Xavier the Gardner
Greetings to you all.
Earlier this year, after we finished hauling the dirt for Rebecca's planter boxes off the front lawn, we ordered another six yards of soil for Xavier's garden, which is in the front lawn.
The last two years, Xavier's garden has grown weeds better than pumpkins and his other plants.
This year, Xavier has a goal of growing a pumpkin big enough he can hide in. On Halloween, he hopes to hide in it until someone comes to the door, then pop out with a "Boo!"
To that end, we bought two types of pumpkin: 100-200 pounders and 400-500 pounders. We started his pumpkins in the house in peat pots.
When the weather improved, we moved them to the new soil hill in his garden. We covered them with Hot Kaps until the plants grew too big. About mid June we took the Kaps off.
The birds over the winter helped seed his garden with sunflowers. Interestingly, nearly all the sunflowers perfectly bordered his fifteen foot diameter garden.
In the center, we planted four of the 400-500# plants and six of the 100-200# plants. On the north side, Xavier planted four tomato plants we bought off a neighbor. To the west, Xavier put in two cucumber vines and a zucchini. On the lower part, he planted two pumpkin plants that produce tiny pumpkins.
At the bottom of his garden, the first plants to come up—even before the planter box project began, his Yukon Gold Potatoes. These plants were a birthday gift from Xavier's Grandpa Danny two years ago. We missed a few in last year's harvest. They produce beautiful plants and nice potatoes.
We ended up over-planting the hill. The pumpkins have taken over everything. Growing at two feet of vine a day in every direction, they have started pushing over the sunflower retaining wall. Already, Xavier has three nice candidates. We estimate these three to weight between twenty and twenty-five pounds already.
Of course, Xavier competes his garden against Rebecca's. But, he also enjoys helping Mom in her garden.
This year, he has enjoyed harvesting the lettuce and spinach greens. After some quick tutelage from Rebecca, he knows what to pick and when. Often he'll come in the house with a handful of greens for the day.
We have already eaten several of his zucchini (Rebecca cooked a fantastic stuffed zucchini dish the other night), and he has given some of his zucchini away to the neighbors.