Planting Time

I'm blessed to have grown up with a mom who was always planting things, either in plastic trays in the house (or greenhouse, since she has one on the side of her home), or in outdoor gardens. Mom and Dad, who became Master Gardeners at some point in my childhood, also "dragged" me to various gardens throughout the country, such as Longwood Gardens, in Pennsylvania. So I'm happy to pass the love of growing things on to my
kids. Also, I have a great source of help and information available in my mom. Yesterday, the boys and Mary could wait no longer, and
"talked me into" cleaning out the yogurt cups we've been saving, finding the seed starter I had stashed away, and planting seeds.
They've been talking about it for a few weeks, but I have to admit I've been putting it off. They chose a mix of vegetables (peas, beets, and gourds) and flowers (four o'clocks, larkspur, sweet peas, and moonflower). For some reason, someone arranged the little pots around the rooster lamp in the kitchen.
Today, I moved our little seeds to a special light box my Dad had made many years ago:

It's great, because the light can be moved up as the seedlings emerge and grow taller.

I love the way doing one activity with my kids leads to all kinds of discussions. The kids wondered why I was putting plastic
on top of the cups, so we talked about how it keeps the soil moist through evaporation and condensation. How cool is that?
Science was covered for the day!