So what are we growing right now?

After the first round of plantings we thought we either had a resident bunny or some cats who like fruits and veggies, because all the strawberries turning pink were nibbled on (and our dogs don't nibble!), and a few of the tomato plants were down to stumps! I could tell Blakely had done a little digging on one side, but I think she was smelling the bunny... Maddie was nice enough (ugh) to bring the bunny to me last week, so we don't have to worry about that anymore... Joel told me I set the trap (garden) so I think we'll skip any bird baths in the yard for now since Maddie would be all over that!

Anyway, here's a few pics (taken by McKenna!) of what's in our garden right now:

strawberries!

Here's one I took of the lovely grid system I have going to try to deter anyone from getting in! I am trying to put off making a cage around it, and since we already had lots of these stakes I figured we would try this first!

So far we have 3 tomato plants, 3 strawberry plants, and a few herbs in the middle... will have to transplant a few once we get another box going! I think the '75 days to maturation' is going to kill me, especially since McKenna is already saying "mom where are the tomatoes?" Ahhh!

We do have a few bugs in the garden that I am excited about - ladybugs! Well, we have found several lady bug larvae (and how exactly do I know what they look like you ask? that's coming up!). Here are some of the best shots I could get! I really need to break out the bigger camera!

Even Kenna can spot these now and gets really excited! We have talked about how they eat the bad bugs and since we have seen several mature lady bugs around we hope this little one will make it and be good luck for our garden! So how do we know that these are lady bug larvae?

Introducing - LADY BUG LAND!

I ordered 2 of these kits several weeks ago, one for my class at school (they love it!) and one for us! Check out these kits and more at http://www.insectlore.com/ So they send you the dome house, and a tube with these little larvae and food in it (already hatched from their eggs!). We just keep a little water in there and soon they will become pupae (pretty much just like butterflies) and about 5 days later they are supposed to come out mature - these are supposed to be PINK spotted ladybugs - we can't wait to see!

And Kenna has been using the dropper from lady bug land to water the seed she planted at school! Like I said before, it will certainly be a test of patience waiting for all these thing to grow!