Recent Visitor to the Butterfly Bushes

A beautiful dragonfly, captured (in a photo) by Anna...

Worming

I was sitting in a chair by a window a couple evenings ago, and Anna, who was outside, kept walking by, back and forth, many times.  I finally asked her what she was doing and she replied (with a big grin) "Worming."

Hmmm.  Obviously I went outside to see what this worming was all about.

Anna was lifting up flat rocks, looking for worms underneath, and then transplanting her little wiggly friends to her butterfly garden and tomato patch.  Then she scooped up all the worm castings with a hand trowel and used them to fertilize her tomatoes and peppers... 

She is a very serious little gardener, wouldn't you agree?  As well as a friend to all animals - those earthworms are definitely in a more prime location now!

Weekend Gardening, Part 2

Michael worked all last week to prep the new butterfly garden, after spending a couple prior weeks removing rocks. We grow a lot of rocks where we live!  Anna loaded the smaller rocks in the wheelbarrow and moved them out of the way, but we kept some of the larger ones to put an edge on the bed.  This past weekend, Michael screened whatever topsoil was there, added some peat moss, and then screened in tons of compost (thank you sheep and chickens!)  Here is the new bed...

There is also a smaller bed just beyond the butterfly garden that Michael is just beginning to prep for  a little pumpkin patch.

We also took a trip to the garden center and came back with some annuals, alpine strawberries and lavender for Anna to plant in some beautiful, large terracotta pots which we got at a tag sale for just $2 each.  She was unstoppable!  All ten of those pots were planted in no time, and the extra flowers were put into the butterfly garden between rocks along the edge and in other spots around the yard.

The strawberries conveniently located next to the chair was Anna's idea.  She wanted to be able to relax and pick little berries all summer!  The butterfly bushes will go into the bed this weekend along with the butterfly garden seed mix the Easter Bunny left for Anna.  For now, the butterfly bushes are on our back porch, already attracting butterflies.  I'll miss them right outside my kitchen door (they smell delicious!) but we'll be able to see them from the kitchen window.

And thank you to Little Miss Anna, for all the photographs for this post.

Weekend Gardening Part 1

Last weekend was a big gardening weekend for little miss Anna.  She planted all the containers on the porch.  The selection of seeds for this year included sweet peas (already planted a few weeks ago and coming up), nasturtiums, cosmos, morning glories, moon flowers, poppies, cat grass, basil, chives, dill, parsley and cilantro.  Most seeds she got in her Easter basket, some we saved from last year.  She also planted some purchased plants: orange mint, 2 jalepenos and 2 banana peppers.  And she tended some plants that came up on their own:  cat mint, sunflowers (a thank-you from our birds for putting out sunflower seeds all winter) and chamomile.  Our thyme, which we have had for years, didn't make it - not enough snow cover this winter.  Chloe was Anna's little helper....

And both cats seemed to enjoy the cat mint...

Then Anna moved on to planting the remaining seeds in the yard, some poppies, cosmos and black-eyed susans....

Whenever Anna found a grub or caterpillar, she hand-fed it to Buttercup, who is beginning to expect grubs whenever she sees Anna, and is very vocal when Anna doesn't have a treat for her.  Here she is thinking I might have a grub for her (yuck, I don't think so)...

She's a cutie - the outdoor pet we've had the longest.  Here is another perspective on Buttercup...

More on this weekend's gardening activities, including the prepped Butterfly Garden, to come.