“Nature study should be a matter of observation on the part of the pupils. The teacher’s part is to indicate points for observation and not to tell what is to be seen.”
~Anna Botsford Comstock in Suggestions for Nature Study Work
Our yards and gardens tell an ever-changing story from season to season. It is a story of birth, life, and then death, leading to rebirth the next year. It is a intertwining story of plants, insects, birds, animals, and our family too.
It is a delight to learn the story that unfolds as we work from spring and on into summer. Take a few minutes this week to make those important observations together as a family, learning the story of your garden.
I have created a follow-up notebook page for children to use if they desire. You will find it in this month’s Handbook of Nature Study newsletter which is free to subscribers. It is also found in the Ultimate Naturalist’s Library and in the Journey levelof membership here on the Handbook of Nature Study (Scroll down on your membership page to the Printables section.)
This week I had fun gathering lots of interesting images from the garden to share with you. I have been trying to work my way through the Summer Nature Photo Challenge and one of the topics is “something prickly”. The cactus on the left I call Hairy and he lives on my deck…I inherited him from a relative and we think he is over thirty years old. The image on the right is one I actually took at Home Depot as I browsed in the nursery. I love the patterns of the prickles on this cactus!
I have a wide variety of sunflowers this year and they each have their own unique charm…ruffles, bendy petals, variations in color and leaf size…so much to enjoy about our sunflowers.
This is the time of year that I take a morning walk with my cup of coffee, exploring for new things in the garden. As you slow to really enjoy each flower, the patterns of color, petals, and seeds make an impression. Learning to share these things with your children and watching them grow in appreciation is something we all can do and it is easy if you have a cutting flower garden. Let your children cut a single flower, bring it inside and find a vase for it, and then set it on your kitchen table for closer observation and enjoyment.
Climbing vines are a big part of my summer garden. After studying vines with the Outdoor Hour Challenge, I have learned to notice how the vines twine and which direction they twine around the stakes. Each plant is uniform in its twisting direction. I also have a passion flower vine and it doesn’t twine but it uses tendrils to grab onto the stakes.
One last image for you to see….this one is my thistle plant that is blooming and is super pokey! The birds (finches) love the seeds from this plant and I hated to pull it out but I had to. My husband does not always share my love of all things that grow in the yard. He is right that it had already spread enough seed to ensure that there will be more next year without letting the whole area get filled in with thistles. I am a reasonable person so we pulled it all up.
I encourage you all to take a look with fresh eyes at your yard or neighborhood…find some prickles, patterns, and vines to point out to your children. Let them make some oral observations and perhaps gather a pretty flower or two for you kitchen table.
Early morning in the garden is my favorite time to stroll the boxes looking for what treasures are to be found…you are welcome to view some images from the last week. Above hangs my new birdfeeder, a gift from my husband and my gift to my backyard birds. They love this new feeder and I love that it is larger than my last one so that means less times filling it each week.
Sunflowers and morning glories are the in the main box this year and they seem to like living together. The vines creep up the poles as well as the sunflower stalks and each morning I have a new blue flower waiting for me to enjoy.
This is the Mailbox Mix from Renee’s Garden and her heirloom collection. This is a winner in my yard!
The zucchini box is full of gorgeous plants and squash this year. We planted Renee’s Garden Tricolor Mix so we have dark green, light green, and yellow squash to enjoy just about every day.
Our tomatoes are starting to produce lovely red fruit and just a few at a time so we can enjoy them in our sandwiches and salads. Tonight…bruschetta!
Our fig tree has another crop of figs to pick. I am not a fig lover but I share with my friends and family that are…they love me for sharing.
Our pear tree has just a handful of pears this year but they are beautiful to look at and hopefully tasty to eat. Our apple tree dropped its apples last month which was weird. My sister said hers did the same thing.
I love the bright orange squash flowers and apparently so do the bees in my yard.
More squash to come!
My dad and I have both found that our green beans are not producing even though we have blossoms. My dad called Renee’s Garden customer service to see if they had some tips on getting our plants to set fruit. They suggested we add some fish fertilizer which I had on the shelf. I mixed up a couple batches and fertilized all my veggies in the garden so we shall see if it helps.
Someone had emailed me asked what I use in my garden for fertilizer so here is a photo of the bottle.
This is my dad’s flower garden which I am envious of. His lantana and dahlias are amazing! Up above he has his fenced in veggie garden which is producing lots of okra, corn, zucchini, eggplant, strawberries, and peppers. I have been helping him a bit in the garden since he had a fall last week and was not moving around too well. What a joy to help him in his garden.
These are just a few of his sunflowers which are Chocolate Cherry variety from Renee’s Garden.
I better stop there…so many garden delights this time of year to share with you. Until next week and the Tuesday Garden Party.
I helped my dad in his garden today…picking corn! He has so much of it that he is tired of eating corn so our family was obliged to take some ears for our dinner. 🙂
He purchased Renee’s Garden seeds and planted three rows and all of it came up and is producing lots of sweet corn.
