyperlink you!

Eggheads
When cooking eggs, carefully crack and save lower two-thirds of shell intact. Wash and then draw mouth, eyes and nose with a felt tip pen. Fill shells with potting soil. Sprinkle grass seed on surface (ryegrass works well) and gently press seeds into soil. Water gently, put egg shells in egg carton and cover with lid. Keep soil moist but not soggy. The sprouts become "egghead hair" and can be clipped with scissors to keep short or go for the shaggy look.

Eggheads

Another way to do this is to dip pine cones in water (don't soak them), and then roll in potting soil in which has been mixed some grass seed. Roll the pine cones in the soil-seed mixture. Place in egg cartons to help them stay upright. Soon the grass will sprout and the entire cone will have "green hair." Kids can clip it or leave it shaggy, as with the eggheads.