Saturday morning gardening

Every Saturday morning since mid February my son and I have been participating in the Junior Gardening Program at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens. This wonderful programs gives children the opportunity to plant their own vegetable garden under the supervision of Master Gardeners who donate their time. Each child gets a 4’x 28’ plot to plant seeds, herbs and vegetables. It’s a great way to get young children interested in gardening and in eating vegetables. If they plant the vegetables themselves, they are more likely to eat them. If you live in San Antonio and have children I highly recommend it. It is a big time commitment to be there every Saturday morning at 9AM, but well worth the effort. We have both learned a lot about gardening as a result of this program. Here is a look at how my son’s garden has evolved starting with week 1.

It was a cold and rainy day so we both wore raincoats and boots. This is his plot before we planted anything, it was nothing but soil and a few weeds. The Botanical Gardens does not allow any chemicals or synthetic fertilizers to be used on any of the garden plots. While we were pulling the weeds we found several earthworms, proof the soil is healthy.

Here is what the rest of the plots looked like. That day we planted bulb onions, bunching onions, broccoli, cabbage and potatoes. It was challenging because it was cold and rainy but we got through it. It was fun to come home wet and muddy.

Week 2 the onions look happy.

Cabbage and broccoli plants

Here are the same plants week 3, they are coming along nicely.

Week 4 was Spring Break so we went skiing, but our neighbors took good care of our garden while we were gone. Weeks 5 and 6 I forgot to bring my camera, but we planted pole beans, bush beans, tomatoes, basil, squash, zucchini, carrots and petunias. You’ll have to take my work for it since I have no proof.

Week 7 the cabbage and broccoli plants are huge, in the background you can see the pole beans.

We planted cucumbers that day and did our usual watering, weeding and checking for bugs.

Check out our potato plants, they are taking over. I have never had garden fresh potatoes before, I can’t wait to try these.

Our lovely pole beans and tomato plant. Since it was still windy and cold we had fabric over the tomato plant to protect it. We raised the fabric up so the plant could get some sun, but we lowered it before we left for the day.

Neighboring plots.

Week 7 was very exciting because we had our first harvest! These onions were delicious in my vegetable fried rice. I’ll be back tomorrow with week 8, have a great night all.