Posted by Patrick Corkum on May 26, 2010
Ahh… late spring! That means… STRAWBERRIES! So my daughter (Mia) and I hiked off to the berry picking farm (a.k.a. our backyard) to pick strawberries. We have a relatively small patch out back that is mostly contained which has just massive amounts of strawberries. We were really looking forward to the production this year since last year the patch was tiny and it grew about ten times its size last year after the June harvest. Just today Mia and I picked almost 50 strawberries! They are sooOOOooo good! There is nothing like strawberries fresh from the garden. Never-mind the learning experience that goes with it for the kiddos. One of the best parts was when we washed them off. Mia got to practice her counting. I would wash one off, hand it to her and she would count it. We practiced her “th” sound with thirteen, thirty, etc… We also practiced that after 29, it is not “twenty-ten”, but thirty. See, it’s all about using everyday experiences to teach. That is how they learn best!
Posted by Patrick Corkum on May 8, 2010
So, I had to watch Ty yesterday afternoon all by himself. I can’t get much done inside with him, so I took him outside to play. He is quite good at entertaining himself in there. Well, he’s pretty good entertaining himself inside too. Outside, he plays in the sandbox, on the slide, with trucks and all kinds of constructive things. Inside, he screams, yells, whines, bangs things, and anything else that he can think of to annoy the heck out of me. If the other two are home, he will add hitting, taking toys and bugging. So, outside we went. Besides, I had plenty of work to do in my garden.
So, he played for a good while and was generally behaving, which doesn’t happen all that often. I was off watering the plants, tying back the raspberries, building a “trellis” for my peas and green-beans and a support thing-a-ma-bob for one of my grapes. Ty comes over to me and tells me that he wants to ride on his scooter. I tell him, “no, go play in the sand, you can’t ride your scooter with flip-flops on.” He goes away and plays with trucks. He comes back over to me and says “Daddy, I want go inside. I hot.” “Ty, it’s not hot out here [it's like 72... in the sun]; we’re staying outside. Go play in the sand.” Ty walks slowly over towards the sandbox… walks right past it, finds a chair in the shade of the red maple, and climbs up. He then puts his head on the arm rest and doesn’t move for the next hour and a half.
I love how some people can just pick a spot and sleep. I can’t even climb into a hotel bed and sleep, no matter how tired I am. Some people have all the luck!
Posted by Patrick Corkum on April 3, 2010
Last year, we had a great garden. We ended up with tons of cucumbers, hot peppers and tomatoes. However, we planted a few pumpkins and they didn’t really turn out all that great. They were going well and suddenly got diseased and died quite quickly. This year, we are going to try a few different things because of what didn’t work so well last year. Most of my ideas I got from our trip to Williamsburg last year and it just happens to be budget friendly.
Tomatoes
Okay, so last year, we planted a half dozen or so tomato plants. I went and bought a few of these triangular-style tomato cages.The tomatoes did well….too well. The cages crumbled underneath the weight and I ended up trying all kinds of things to keep them standing up. So this year, I am going to try something that I came across in Williamsburg….
Okay, the picture isn’t great, but it is basically an elevated mesh. There are sticks which are holding up a mesh of sticks and the tomatoes grow on top, keeping the tomatoes off the ground and within easy reach. It is quite ingenious if you ask me.
Cucumbers
So last year, we had a great crop of cucumbers and it will be hard to outdo last year. I cannot complain. However, I am trying something different to try and keep the cucumbers off the ground, saving me some space (not that I need it) and keeping them nice and clean. Again, the idea is from Williamsburg:
Okay, again the picture isn’t that great (since it is a crop from the same as the tomatoes). However, I am in the process of building a fence similar to that in the picture, just much longer. I am impressed as to the sticks that the gardener there got, so thin, long and straight. Mine are not nearly as nice, but they should work.
Peas & Beans
Our peas and beans did okay, not great, but not horrible. We ended up not having great success before because of rabbits, but we seem to have resolved that problem with clear plastic SOLO cups. However, we didn’t plant very many and we used a white plastic trellis to grow them up. That part wasn’t so great. So, I got ANOTHER idea from Williamsburg:
Again, same image, so excuse the quality. So, I modified it a little in mine, but I used the same concept. I should’ve probably made it the same, but we’ll see if mine works.
Lettuce
Okay, lettuce failed miserably for us last year…. we got nothing. This is partially because of rabbits, but I am going to try using some hair (no pun intended) to keep them away and use the following idea from Williamsburg:
Okay, different source picture, but same quality problem. Anyway, that picture is probably really confusing. Anyway, what you see is NOT lettuce, it is shade. We are going to use small pine branches to shade the lettuce when it is small so that the sun doesn’t scorch the seedlings. I hope this works, I’d really like to get some lettuce this year. We’ll see!
Peppers
Our peppers did quite well last year. Our habaneros had a small issue with insects, but generally they did well. I did have a problem with keeping them up off the ground. I didn’t have the problem the year before, but last year I certainly did. So, this year… you guessed it, an idea from Williamsburg:
This, although tough to see is like a teepee made from sticks. This helps the pepper grow up and stay straight. If nothing else, it looks cool 
.
Okay, so I’ve got more ideas, but I’ll save them for later…. I love my vegetable garden!