French Breakfast Radish Harvest

The French Breakfast radish harvest has proven to be a lovely early crop. Cyrus apparently loves radishes (at least this year he does).

(an email)

"Your son is a fellow radish lover. The kids each picked one this morning, which I was annoyed with until they washed and ate them! I was surprised, so I said: If you like them, you may pick them whenever you want. One at a time. And that's what Cyrus did for like 10 radishes. I guess they call them french breakfast radishes for a reason. =)"

Cyrus harvesting the last of the French Breakfast radishes....

Satya hasn't proven to be a radish lover like Cyrus and I, but this is a fun photo all the same. :)

Final harvest for the French Breakfast radishes were about two weeks over due. Not really too bad considering the winter/spring we've had. I'll definitely look towards radishes as being an early garden gem in the future.

Sunflowers

We transplanted the sunflower starts today! The primary focus of the garden is food, but...

"We want to plant flowers for the bees because they help the vegetables grow"

"Why do they help the vegetables grow?"

"They land on all the flowers and take care of the flowers, and the flowers turn into vegetables."

"Oh!" (Happy smile)

Once before I tried using the word 'pollination' in an explanation, but that didn't really sink in. The fact that bees sting, but they are still considered "Good Guys" was a source of confusion. The bees-take-care-of-flowers logic seemed to get traction. I figure it's a good enough explanation. It forms the linkage between bees, flowers, and us; which is really the important part of the concept. A 5 year old doesn't care about the technical 'how' of pollination. It's too abstract. 5 year olds are only concerned with 'why'.

We definitely need more flowers in and around the garden....

I found a list of edible flowers that looks very promising. One flower in particular looks very promising: nasturtium. They come in all manner of colors, there are climbing varieties, and best of all... the flowers go great in salads and can even be pickled! Other fun facts about them are that humming birds like them and they tend to attract aphids away from the veggies. Looking for seeds, I found yet another online seed company that is really great- Renee's Garden. (Her selection of nasturtium seeds in particular has no peer.) I'm starting to think that all the vertical space we have can be fully incorporated into the garden.