Category: Free Inquiry

Zack and I began this project back in January and it has been something both of us have thoroughly enjoyed doing together! He loves being involved in and helping out with whatever is going on around the house and has always enjoyed hanging out in the garden with me. With this project, Zack felt like he was part of my schooling as well, which helped him understand that school takes time and effort and is something we need to takes seriously. For me, it helped me find another way to spend time with him, something that has been weighing on me heavily since starting University.  Whatever subject I was working on for homework, Zack would always ask if it was time to do homework for my ‘gardening’ class. We had fun planning out what seeds were going to plant and in through this, Zack learned that there was more than just one variety of each type of vegetable. We have always had a garden, and though he has always liked puttering about out there with me, he is now asking if we can plant all sorts of vegetables and is outside pulling rocks from another garden bed with his Dad as I write this.  I hope this is just the beginning of a lifelong passion for gardening for him. With all of the assignments I have been given this year, working on this free inquiry project was always something that I looked forward to. Despite initially feeling that it was just one more thing added to my already heavy load, I am very glad we were given the opportunity to choose to be able to do a project like this.

Side Note: We transplanted the cukes into bigger pots because they were growing so rapidly. Unfortunately, these cucumber plants, that were once growing so well, have started to show sign of serious distress. This past week we have had some beautiful weather and we put the seedlings outside to get used to the elements and brought them back inside after a few hours. I am concerned that the seedlings might be suffering from shock coming from too much exposure to the sun, too soon. We hope that they will survive, but are planting some new seeds this week, just in case they don’t.

With the weather getting better, Zack and I have been getting outside, pulling weeds and getting the garden ready to plant some greens that can withstand the colder nights, but would do well under cover during the warmer days.  Our seedlings are continuing to grow at such a rapid pace that we are going to have to transplant some of them into bigger pots by next week. We will have to get busy cleaning out the pots we used from last year and re-plant most of the cucumbers and a couple of the tomatoes. The cukes have almost doubled in size and are now measuring 21+cm and the tomatoes have as well, measuring 9+cm.  We were super excited to see that our second batch of sweet pepper seeds have sprouted. I didn’t think they were going to. Some of them are just poking through the soil and others are as tall as 2.5cm. I think the recent increase in temperature and burst of bright sunshine were all the encouragement that the pepper seeds needed.  When we transplant the bigger plants from their current pots, we will replace them with basil and cilantro seeds so we will have some great edible companion plants to keep pests away and encourage lots of juicy tomatoes, crunchy cukes and sweet peppers. We might even put a couple of test plants out in the greenhouse under the cover of a regular milk jug which has had the bottom cut off. It essentially acts like a mini greenhouse inside the greenhouse, which still might be too chilly for these types of plants.. With the forecast looking fairly good for the next little bit, we look at trying this this weekend.

So much for gardening this week! It seems like there has been such a small amount of time available, between the cold crummy weather and other commitments to  get outside and work in the garden before darkness sets in.  However, with todays time change, and the sun being out for more than an hour or two lately, we will definitely get outside in the garden. As for our seedlings, they are growing faster than I had anticipated. The tallest cucumber plants are now 13 cm tall and the tallest tomato plants are 6.2 cm tall. I am concerned that I will have to transplant the cucumber plants into bigger pots very soon, but don’t have enough available sunny spots in the house in which to leave the pots. Zack and I will keep a close eye on the plants over the next couple of weeks to monitor this. Unfortunately, the second set of pepper seeds that we planted failed to produce. Zack and I will head out to the store this week to see about purchasing some pepper seeds. I think we’ll also pick up some basil and  cilantro seeds as well.  According to a companion planting website called Farm Flavour, they recommend, ” a few companion planting basics:

• Planting sweet basil, cilantro and parsley around tomatoes can not only protect the tomatoes from pests but also improve their flavor. Tomatoes also get along well with marigolds – and they look pretty, too! (Farm Flavour, Feb.2011).”

When it comes time to put the plants out in the greenhouse, we’ll pick up some marigolds and a few nasturtiums to further attract the bees in the neighbourhood to drop in on  the plants in the greenhouse!

This week, and last, Zack and I didn’t actually make it outside into the garden. Between school, homework, afterschool practices and being away for Provincials, there hasn’t been enough daylight hours to be able to accomplish what we had planned. Hopefully we’ll be able to pull some weeds and start tidying up the garden areas this Wednesday. The seedlings have been growing like crazy and look very healthy! It didn’t take long before we had to transplant our seedlings from our egg carton container to bigger, sturdier ones as the plants were already becoming root bound. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep them in these pots for long enough before they will need to go into the pots they will grow in, in the greenhouse. We have 13 total cucumber seedlings and 27 total tomato plants.

There are: 7 Marketmore  Cucumber plants and 6 Bushy Cucumber plants

There are: 8 Red Beefsteak Tomato plants, 5 Black Russian Tomato plants, 3 orange Pear Tomato plants, 4 Indigo Rose Tomato plants and  7 Hawaiian Currant Tomato plants.

