Last year I wasn’t too ambitious in the garden as I knew I would be in my third trimester of my pregnancy in the summer and did not want to be working too long in the hot sun with a big belly and then have a huge harvest to manage right when baby arrived.

With spring just around the corner, Brian and I are really looking forward to getting back to our outdoor projects. These include: restoring our old well pit (which is attached to the basement and will be used as a cold room for root vegetables), landscaping a large fire pit area, putting in a raspberry and strawberry patch, restaining a wooden jungle gym (given to us by Erin and Mitch who used to play on it when they were little. It’s still in great shape!) and beginning phase one of landscaping the “Bird, Butterfly and Bee Garden”, which will do double duty as Chayton’s play area while he is still little. If we get a burst of energy we just may set up our chicken coop and get that going as well.

In preparation, Chayton and I started some seeds about three weeks ago.

We planted three varieties of heirloom tomatoes, yellow and green zucchini, spaghetti squash, both long and pickling cucumbers,  basil, parley, chives, black-eyed susans and echinacea (purple cone flower). As always, it’s so exciting to see the seeds sprout and watch them grow.

It’s even more exciting planting with Chayton as this is his first year helping mom in the garden. I hope that our simple lifestyle will instill in Chayton an appreciation of good food, nature, fresh air, sunshine as well as the fun of growing things yourself!

We plan on planting more seeds this coming week and are looking forward to a new season in the garden!