We last posted about the construction of Aliyah’s garden last fall. A lot has happened since then! We have added new fruits, vegetables, and flowers – some of them succeeded, and some didn’t. But each one has been a learning experience for our littlest gardener. This post will bring you up to speed on our garden as of Summer 2020. Better late than never!
First, preparation!
Aliyah likes to garden in her princess gown, because she is one. A princess, that is. And every level-headed princess knows that you should wear gardening gloves that fit properly, and keep your hair out of your face. Grams somehow forgot her gloves, but Grand Duchesses are allowed to sometimes get a pass on these minor slip-ups. As long as we don’t make it a regular occurrence.
Next up, Planting Seedlings
Grams doesn’t have the patience to plant from seeds, so we cheated and started with seedlings instead. Our first addition to the garden, after the initial strawberry seedling, was about a dozen little marigolds. They have grown and reseeded since we first planted them, and are nice and healthy. Aliyah likes the bright flowers, and was fascinated by the way the seeds grew out of the spent flowers.
Next, we planted some bright pinkish purple (purplish pink?) moss roses that had been struggling on our balcony. They are doing much better in the garden, where Aliyah can keep her eye on them.
Later on, we added a watermelon, asparagus, and tomatoes that Aliyah’s mommy provided. Some of them didn’t survive because Grams forgot to water them enough, but the watermelon is earnestly trying to take over the garden, the yard, and perhaps the entire neighborhood. Honestly, it was at least 15 feet long after a few weeks and showed no sign of slowing down. We weren’t sure whether to cut it back, re-arrange it more gracefully along the edge of the lawn, or what. But we did see two cute little watermelons, so we felt a bit more kindly towards it, at least for a while
Our watermelon vine looked so sweet… 
…until it started to take over the yard.
Watermelon in production 
Bonus Objective: Find the Rain Lilly
This little watermelon made it to about 3 inches long, but began to rot in the summer heat. We’re not quite sure what went wrong, but watermelons were not to be ours this year. 🙁
On a more positive note, we found a little rain lily peeking out through the watermelon leaves. We moved it into the garden where it wouldn’t get choked out. We found several more over the following weeks, and transplanted them as well. So far they’re doing well, and we’re looking forward to splashes of color the next time they decide to bloom.
Planting From Scraps
Pineapple Tops
In addition to our seedlings, we also planted pineapples and potatoes from kitchen leftovers. We planted three pineapples by cutting the tops off and sticking them into the ground. The rest of the pineapples we ate – they were delicious! The pineapple tops are going gangbusters, putting down roots and getting big and healthy. Here is a pic of the first pineapple we planted. We haven’t seen any baby pineapples yet, but maybe next year, once the plants are well enough established.
Potatoes
The most recent vegetables we planted were sweet potatoes and white potatoes that Grams had failed to cook up before they sprouted all over the place. Don’t look at me like that.
Grams showed Aliyah how to cut up the potatoes so that each chunk had an “eye” or sprout growing out of it. Aliyah planted each chunk with the sprout facing the sun. Many of our sprouts grew into healthy new plants like the one below. And no leftovers to throw away!
Next Gardening Update: Summer/Fall 2020
Be sure to stay tuned our next gardening post, where we add new plants from Auntie’s garden and learn about worm farms. Exciting stuff! Stay well and get plenty of sunshine wherever you are. In the meantime, check out our YouTube video: Planting a potato
