I am so determined to get a good harvest out of our fall garden this year to make up for our summer garden failure. I learned my lesson the hard way that you’ve got to amend the soil before each season of planting! Our soil was depleted and our poor tomato plants had nothing to draw from. Lesson learned. And so, it’s all about the fall garden.

A few weeks ago, I started broccoli rabe, broccoli di cicco (more of a standard broccoli variety), red chard, kale, and spinach seedlings indoors. I have this amazing seedling heat mat that really gets the seedlings going. I have more seedlings than I know what to do with! A fun problem to have.

This year I was excited to have Gianna help with the seed sowing. That girl LOVES to garden. With that came the need to let go of having a perfectly planned beds, with everything in neat little rows. I just put a small pile of seeds in her hands, showed her a general place to plant, and away she went. Scattering them, then pushing dirt around over them. She had a blast. Above is a little space of garden box that she worked on! It’s been fun showing her the spinach, carrot, and other mystery seedlings that are coming up!

And then things got even more fun when we invited Gianna’s twin friends from the neighborhood to come over for a seed planting party! They went crazy scattering seed EVERYWHERE in this bed above. We planted beets, snap peas (my favorite!), carrots, spinach, lettuce, and kale. I’m bracing myself for where things are going to pop up! Oh, and then the watering of the seeds happened. Somehow I had forgotten that toddlers LOVE. WATER. With an undying passion.

The thing that really propelled me to actually start the seed planting was this trellis that Pat made! He spent a whole weekend afternoon working on if for me, and it is awesome. Sometimes it’s something like putting up a trellis or buying the seeds that becomes the tipping point to getting things started.

Here’s to an excellent fall harvest to come.