kindergardens - week 19 {stepping stones, zinnias and big plans}

Our garden is winding down.  We have some carrots and tomatoes left, Hubby's peanut experiment, and a few sunflowers still blooming (holy moley, those things are TALL):

Other than that, the garden is pretty much done.  You can see what's left of our shriveled gourd vines - I'm going to go ahead and try drying the gourds.  Maybe next summer we'll be making bird houses!

So, with the vegetable garden slowing up, we focused on Kiddo's flower bed this week.  Our main project was making stepping stones, since we often walk through his flowers to get from the front yard to the back.

I trekked to Home Depot and had a helpful, muscular guy assist me with my 60-lb bag of Quikrete.  While I was there, I also picked up three large plastic planter saucers for molds.  We gathered our decorating supplies (stone stamps, some glass bits, and miscellaneous odds and ends I found in the craft drawer), and got to work!

If I were doing it again, I think I would splurge on the box of stepping stone mix at the craft store.  The Quikrete was easy to mix up and cheaper, but it had a lot of gravel in it, which made pressing things into the surface much more difficult.  I would also let them set for a little while before we started decorating - when we first started, the cement was pretty wet and any markings we made in it quickly filled up with water.  Other than that, I was pretty pleased, and Kiddo was happy with the results, so that's what matters.  We let them dry overnight, then popped them out of the molds and put them to work!

I think he's just a little proud of them.

At the other end of his flower bed, we have been enjoying the zinnias.  I have been rather indifferent towards zinnias for years, but I think I have been won over.  I love these little guys.  

While we were out there, we found someone else who was enjoying them, too!

In Kim's kindergarden post this week, she asks what we would do differently in our gardens next year.  I'm already planning...here's what I've come up with so far.  It's a pretty ambitious list, we'll see if I/we manage to do it all:

1.  TOMATO CAGES.  Our tomatoes were completely unsupported this year.  It is NOT the way to grow tomatoes.  I am ready to go buy the deluxe, last-forever variety, but Hubby is thinking he might want to build some.  Go to it, Hubby, but if they're not done by the time the tomatoes go in the ground, I'm pulling out the garden supply catalog!  :)

2.  Gourd tunnel/trellis.  We loved our pole-bean-tunnel-turned-gourd-tunnel this year.  Next year, I would love to do it again with a more permanent, substantial frame (at the height of the gourd vines' lives, right before they shrivelled up and died, we had to support our tunnel with wooden posts in the middle b/c it was starting to cave in). 

3.  Lime.  Speaking of gourds, someone recommended sprinkling lime (the white powdery stuff, not the fruit) on the gourd and pumpkin plants to keep the cucumber beetles away.  So easy.  Definitely trying that.

4.  More variety.  We don't have a lot of different vegetables, but we have several plants of each.  Next year, I'd like to cut down on the number of plants of each veggie, but add some new ones.  Do we really need 6 jalapeno pepper plants?  Or five hills of the same variety of gourd?  We don't really put up a whole lot of produce over the winter other than salsa, so I'd rather have a wide variety of vegetables that we can just snack on or throw on the table for dinner. 

5.  Experiment with some new plants.  This one sort of goes along with the previous item.  I'm itching to try swiss chard after seeing it here.  I think I also saw it on a kindergarden blog recently (sorry, I can't remember which one).  I have no idea what you do with it, but it's so pretty, I have decided I must have it.  I also want to try borage after seeing Kim's beautiful pics, as well as a wider variety of gourds and pumpkins.

6.  Strawberry pyramid.  I'm ready to try strawberries again.  We've tried once and failed, but the time has come to try again.  I love going to the local farm to pick them, but I think I might love picking them in my own yard even more.

7.  Higher raised beds.  I've been drooling over Faith's garden with her beautiful raised beds.  We have raised beds, but they are only 6 inches high.  Twelve or more sounds much better, doesn't it?  It does to my back, anyway. 

8.  More sunflowers!  I've really enjoyed them this year.  More is better, right?

9.  Zinnias!  Kiddo has me hooked.  If he doesn't plant them next year, I will.

10.  Newspaper mulch.  This is another thing I saw on someone else's kindergarden blog (but again, I can't remember who.  Sorry ladies, I'm really dropping the ball.  If it's you, speak up!).  We have had a terrible time keeping the paths in between our garden beds trimmed and neat, and the problem compounded 10-fold once the pumpkins grew out of their bed and went EVERYWHERE (and the tomatoes, too, since they weren't supported...).  Tell me, how do you mow grass that is buried in pumpkin vines?  If you live at my house, you don't.  So next year, I'm thinking layers of newspaper on all the paths.

11.  Chickens.  Someone please talk me out of this.  I am so tempted.  I have been reading blogs of chicken people all summer.  There is something so enticing about the idea of having a clutch of chickens following us around the yard.

And that's my list.  So far.  Ask me again in another few weeks and I'll probably have a few other schemes brewing.

More kindergarden fun can be found over at the Inadvertent Farmer.  I will be so sad when this contest ends in a few weeks...what will I blog about???