Thistles... those nasty, prickly, hard to weed noxious plants! Aren't they a terrible nuisance to the gardener? One thing about these thistles: you need to get them out when they are little!  If you wait to long to pull them... their roots grow deeper and their thorns grow bigger and more prolific. If you were to compare pulling say this weed:   to this weed: Boy, what a difference!  There is really no comparison! The [...]

My eldest daughter screeched, "Ouch Mom! I'm all scratched up!" "Well why don't you were gloves Kels?" I responded... so began the next conversation with the kids... (I know what you are thinking... wow she over does it when it comes to these metaphors...but really, honestly... can you over due teaching when you have hours of weeding... plenty of time to sing and laugh and simply sit quietly working hard together... is there such a [...]

Weeds & the Benefits of Team Efforts Our kids had planted seeds a few months ago in their own gardens and because we have not been as diligent as we needed to be the weeds have overgrown and many, not all, but many of their seeds didn't come up.  The weeds choked out the fruit we were so hoping for when we sowed the seed.  What a good lesson to learn.  Hard, but good right!  [...]

"Mom, How do I know which one is a weed?" When weeding a garden with children, you spend a good amount of time telling the children which weeds are in fact "weeds".  About two weeks ago we got some more baby chicks.  A friend mentioned to chop up the dandelion leaves and feed them to the chicks for two reasons: 1) To train them to eat them (gain an acquired taste for dandelions) when they [...]