Making a Child's Tepee for the Garden, Ideas from Sharon Lovejoy

I needed to find a book to read while I nursed baby Stella, so I grabbed a few off my shelf and sat down to have a look. I opened "Sunflower Houses" and bam!! It was amazing! How could I have never looked at this book before? And where has it been? Did it magically appear? Has it been incubating on my book shelf, waiting for the right time to show itself to me?

The book is written by Sharon Lovejoy, garden expert and naturalist and has all sorts of inspiring garden ideas to share with your children, or your inner child. Some of the magical ideas in Sunflower Houses are:

• Floral Clock: mark the hours by when the flowers open and close
• Kinder Garden: Tiny Garden filled with plants from A to Z
• "Fish in a Bottle": How to grow a zuke or cuke in a bottle
• Barnyard Garden: like with Colt's foot, bee balm, cowslip, gooseberry, etc.
• A Child's Own Rainbow: Flowers and plants planted in curving rows, one row red, one orange, one yellow, and on. . .
• Butterfly garden
• Sunflower House
• Bean Covered tepee
• Flower People
• Flower Chains
• Leaf Hats

You can see how intriguing these ideas are. I decided on making a bean tepee that very next day and with Stella on my back I chopped down six young alders and began to string them together. I am almost done, I just need to find more hay bale string. The girls loved it when I tied sheet around the tepee and made a little hideout. My plan is to move the tepee to the garden and plant beans all around it and wait for the beans to cover the tepee, all the while enjoying it. I think I will make a couple more tepees now that I see how easy and fun it is! If you are a gardener or want-to-be-gardener and you have kids this book is a MUST HAVE!

SOME LINKS:

Also checkout Sharon Lovejoy's book: "Roots, Shoots, Buckets, and Boots: Activities to do in the garden"
Sharon Lovejoy's Blog and pictures of her bean tepee: http://sharonlovejoy.blogspot.com/2009/03/spring-is-in-soil-and-air.html

Buy her books directly from her, personally inscribed: http://www.sharonlovejoy.com/bookorder.html

Buy her books at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Sharon%20Lovejoy&page=1

Checkout her book: Sunflower Houses: Inspiration from the Garden (garden discoveries for all ages)

Here is my tepee process, in pictures:
Because the alders are so abundant on the farm, I chose to use them for the tepee. They also grow very straight. On the downside the wood doesn't last long in the elements.

Putting the sticks together: it turned out much bigger than I expected.

Using hay bale twine to tie the poles together. the twine lasts a long time, and is easy to find (usually). Almost done in the pic, a few more to go.The girls began placing flowers inside the tepee.

Time to plant Oodles of Blueberries, plus some great kids books with blueberry themes

Kids book: Blueberry Shoe by Ann Dixon

I caught it. Yep, just this week. It's a bit late for me, but it happened all the same. I am talking about the gardening bug! There is this natural instinct within me that propels me into the dirt each spring with my ratty, holey jeans and last years gardening gloves: shovel in hand, seeds in pockets, with a determined and crazed (yet focused) look in my eyes. I usually expect this gardening zeal to hit in February or March, but perhaps it was the snow or the kiddy birthday parties, or my half marathon training schedule.

I know the gardening bug has hit when I am out in the dirt with rain pounding down, pulling just one more weed, planting just one more raspberry cane, clipping, pruning, and most of all when against all reason and sensibility I decide to make a blueberry patch with 12 new blueberry plants. Yep, that's my newest garden project. Well, that and getting the chickens moved to a plot of land in the garden. That's a huge project all on its own, but don't let me stray too far from the blueberry patch story.

Before my daughter Marina was born, about 6 years ago, I planted 4 rows (30 feet each+/-) of raspberries. I didn't do it all in one year, but over the course of 3 years I had that many rows. I knew that one day (ha, today!) I would plant a large blueberry patch. Where does this motivation come from? Like I really need any more projects. Yet . . . somewhere within me is a desire to be at least somewhat self-sufficient. Plus, the girls love, love, love blueberries. And I want to have enough to freeze oodles and oodles and more oodles of blueberries for the fall, winter and spring. Anyone want a blueberry pie for Thanksgiving? Yum!

I am learning all about soil pH on my new quest to grow oodles of blueberries. You see, I have 2 blueberry plants that look quite miserably small and pathetic considering how long I have owned them. So I transplanted them to their new "blueberry only" patch (I'm sure they will feel extra special not being forced between two raspberries). My research told me that blueberries like acidic soil, so for about $5 I purchased a soil pH test kit (at Bayview Farm and Garden) and discovered that my soil is 6.5 pH, which is not acidic enough for the b-berries. To remedy this I added peat moss (there are other alternatives like sulfur) and purchased a special fertilizer to help acidify the soil. The website http://www.geocities.com/green_cache/blueberries.html states that blueberries like 5- 5.8 pH. Aha! The berries look quite happy in their new location with their new soil amendments.

For more pH information checkout: http://www.geocities.com/green_cache/ph.html

Speaking of Blueberries, checkout these great kid's books about berries:
Blueberries for Sal
Berries, Nuts, and Seeds: a take along guide
Jamberry
Peter in Blueberry Land
Blueberry Shoe