The tallest cucumber seedling is 11.5 cm and the tallest tomato seedling  is 5.5 cm. The rest are not too far behind. Unfortunately, none of the sweet pepper seeds sprouted, so we planted new ones last week. So far none of these have sprouted…  Zack has been so helpful, talking to the plants everyday and reminding me that they need watering. He has determined that the taller plants are Daddy plants and the shorter plants are Mommy plants. (we’ll have that discussion later…)

Zack and I were surprised when, a couple of days ago, we noticed that some of the seeds we planted had already started to sprout. They were hardly noticeable, just barely poking their heads out of the soil. I wasn’t expecting to see growth that early as the dining room, where we have the seeds growing, is a bit on the chilly side. We even put a plastic cover over the carton because of this, but noticed quite a lot of condensation building up. To avoid mold growth, we poked a few extra holes in the plastic and it seems to be working. This week, because we were waiting for the seeds we were planting to grow enough to measure,, Zack and I decided it would be a good idea to get outside and start preparing the greenhouse for growing our seedlings. For cleaning, I’ve always used a bleach/water mix for my greenhouse and gardening tools, even though there are many other ready made products available. I tend to stick with bleach, probably because I always have some on hand, and I know it works. We used some scrub brushes and cloths and made sure we were wearing clothes that didn’t matter if we got bleach on them. Zack was a pretty big helper scrubbing pots and containers and was very pleased to be using protective gloves. They made him feel like a ‘big boy’ and he was very careful not to splash the solution. (He would proudly reminded me every few minutes how careful he was being!) Thankfully, there weren’t any signs of mildew or fungus so it wasn’t a difficult job. This coming week, because the weather still isn’t prime for growing, and the seeds have just begun to sprout, I don’t think there will be a lot more we can do in terms of preparing our greenhouse for growing. I think, to stay on the  topic of gardening, Zack and I will head out into the main garden and pull some weeds while they are still small and relatively easy to pull out.

https://ag.umass.edu/greenhouse-floriculture/fact-sheets/cleaning-disinfecting-greenhouse

I am so glad I changed my inquiry assignment to include working with my little boy. He is soooo excited to help and learn about growing tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers in our greenhouse along-side of me. I have to admit that I don’t really care what we are growing, just as long as we get to do something like this together. I have noticed that he has started to say things like, “I don’t want to bug you while you are doing your homework Mommy, but can we play Jedi outside…after you are done?” Or, he will ask if I think he is being good and patient while I do homework. It tugs at my heart not being very available to him since starting school. He was so excited to get out the paper egg carton we saved to use as a container to start our seeds in. He had put it away in a safe place in his room so it wouldn’t get recycled., and had been asking daily if he should go get it so we can grow our seeds. He couldn’t wait to scoop the soil into the carton and rounded up his Dad and two of his brothers and his sister to watch him do this. He tried so very hard not to spill and was really proud that there hardly was any. The soil we are using is just a basic seed starting mix including as 50% organic matter, .20 % Nitrogen, .08 % phosphoric acid, and .08% soluble potash. The rest is made up of rhizophagus irregularis which, according to Wikapedia, is previously known as glomus intraradices and is an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus used as a soil inoculant in agriculture and horticulture. I think, although Zack says he knows that seeds take time to grow, he was expecting to see almost immediate growth. He must have checked on the seeds a hundred times since planting them on Sunday February 9th. We should start to see some germination/seed-sprouting in a couple of weeks. Our plan is to look at the seeds everyday and record in little book how much they grow. Zack has asked if he can use the tiny ruler (the one that comes in the geometry kits) to measure the plants. In the meantime, I think our next step is to get outside and clean up the greenhouse together. At least if it rains, which it probably will, we’ll be covered.

Free Inquiry: Greenhouse gardening with a 4 yr old.

This blog is supposed to be something I am passionate about learning more about. Originally I chose greenhouse gardening for that very reason. However, it being January when I started the post, there is only so much a person can do to prepare the greenhouse in the winter months. So, after talking to a friend with whom I will be travelling to Tanzania in a couple of months, we decided to focus our inquiry blogs on learning Swahili. I thought this was a great idea until I started to put time into actually learning the language. It doesn’t appear as difficult as one might think, partially because the way the letters and words sound is pretty much like we would pronounce words and letters in English. My problem was realizing that I had just taken on another activity that was going to take up another portion of my time. This is time that I really don’t have, that I could be spending with my family, in particular, my 4 year old. Trying to manage school, work and family life hasn’t been easy this semester, which is odd because I had more courses and less free time last semester. All I know is that despite doing well in my assignments, I am NOT enjoying myself and am feeling like my priorities are just not in order. I have a super supportive husband and family, and a fabulous cohort at school. However, I am noticing just how much my little guy is relying on his siblings and how he turns to them because he has been asked to leave me alone because I am always busy with homework or because I’m not home because I’m at school all day, then have to try to fit in homework and work and the older children’s activities and their homework. (Not that my husband and older kids aren’t helpful because they are, and they are all so good to each other and to our youngest, but…) Maybe because I registered him for Kindergarten last week I am feeling pressure to try to be there more for him, to spend more time with him before I lose that chance. If it’s ok with my professor, I am going to switch back to gardening, but this time with my 4 yr old. It’s something we have worked together doing before. He loves pulling weeds and digging in the garden. We even picked up a bag of starter soil and have saved some egg cartons in which, this week, we will plant the seeds that I wrote about in my first blog and we’ll document their progress together. He is so excited, and for the first time in awhile, so am I.