Sweet peas and Saint Patrick's Day are heading this way

sweet peas
Originally uploaded by jpc101

When dear St. Patrick's Day arrives soon, on March 17, be sure and have some sweet pea seeds on hand to plant
According to lore of this day, Sweet Peas planted in the dark hours on the evening before St. Patrick's Day grow more vigorously and produce more flowers than seeds planted any other time.
The results of my last year's experiment are not conclusive, but I am undeterred and want to try again this year.
Happy gardening to you all.

For more information on the fun of planting the evening before St. Patrick's Day and my favorite varieties to plant, see my article at http://www.positivelyfeminine.org, under creatively feminine, in March 2008.

Your Gardening With Kiddos Stories

Hi Gardeners and Friends of Kiddos,
I am writing an article about gardening with children.
Do you have a tip or story to share with me, to add to my article?
I will tell you here when and where the article will appear.
Thanks in advance, online friends.

Pizza Garden

Pizza Garden July 2007
Originally uploaded by Sally J.

A fun project with children is creating a PIZZA GARDEN.
This involves finding a spot in your yard that ideally gets 8 hours of sun a day, or six hours minimum, and laying out a garden in the shape of a round pizza pie.


Using string to guide you, mark out pie shaped slices, dividing your pizza into 6 or eight slices.
Fill each slice with pizza ingredient plants: cherry tomatoes, Early Girl tomatoes, onions, garlic, basil and oregano, and anything else your family loves on their pizzas.
You can edge the pie with white stones, to look like crust, and add yellow flowers like marigolds to stand in for cheese.


When the tomatoes and other veggies are ready, cookup a tomato sauce on the stovetop, and create a pizza.
I often use Boboli crusts available in a lot of grocery stores, or you can use a frozen crust or make your own if you are talented in that arena.
I found this photo on Flickr.