I was wishing I had some kids that could do a corn nature study using the Corn Study from the archives here on the Handbook of Nature Studyas part of the Crop Plants series we did several years ago.
For now, I will just eat corn until we are tired of it!
Hopefully you all get the link to the newsletter with today’s post if you are a subscriber. If you don’t get the link, let me know. I can’t figure out why some didn’t get it yesterday.
We went camping in Oregon for a week and while we were gone our garden decided to spring into life. I have it all on an automatic drip system so we knew it would be nicely watered in our absence. There were some surprises for us when we got back.
Our green beans have all started climbing their poles and I am afraid that I over-planted this veggie. We love green beans and I may need to learn how to preserve them so they don’t go to waste.
The tomato decided to really grow! It looks super healthy and I can hardly wait for the fruits to appear and ripen…then it will truly feel like summer.
The squash has come alive as well. The plants have green luscious leaves and seem to like the box I chose for them this year.
My patio tomatoes look fantastic…they are from Renee’s Garden in their Container Kitchen Garden Collection.
The Pots of Gold Chard (from Renee’s Garden Container Kitchen Garden collection) looks great too and I hope it is not going to get too hot for it before we harvest. I may pick some smaller leaves and add them to some soup.
The blackberries are thick with fruit this year. We had to trim the vines back because they were beginning to take over their little space over in the front corner garden. We had lots of berry treats in Oregon and it whetted my appetite for our own blackberries that will ripen next month. Then I will have blue stained fingers most mornings as I make my round of the garden, nibbling the delicious sweet berries.
There are lots of flower seedlings in my fence garden and I will share those as they mature and bloom. I can hardly stand the wait. The sunflowers are up tall and look like they will burst open with huge flower heads any day! That is always a fun time as they all start to blossom and the bees and butterflies arrive to enjoy them too.
This year Renee’s Garden sent me my whole seed order as a gift so that I could share my results with my dear blog readers. I love the selection of seeds found at Renee’s Garden and I have grown them in my garden for many years. I usually order them directly from their website but my dad purchased his whole garden seed order at our local Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH) which would even be easier!
We got our seeds in the ground last month and we are already seeing tremendous growth in the veggie and flower gardens!
Our Blue Lake pole beans have all sprouted and with the heat we are getting this week we should probably see them double in size. The seeds we planted are from Renee’s Garden Organic Seed Collection. I am so thrilled to have these in my garden that I planted two different boxes with these green bean sesds. I am anxious to see how they taste!
This is something new for our family from Renee’s: Tricolor Zucchini. The zucchini seeds are mixed in the packet and contain three different kinds of squash. The seedlings look strong and are growing like crazy. I have a whole houseful of zucchini lovers so hopefully we will get our fill of squash this summer.
A whole row of sunflowers…which need to be thinned a bit. We have three really big ones which were self-sowed from last year’s crop but there are some little seedlings that we planted from our Renee’s Garden seeds. There are Van Gogh, Chocolate Cherry, and Royal Flush.
We planted plenty of morning glories right in the middle of our back garden. I am hoping they do well here and have been watching them grow week by week. Morning glories make me super happy and I love to draw them in my nature journal…relaxing. The seeds we picked are a heritage blend that are traditionally grown to decorate fences and mailboxes.
There are also some really pretty showy flowers in the garden right now which are not from Renee’s Garden but I want to share with you.
The hydrangeas are very happy this year and this is my favorite color…so delicate.
In my container deck garden there is a beautiful calla lily blooming. This plant always surprises me when it pops back to life after the winter weather. It soon will be a whole pot full of blooms which the hummingbirds and I will enjoy.
It is very hard to believe that it is day lily blooming time but they are all budding out and a few are blossoming.
I love the peachy color of this day lily and am always happy to see it in bloom in my butterfly/hummingbird garden.
There are lots more of Renee’s Garden seeds to share and I will as the season progresses. I am always happy to share our favorite seed company with my blog readers.
Purple and pink petunias are a garden favorite around here. Well, any purple flower is my favorite but petunias are a great color spot even in my vegetable garden.
I decided years ago that I like to mix up my garden boxes and include pretty flowers as well as veggies.This year we planted marigolds and petunias to add that splash of color for the early spring boxes.
I am looking forward to spending some time observing my petunias over the summer season and completing a petunia nature study…especially to see how the insects navigate the flower tube.
These were the blossoms on the Western Redbud a few months ago, before the leaves appeared.
This is what it looks like now.
Western (or California) Redbud
Pea family
Usually a shrub 7 to 18 feet high.
Leaves are round and heart shaped, winter deciduous
Bright purple flowers appear in early spring on naked branches, followed by bronze colored leaves that soon turn green.
Seed pods appear in July.
Grows below 4,000 feet.
Drought tolerant and sun-loving.
Native Americans highly prized this shrub and used its autumn wine-red branches for basket-making.
I am hoping to have this redbud as part of my lovely front yard for many, many season to come.
