Just to note, I went to a graden center today to find an organic plant food since my children and I are eating straight from the plant. So we chose Neptune's Fish/Seaweed liquid concentrate. Click on the title to check it out. What I can say after one day of use is-

1. It smells like rotten fish so do not wear anything nice to do this activity

2. I thought 1/8C:1G would do all 5 of my itty bitty plots but no the total ratio was 1Cup:8Gallons. I made sure to do each plant's base soil as I do not at this time have a watering can

3. BUY THE WATERING CAN, LOL! it took me a while on hands and knees to pour at the base as I did not want to waste and I have like 30 cucumber plants etc. Ugh. Save your knees and use a watering can.

4. My oldest Red swears she saw improvements in some of the plants overnight. I am skeptical but she does well in her studies at the Agricultural HIgh so...maybe she is right. I pray she is right

5. Make sure to dilute properly- I used an organizing plastic bin and a pyrex measuring cup- both to measure and pour onto the plants.

6. It needs to been done everyother week or so and in the evening in the last hour or two of sunlight(at least that was Red's advice)

Our butter lettuces are already munchable and can't wait til we have enough for a family salad night. Baby girl is very proud of her lettuce that she planted from seed. And I thought it would never grow. There is hope

Next to buy ladybugs as we have found 2 green bugs on our lettuces that are the same color as the lettuce and we also have munch holes on some leaves. Wish us luck.

Our family spent satuday buying, creating, and planting the new graden. It is bigger than I had envisioned, mostly due to my overbuying of starter plants. But this is due to the wonderful choices at our local fruit and veggie store. So last year I planted tomatoes, of which two plants took hold and provided an ok amount. We had problems at first with aphids but the ladybugs in the neighborhood took care of them. Then, after a long rainy period, we had yellowing and what I think is called early blight. Then we had what we called the "mutant squash", which due to my overplanting of the small plot, took over the two itty bitty green pepper plants. But I had a terrific yield of yellow squash! Then our few watermelon plants produce a couple but we only harevsted 2 of them and they were not fully matured and tasted gross. So no watermelon this year. I am focusing on veggies with one fruit, everbearing strawberries, very yummy! Wish I had pics ready to post but will get to that in the next few days. We have two types of big tomatoes because I wanted and early yielder while waiting for my Beef eaters. And I am trying a hybrid 100 variety of small one bite tomatoes. Then we have many green bean plants as I hope to freeze them for the winter, and I didn't realize how many plant shoots were in each container! Same with the cucumbers. There were at least 3-5 shoots per little square. Hopefully this is a good sign of healthy strong plants. I am trying a few Lady Finger Eggplants as I personally like eggplant though the kids were not thrilled. We planted pumpkins alongour fence in a very sunny spot. Last year I made the mistake of thinking a spot was sunny but it was definitely not sunny enough. And our lettuces are growing nice from seed that we planted a few weeks ago but I have a cat(I think) that is pooping in one spot. So I put up 4 ft netting around the garden and this morning I found another poop all in the same spot. I put natural mulch too around the lettuces so I am at a loss to detract this animal from pooping on my lettuce! Please help if anyone knows what to do!

We have more than tripled the garden size from last year. And need one more plot for the strawberries. More to come.....>

Let me introduce you all to our gardens. This is our second year and we have NO EXPERIENCE! But we are learning as we go. Yes books tell you many good things that help you NOT make the mistakes we are making but then we wouldn't be homeschoolers like we are if we went and did that. Our learning style is very much do and learn so here goes.

Last year we learned we chose a spot with not enough sun. We had minimal veggies. We also found a really beautiful green caterpillar with horns. Oh he was so cute, I wanted to keep him! Then he ate most of my cherry tomato plants and, well, he had to die. I know I will have to explain my actions to God later on.. That's another story. But thirdly, and well most importantly, we found out to make plants grow they need WATER, Lots of WATER. My friend is teasing me this year saying, "  I see you are WATERING this year, hahaha". Well, that's what friends are for, to gently remind you of your past follies in an attempt you should not repeat them

So now for this year's lesson learned so far and I have pictures to demonstrate>

If the packages state to plant a certain distance apart, DO IT, LISTEN, THEY HAVE A POINT as you will see....

This was a 3x5 planting bed. I have had to use that black yard fabric to enlarge the area for my ever vining out watermelon. How was I to know when the say plant 2 every 10 feet they had a reason???

Now for what we call the mutant squash, which you can see above as well as below. It has already had its first harvest of 3 large yellow squash, yummy!! We grilled them with oil and seasoning. So good. But must be planted at least one more foot apart EACH plant than what I did. There are only 5 plants here and they easily could have taken up this whole plot.

Under this squash are 3 little cute green pepper plants, who despite their overgrown neighbors, are producing 4 peppers for us. You can see them in the bottom left corner above. I push down the squash leaves around them each morning.

And for my Pride is my fast growing watermelon! Our lawn guy said watermelon is hard to grow but we seem to have no issues! There are several more little melons starting too, Yeah, as it is a fave fruit among my children.

Finally, from my garden plot is one of our BigBoy tomatoes starting to ripen. I can't believe on 3 plants we have so many tomatoes! I don't know how to can them, HELP!!!