Madelyn, Erika, little Victoria, how does your garden grow? With sun and water, then we transport 'er, fresh herbs do we now know.

OK, so its a little corny, but the girls have really enjoyed their gardendom. In early spring, after a home-school lesson on how plants grow, I came up with a concept that we could, in fact, still have a garden on the road. If it were contained, small enough to transport yet still had enough space, it could be done. So I concocted the box-garden you see here. It is basically two tupperware tubs, one short, one taller (inside the short one), and one lid with holes drilled in it (to act like a greenhouse, when we started the seeds). I put in some river rock (collected on-site) then put a bag of potting soil over that and viola - garden. It left enough room for the plants to get about 12 inches tall, and plenty of soil to not need watering twice a day.

We started the project in Morgan Hill, CA the first week of April. I bought 6 packages of commercial seed packets at Walmart and then gave each of the girls their own two plots, and their own two packets. We sat down and planted them together. They loved to see the different sizes and shapes of the seeds. We even got to chat about how seeds are made and what it takes to make a plant from a seed. It was all very educational. :)

Madelyn chose Chives (she liked the purple flowers on the picture) and Cilantro. Erika had Spearmint (she LOVES mint) and Italian Parsley. Victoria got Basil and Oregano, and was happy just to be involved in the whole thing. The variety was mostly so that the girls could learn about the different rates things grow and how different the leaves look. Here you can see some of them sprouting. The Cilantro came up first, and strangely, they all kinda looked the same in the first few days.

I can still see Madelyn running back to the front door to scream "Mommy, Mommy, my plants sprouted!" the first time we could see leaves.

The girls loved touching the soft leaves and tasting the different flavors. So far, Madelyn LOVES chives. In fact, just about every time she walks by the garden she snaps one off and eats it. At least she's getting greens somehow...

At some point we needed to thin things out, and honestly, if we completely followed the plan there would only be one plant per square, so I've let some of it be a little overgrown. Oregano is still especially tight on space.

When we move it rides along nicely in the backseat of the truck, and then we bring it out first thing and find it a nice, sunny spot on the ground. Personally, I've loved having the cilantro and Parsley right there so that I can make one of our new favorite things - chimichurri. Unfortunately, it only grows so fast, so harvests are few and far between.

Overall, I'll call it a success if for nothing else than giving the girls the experience of growing their own garden, tasting different flavors, and understanding why things taste different. I've been told that when this experiment runs its course we need to do a flower garden. I think that's a fine idea, and it'll make the truck smell especially nice when we're treking from place to place.