Let Me "Hep" You, Pwease!

This is Ella.

This is Josiah.

These are two of my brother’s three children. The oldest, Kayleigh, wasn’t able to join us, but these two, especially Ella, makes up for that! Ella LOVES to help. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, she wants a piece of the action. I love this little girl’s zest for life. She’s expressive, stubborn, and down right hilarious. And she was thrilled about helping Grandma and Grandpa with their garden!

Josiah, on the other hand, is much more reserved. He has some pretty severe skin allergies that don’t allow him to dig in the dirt. So, he had a great time playing with Grandma on the swing set in the backyard.

While Mom waited for the kids to show up, Dad and I ran to Lowes to see what other vegetable experiments we could try. We definitely decided that we needed some marigolds. Planting these flowers around your garden, tomato plants especially, helps keep the bugs away. They don’t like the smell. Frankly, I don’t either. So we purchased about six plants to keep around the garden.

We also decided to try our hand at lettuce. Lettuce is typically a colder weather plant and we are taking a risk planting it. There weren’t any seedlings available, so we went with straight seeds and some oblong planters to plant them in. This should be Ella-proof, right?

After we got home, we took everything to the backyard to get Ella all set up.

First things first, the marigolds were placed on the bed. Ella did this with great care!
















I wish I had pictures of her planting the seeds with Grandpa. I’m not sure how I missed that one. Maybe it’s because I was trying to keep her from spilling the seeds everywhere. I didn’t do a very good job of that. She was so excited that all the seeds kind of got dumped into little piles, instead of planted in a nice long row. If this lettuce makes it, it will be a total miracle! She was so proud of herself that you just couldn’t get mad.

After everything was planted and in its place, it was time to give it a good watering. Josiah decided he was the man for the job! He sweetly followed Grandpa around, holding on to the hose, to make sure that all the plants got their share of the water. Some plants got a little more than others.

 

With Ella's help, my Dad made a gate out of some old fence he had in the garage to keep out any skunks or raccoons.








So, planting day had come to a close and our gardening adventure had truly begun. Our dreams of delicious vegetables were securely planted in the ground, watered, and protected with a makeshift gate and some plastic mesh. Now we wait.