Spending some birthday money

Oh how hard it is to be 6. Pooka got some money to the local home improvement store for her birthday in January. Everytime we would go to said home improvement store (which I admit was quite often), she would ask oh so nicely if we could go see if the plants were in, or if they had seeds. But sadly, nothing was in until about 2 weeks ago.

That was the day that Pooka, Brother and I went by ourselves and the garden center had a few plants. Not many, but the beginnings.  They had berry bushes. Now imagine a Pooka who has wanted berry bushes and her realizing she had enough money for them. Yes, I am sure you can picture the face of a girl trying to decide between black berries or raspberries. I had veto'd grapes and more blueberries since we didn't have space for the former, and the later we already had 3 of.

Once we got home, Pooka rushed to tell Daddy. Daddy took a bit more convincing that this was a good idea. In fact, I had to convince him with "Would you rather she bring home 2 raspberry bushes, or that same amount of money in small $2-3 plants we would have to find homes for?" He did agree, but asked that we keep it reasonable.

Birthday money well spent by a Pooka

That evening we went out, and Pooka picked 2 raspberry plants. As of right now, Daddy and I are talking about just letting them go through one year in a pot. A bigger pot yes, but a pot where we can contain them until we are sure where we want them. I guess I need to do some research on how to grow raspberries. Pooka has decide to wait and name them once we get them potted which is on the agenda for this week/weekend.

A Garden birthday

Pooka asked for another garden party this year, and while we did make it a more hippie tye dye party, it still had to have a garden in it somewhere. Below is a few things Pooka got to help her with the garden this year. I did get quite a few questions on what to get a Pooka, and I told them money to a garden center or garden stuff. Pooka did walk away with 2 gift cards to the local home center, that I am sure she will put to use in her new bed if she doesn't decide to use them for a new berry bush.

Pooka's birthday gifts

Pooka received this book from Daddy and I called the little gardener's guide. She has since read it multiple times and enjoys flipping through it. Next to it are 2 little "mod pots" that connect together and are seed starters for a tomato plant and a cucumber plant. Anyone shocked to see more seeds in a Pooka's birthday haul?

DINO PLANT

For her birthday, Pooka was also given money to Toys R Us. Leave it to my little scientist gardener to find the one plant in the entire store, especially one that is science related. I am sure this will be pulled out any day to be re-animated and when we do it, I promise to take pictures for all of you.

Surprise Pooka

For Pooka's birthday, Brother and I made a big deal about this huge, heavy box.We made it seem so heavy, and so difficult to handle, you could see Pooka's eyes light up that something perfect was in the box.

Pooka's gift

Needless to say, she was a bit disappointed when all that was in the box was a small card. She read the card, and after Mommy explained it, she lite up. This GIANT box was her gift.  We gave Pooka a spot to make a flower bed the size of the box. I even promised to limit my funny faces at growing flowers since we won't get anything out of them.  She has already been spending her gift cards to some department stores on seeds. Places where most kids would of bought toys, my little one spends $20 on seeds and decorations for her new bed. This bed will be hers to design and do what she wishes and we will help her with some of the cost. But to see her light up and be happy about the perfect gift, that makes it worth it, even if I won't get any food out of it. 

Grow ums

I have other posts I mean to put up today, but this afternoon, I went over to let the dog out (the seeds we have started are next to the back door) and low and behold, we found a surprise...

Lettuce sprouts

The lettuce and the bok choy from Pooka's Grow um's kit were growing.

Bok Choy sprouts

What are Grow um's you ask. Well, they are a little like combining gardening with the interwebz.  They give the kids and animated character of each plant, so the children can see what the food will look like once its grown. The kits Pooka got for her birthday did not come with a pan to hold the seeds. The directions said to use a pie pan, but we are using muffin tins since I didn't view the videos before I picked up the supplies. Plus, I could make the arguement that this way they are less likely to be mixed up.

Pooka recieved the Taco garden, the Herb garden, the Stir fry garden and the Ratattouille garden

They come in these little kits that contains 4 types of seeds, 8 dirt pellets, and the tags (although our herb set was missing the tags) and you plant them. However, to get the directions on how to do this, you have to go online and it has animated videos with the vegetables talking to the kids about how to care for them.

