Ladybugs on the Loose!

We have some vegetables growing in our backyard: green beans, cucumber, broccoli, tomatoes, basil, yellow squash, peppers, and more!  Sounds delicious, right?  Well, the bugs think so, too, and they are eating away at all my delicious vegetable plants!  So, a few days ago we took a trip to our local plant nursery and purchased a container of ladybugs.  For $7.99, you get 1,500+ ladybugs, ready to take on all the pests in your garden!  Well, I had the container sitting on the kitchen counter (we were waiting to release them later in the evening).  In comes my wild child, knocks the container off the counter, pulls off the lid and lets at least 150 ladybugs loose in the kitchen!  Luckily, they didn't try to fly away and we were able to collect most of them.  We have 4 cats, so let's just say that they took care of any ladybugs we missed.  I'm so sorry little ladybugs! :(

Anyways, we were able to release the majority of the little red beetles into our garden, which made for an awesome nature observation experience for Olive (as if 150 ladybugs crawling on the kitchen floor wasn't enough).  She helped me spread them about our garden, allowing them to all find their new homes.  Then we spent about 20 minutes just watching them.  Listening to Olive exclaim, "Ohhhh", "Ahhhh", "Oooooh, nice!", "Oh, bugbug!", was so precious and memorable.

Making friends...

Up close and personal.

"Ohhhhh!  Bugbug!  Nice!"

I love these next 4 pictures.  They show such a great progression of feelings.

"Hmmm, this is interesting, but I'm not too sure yet".

"Oh yes, I think I like this!"

"Okay now ladybug, you're getting a little too close.  You aren't going to go up my sleeve, are you?"

"OMG!  She's on my shoulder!  Be still, be still!"

We had such a pleasant time watching the little ladybugs crawl and fly around us.  Even if you don't have aphids or other unpleasant bugs in your garden, I highly recommend picking up a container of ladybugs.  Set them loose and watch your little one burst with excitement!  Just remember to release them outdoors, not in the kitchen.  :)

A Little Green Thumb

Oh boy, has this been a holiday whirlwind!  After Christmas, I spent a fun 3 days sick with food poisoning.  Yuck!  But now, I'm back to my old self and ready to start the new year (well, almost new year!) with something healthy for my body, and my family's bodies as well.

I've been wanting to start a vegetable garden of some sort for awhile now with my daughter.  I found this really awesome website called Sprout Robot where you can put in your zip code and it tells you what to plant and when to plant it based on where you live.  Cool, huh? Based on my zip code, now is a good time to plant broccoli, leaf lettuces, radishes, cabbages, peas, and a few other things.  I decided to go with peas because Olive loves them and I've heard they're pretty easy to grow.  I'm going to try cabbage, too, but that will be in another post.

We made a trip to The Home Depot and picked up our supplies: potting soil & seeds.  We already have a few pots.  The organic soil was twice the price of the other soil, so I figured I'd get one of each and mix the two together so I could save some money but get some of the organic goodness as well.

 Some cute toddler-sized gardening tools don't hurt to have either! :)

Let's play in the soil for a while...That sounds fun!

Let's pour some soil onto the already growing thyme plant...That sounds fun!

Finally, planting the pea seeds.  The directions said to push down 1 inch...We'll see how they do!

Make sure you water the new seeds! (With Mama's help to ensure the water gets on the seeds and not everywhere else!  Normally, I wouldn't care, but it was kind of chilly outside and I didn't want a soaking wet baby!)

Also, make sure you eat some tomatoes that aren't really ready to pick and are kind of sour and gross....Ay yai yai!

After all was said and done, she wasn't really interested in what we were actually doing.  Playing with the soil, eating growing tomatoes, running on the grass...yes, yes, yes.  But planting the seeds?  Not so much!  We'll see if she's more interested when they start to sprout and then grow actual peas.  After I put the camera down, we played around the backyard, finding worms, pulling grass, digging rocks, and getting dirty.  That's what she wanted to do, and when it comes down to it, that's what really matters.  Even though I want her to be interested in the process of growing the peas, she's more interested in other things, and that's okay.  I sometimes forget just how small she really is and I end up expecting her to want and to be interested in different things, when in reality, she's just a little 19 month old baby who wants to eat sour tomatoes and rip apart grass.