Fridley Farmer: Planting With Kids

We finally started planting at the Fridley Farm. Monday night we started by planting beans with the kids.

This was a fantastic family activity. The kids had just enough patience for it, and bean seeds are pretty much indestructible. Caroline and I poked holes at appropriate intervals and depths and let the kids put beans in.

Our 5-yea- old was perfect, he would place a bean and cover it up. I tried giving our 3-year- old one bean at a time, which he did well with. Every couple of beans though, he’d ask for a handful. Then...they’d all disappear. So, we’re either going to have some extra beans, or an extra happy squirrel.

Much of the black dirt I added to the yard went towards making 1 1/2 foot garden strips along most of our fences. We planted Purple King pole beans up close to the fence and Heavyweight II bush beans closer to the yard. Hopefully that will make for good space utilization and yield.

Since Monday night, we have also planted pumpkins, peas, corn, tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, lettuce and spinach. For all the details and pictures of our progress so far, go read about Planting and Transplanting 2011 Round 1 at the Fridley Farmer.