The contents of one grow ums kit

Pooka loves watching the videos and while she knows what they are doing, it is important to her to keep up on the directions. (In fact, she just came back and told me none of our seeds had any water at the bottom like Tomas Tomato said they needed).  The directions are fairly good, although I did have to go through a BUNCH of different areas (luckily they let you look ahead if you so desire) to find out what kind of spacing each plant needs, how much sunlight and other information you would normally find on a seed packet. They were very easy to plant (well as easy as most seeds are) although when doing 4 kits with 8 seed pellets per, it took a bit of time. Pooka had a very late night that day.

The first set done, we ended up with 6 muffin pans

I will say as of right now, they are giving Pooka a ton of fun. She is enjoying them and has already taken her magnifying glass to the new sprouts to see them up close. I suggested her microscope, and she was afraid she might damage the sprouts, so we decided to wait until later.  

Science anyone?

Hopefully the rest of these do well. I know Daddy is all excited since one of the gardens comes with Bok choy, something I didn't know he liked, and he is hoping to make stir fry out of it. If not, well even the grow ums say sometimes seeds don't start and to try again.

Busy busy busy

Sorry that there hasn't been an update recently. We sure have been busy here, and while busy seems to be our base setting, this last few days have been busier then most between my birthday, Valentines day and some family coming to visit.

I am planning on a more indepth post of a few things, but for now, lets just play catch up with what is going on here. I also got a minor game plan in place for the garden. But I am still trying to figure out how many we need to plant.

First off, Pooka managed to find some clearance herb seeds at Lowes about a week ago. I will get a post up on how we did them and how they are doing now in a few days. At least one set is already sprouting

$3 for the plant kit.. OKay

We also had our first Amaryllis bloom from Christmas. It has captured Pooka's attention and she is very interested in it. I think I may need to stake it up soon. Aunt T was here over the weekend and took some "art kid" shots for me. I admit her picture looks way better then anything I would have been able to do. I will admit that it has been nice to have some color while the outside world tries to decide what season it is.

Aunt T's Art Kid shot

Also on Saturday night, we started some seeds. Pooka was so happy to finally be able to get her hands dirty. We got the grow ums in seed starters.  Pooka got these from her scientific birthday party from Grandma. Now to see how well they grow. I know Pooka is excited to see how many eggplants we get. I may be starting these way early, but the website doesn't say when to start them, just to do so, and I figure I am starting it now, so they may be a tad too early yet.

Time to plant the grow ums

Last but not least, I was finally able to pick up some extra plastic for our table. This meant even while we had family here, I sat down and chatted to them while making our own seed tape. We made tape of the colored carrots and the regular orange carrots Pooka asked us to buy for Brother since he didn't like the colored ones.

Seed Tape for Carrots

 

Birthday time

Pooka is officially a year older. Where the time has gone, I will never know. But yesterday she had her Gardening Science party. I will be the first to admit that a science gardening party is not easy to create. Especially when the birthday child in question greatly dislikes pink and all the "girl garden party stuff" tends to have a TON of pink in them.

I will say since we did her party so late this year, I was able to get spring flowers patterns and butterflies from the party store. I think they were suppose to be for Easter, but if it doesn't have words, so it became a birthday party very easily.

We had a few touches that I will highlight and maybe even do how tos on later. A few weeks ago, Aunt Stephie sent me a link to some clothespin butterfly snack bags. Well, Pooka asked to make some, so she did all the painting, helped me glue it and decide which guest got which one. This was a great way to keep a Pooka busy for a half an hour a day for a few days.

Finished Butterfly

These went in the goody bags or should I say goody pots. At the end of the summer, I found some small terra cotta pots for 5-$1  at our grocery store, and we also made some orgami seed pouches that Pooka put 6 of her homegrown sunflower seeds in one and in the other we found some of her colored carrots that she desperately wanted to share with her freinds. Finding colored carrots seeds, this early is a bit of a challenge and took some looking and a few phone calls.  Pooka even found and picked out different toy bugs for all of her guests. Each guest got a bug she thought would be perfect for them.  The stuff in the bag was lovingly donated by Aunt F who runs her own party store and heard I was a bit behind and sent us a care package. THANK YOU AUNT F. 

Goody Pots

 

Up until now, it was turning into a bit of a garden party. But we didn't have much to make it science-like. But I had a plan. I had promised Pooka that she could color flowers for her party. So we bought some white flowers (later I found out they are roses or something. Again, flowers are not my thing unless I can eat them) and put them in separate glasses with water that Pooka colored with food coloring.


