When I made our plans for science this year, one of the things I wanted to do was botany. To study botany we were going to plant a garden and various types of plants, including some carnivorous ones, and we were going to start in the spring. This was before the drought took full effect and we were banned from outdoor watering. Our county has eased up on restrictions a bit, and we are now allowed 25 minutes of hand watering, on certain days of the week, at ridiculous hours in the morning, so I'm not sure how great our garden will be this year, but we are giving it a whirl anyways. (I'm sure there's lots of good lessons to be learned about growing a garden in less than stellar conditions, right!?)
One book that has given me hope for success is Mel Bartholomew's "All New Square Foot Gardening". There was a write up in the paper on it a few weeks ago, and I was able to quickly secure a copy at the library. Kent, the boys and I all fell in love with it, so it is now sitting in my Amazon.com cart waiting to be purchased in the next day or two, along with a whittling book for Michael and a resource book for me. (Gotta meet that $25 for free shipping!)
Kent has made a list of the wood we need to build our first box, along with some smaller square foot boxes to adorn the steps of our deck. We also have a list a mile long of everything we want to plant, so I guess we'll have to narrow that down a bit. According to the book, 12 square feet can grow quite a bit of food, but not 40 different kinds of plants, vegetables, herbs, and berries.
As for the carnivorous plants, I bought a seed packet when I ordered my school books last year, and the library actually has a book on how to grow them, so we'll see how far we get with that. If we do not have success on our own, I've been assured by our local nursery that they carry a variety of carvinorous plants there. I've promised the boys bug eating plants, and they shall have them!
I'll keep you posted as we go along. Hopefully over the next few months all of our thumbs will be turning a lovely shade of green!
I can't wait to see pictures of the gardens! We haven't planted any of ours yet, just like with you it's due to the weather. And you are gonna LOVE Cay's book!
Posted by: Paula in MN | May 07, 2008 at 06:26 AM
I can't wait to see how the carnivorous plants do. Do they eat mosquitos?
I checked with the water department last year and it IS ok to water food despite the watering restrictions. We just kept on watering our garden last year because we were using it to feed our family.
Posted by: vicki | May 10, 2008 at 09:12 PM
What a great idea Megan! I hope you have a lot of success!
Posted by: Kelly | May 13, 2008 at 05:52 PM