I have long wanted a redbud in my yard and when we did our front yard remodel we left a space for one in the front section. I planted poppies around the base and this spring I got to discover how beautifully they work together in my yard. I need to remember that you are to prune it in the fall, winter, or early spring after the leaf drop.
This month our Outdoor Hour Challenge focus is on garden flowers and crop plants. There will be no lack of subjects to study this month right outside our front and back doors. As the spring weather warms up and we have abundant sunshine, I am eager to get out and start digging in the dirt. It was easy to check off a few of the Garden Grid Study ideas as went worked in the yard this weekend.
So I will give you a tour of some of the interesting garden flowers, crops, grasses, and bushes we have in our yard right now. Enjoy!
Heart shaped leaves…
My latest garden acquisition is this lovely, lovely lilac bush. If only you could smell the delicate fragrance of the flowers! I am hoping this is a winner in my sunny backyard. We planted it where it will have plenty of sunshine and room to grow.
We had this spot already prepared from last summer when it was part of my experimental veggie garden expansion…we weren’t all that successful so I decided that my beloved lilac would find a home here.
More heart-shaped leaves…
Here is my latest experiment….hydrangeas on the shady side of my house. I decided to leave them in pots to see if they survive and if they look like they are liking it here then I will plant them in the ground. The birdfeeder has now been moved to the other part of the garden where the squirrels might not find it for a bit.
Watched the bees in the flowers…
The backyard lavender is blooming now and the bees are busy already. You can never have too much lavender….or at least I think so.
Disneyland Rose
This is definitely the year of the rose in our area. All my roses are blooming and this one is my favorite…the Disneyland Rose. It has a spicy perfume fragrance and the blooms are peachy-pink. I cut this all the way to the ground last fall because it was an odd shape. I wasn’t sure if it would bloom well this spring but I have to say that I may just cut it all the way down every fall if this is the results. Awesome!
Look at those leaves!
This is another new arrival in the back garden. We have a super sunny hot spot up next to my backyard retreat. Nothing has been very successful here except the Jerusalem Sage. I am taking a chance with the Moonshine Yarrow and it has probably doubled in size since we planted it. I am hopeful that it will do well here.
These leaves are fuzzy and soft.
This is our Jerusalem Sage…I looked it up and it grows to be about 48″ wide. It needs very little water and it blooms long into the autumn season. I watered it three times a week last summer (the first summer) but now I am going to be only watering it twice a week and see how it goes. It looks like it is pretty well established. Where I live in Northern California, we get very little rain from June to November. Our first significant rain last fall was November 27th. Now you know why I use lots of drought tolerant plants in my yard.
So here is my surprise squash plant that is growing in the cutting flower garden box. I am not sure where it came from but I am going to let it grow since it seems so happy where it is. I did not have squash growing anywhere near this box last year so we will be surprised when it matures to see what it is exactly.
I had to include an image of my clover since we are focusing on Garden Flowers and Crop Plants this month for the Outdoor Hour Challenge. Clover is included in the Handbook of Nature Study so if you have some in your yard…take advantage of the nature study opportunity.
Our Smoke bush is so very pretty right now with its airy little blossoms that make it look like it has smoke. This has doubled in size since we planted it two years ago and I love the way it looks right now.
See the tiny little flowers? This is what makes it look like “smoke”. Later in the autumn the leaves turn a deep purple…love it!
One last image of our sage that is growing like crazy with our warmer temperatures and sunshine. This will be covered in delicate purple flowers during the summer…loads of bees visit these bushes in our front yard during the summer.
There you go… a visit to my garden, a few new things, and some close observation as part of the Outdoor Hour Challenge. My boys helped me finish preparing the garden boxes and we planted seeds this weekend too so there will be lots more to come as the seasons flow by.
“The only right way to begin plant study with young children is through awakening their interest in and love for flowers.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 453
Outdoor Hour Challenge: Use the grids in the May newsletter to get started with your Garden Flowers and Crop Plants study this month. There are lots of simple ideas for observation that all ages can use to start this month’s focus on garden flowers and crop plants. If you have the newsletter, make sure to see the garden journal ideas on page 14. There is also a flower notebooking page included in the newsletter for you to use with any garden flower you study this month.
Special Activity: Using Your Senses in the Garden
Use your senses during your Grid Study this week and record your observations on this Garden Senses Notebook Page. Use you sense of touch, smell, sight, and even taste and hearing (be careful with the tasting!) to take your Outdoor Time to the next level. Garden Senses Notebooking Page
Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #8.Just remember to take a magnifying lens with you during your outdoor time this week and encourage your children to look closely at some plants or flowers in your yard. Record you observations on the notebook page in the ebook.
If you already own the Garden Flower and Plants ebook, you could combine this week’s challenge with Garden Flowers Challenge #5 – Learning Leaf Parts. This challenge also encourages you to spend some quiet time in your garden using all your senses. Complete the accompanying notebook page in the ebook if you desire.
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