Coloring flowers

Now I will admit, I didn't do this far enough in advance. I forgot it takes a bit of time to do this project, so by the end of the party, they weren't completely colored, but it was enough Pooka and her guests knew what they should be. We had yellow, orange, red, blue, green, purple and black flowers that were all showing their colors. The yellow and orange show it very well, as do the red, the darker colors just look slightly tinted. Even this morning they are still showing more and more color. I think this is something Pooka will love watching over the next few days. 

Colored flowers 30 hours later

 

I do not have a picture of the "science table" where Pooka pulled out her microscope from Christmas and her mad scientist kit from Aunt S and her family. That kit had more fun with the kids pretending to mix the chemicals and then making potions. Kids and their imaginations can be enough to entertain them a good chunk of the time.

 

Those are some of the highlights from the party. Hopefully, I will get some how tos on some of it up later this week. I admit not all my ideas worked the way I wanted them to, but in the end, Pooka loved her party and said it was "Science-riffic" and "The best party ever" and that is all that really matters.

A Scientific Christmas and Birthday

While the holidays are not quite over around here, I thought I would show everyone what has made a Pooka a very happy girl. And not just because she has seen seeds reappearing at the store. Seeds which only bring out the Plant Zombie in her, and I scoot her away since it is still too early and I need to finish the holidays first.

Science garden supplies from Christmas. 

She was so happy when she opened her microscope on Christmas day. Santa apparently knew she desperately wanted one as well as some extra slides for it. This microscope should also work when taken off the base so she can explore with it. She got a butterfly kit from her Aunt and Uncle, so I guess the Black Swallowtails won't be the only butterflies a Pooka raises, and the new ones might have a better home then a mason jar. Mommy and Daddy got her the root viewer to watch the carrots and radishes grow. (Yep, it was a clearance find at the end of the summer). Hopefully it will work well and once the standard carrots are done, we may put some colored ones in it to see the difference.

Birthday flowers

Pooka also got some plants for her birthday. The Amaryllis in the box is a birthday present from her great aunt. They have had so much fun this summer discussing lavender even with the Great Aunt living far away. They have sent actual letters which just brightens any Pooka's day. The blue Amaryllis is from us. We bought it for someone else, but between the time we bought it and the time I went to wrap it, an oops happened. So it became a Pooka's, which will go along with the one Santa got her, so I think there may be some flowers in our future. I am sure I would have these all planted already if we didn't have a "You can open one toy/present" a day rule. You see we unwrap them all, but when Brother was about 2, I got real tired of getting halfway through opening whatever to have him bring me something else to put together. So the rule was put in place. This way, everything gets a special day, and I don't spend 3 days straight only putting things together.

Looks like I still kill house plants

It is probably a good thing that Pooka got more plants because as you can see, my black thumb has killed a good chunk of our herbs. I think it is a combination of being too dry, (although we try to water them quite a bit with any water left in drinking cups), and the cold since the sunniest spot is also by the back door that lets the cold in whenever the dog needs outside. This picture was taken the Christmas eve. The cilantro (blue pot), the dill (big pot with the stick) and the parsley (next to cilantro back row) have all been declared dead. The rosemary plants and the chives are doing fine, so they will be allowed to stay for now. With the new plants, I may see if I can find a better place for them, but that is not a decision for tonight. I hope you have had a good a winter holiday as we have. 

Happy holidays and snow

Well, the holidays are here and may I just say its been a busy few days around here. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I will post more on the holidays after sort through everything, but lets say the science experiment is going to continue for awhile.  Now that its over, maybe I can get back to doing the blog regularly.

A few days ago, we got our first big snowfall. And while it was more ice then snow, it was enough to remind me and the garden that we do get a winter around her.

The garlic were a bit harder to find in all the snow. It didn't cover all of it, but it covered a good chunk and fortunately got the weeds that had encroached into the bed. However the garlic is a bit worse for the wear. I will be amazed if the garlic is alive in the spring but I don't think it will be.

However, the snap dragon pot that refuses to die is doing well. Even with the cold and the snow, its just as happy as can be and about to bloom again. I don't understand it at all.

The snow did claim the broccoli. I got most of it picked in the days before the snow, but it won't be coming back anytime soon. We pulled it out on Sunday and come spring we will till it into the ground.

On one small side note, I need to wish a Pooka a happy birthday. While I was never sure what I would do with a girl (I am so not a girly person). I cannot imagine life without her. I love you big girl.