Our Family Garden Plot - This Mamas Dance

I love gardening. I love flowers and fruit and vegetables. I love it all! I don’t even mind having to do a bit of weeding from time to time. Growing up I spent a lot of time with flowers. We spent the day last Saturday building and planting some raised beds- here are a few shots of our progress! We started with a big pile of weedy dirt, which I don’t have a photo of. But, I do have a shot of the area after Matt leveled it out with the bob cat and did some raking.

Here is where that area is in relation to the back of the house. Don’t mind the mess 😉

The amazing thing about this project is that we were able to build the boxes with left over and scrap wood. We did a simple design using 2×8’s and several 2×4’s to make it work. We attached them to 4×4 blocks, and left them long in case we want to add trellis’ or hoops.

Because that area of the yard is literally a weed forest- I am talking at least 20 different varieties of weeds- Matt was very generous in insisting we put down landscape fabric around the beds. I can always plant in it later…. but, it cuts down on a bit of the maintenance, especially when it comes to mowing. This project took us just a few hours to complete- the boxes measure 8 feet by 4 feet.

Even though we raked out the weeds and grass as much as possible- there are still invisible seeds! So we layered the bottoms of the boxes with newsprint and cardboard scraps. The boys were happy to see their lego boxes put to use. 😉

We added compost garden soil… praying it’s relatively weed free! We planted:

corn
peas
green beans
beets
radish
lettuce
tomatoes
potatoes
sweet peas
carrots
zinnias
nasturtium
dalhias
cosmos
marigolds
sunflowers
strawberries

We have 2 of the boxes and the open garden soil planted, as well as an old railway tie box-with one more box to go. I have started spreading mulch, but still have a way to go. Here are a few shots of our garden so far.

I have had this pot for years, and it has always reminded me of my sister-in-law’s mom, Jacki. I couldn’t wait to plop it on a stump in my garden 🙂 {her garden is AMAZING!!!! so inspiring, tranquil and beauty-full, she grows Dahlias the size of my face!}

Earlier in May a little girl by the name of Florence Marigold passed away due to complications related to Spinal Muscular Atrophy type 1. I was recently made aware of this little girls story, and that of her family. Matt read about her and was wrecked. It is heartbreaking, inspiring, raw and beautiful. As we put these marigolds in the ground, I talked to the boys about little Florence Marigold, and the #FlorenceMarigoldinBloom Project. We prayed for their family as they walk through this difficult journey, and celebrated Flo’s life. I think I will always think of this family when I see a marigold.

Here is a snippit from Michaela, Florence’s mom, explaining the project and here is the link to her blog.:

We will be planting marigolds for the rest of our lives. I will whisper her name when I see these blossoms. I will remember her when I bury my nose into the pungent, sweet petals. Her room was full of marigolds as she passed away and in the hours after. I tucked them behind her ears and into her hands. She left us, with marigold blossoms in her hands.

Many of you have already planted marigolds in her honour, all over the world. I never want to forget that! So we are starting a hashtag, to keep track of all these blooms.

If you plant marigolds, or add them to a planter, or see their scattered petals on the street, or decide to plant them at your home or office or neighbourhood garden, snap a photo and post it to Instagram or Facebook using this tag below:

#FlorenceMarigoldinBloom

This works particularly well on Instagram. I know I’ll be checking every day. It gives me so much comfort and joy. You can follow along, whether you use Instagram or not. But if you do, you can find me @michaela_evanow