How Does Your Garden Grow

Jeremy definitely has the green thumb around these parts. I love houseplants, love flowers and love the idea of growing vegetables, but the dedication? That, my friends, I do not love. But luckily, Jeremy finds great pleasure in nurturing and caring for his little backyard garden, which he starts from seeds in a corner of our basement that he outfitted with a grow light. He slaves over those little guys for months as they transform from seedling to full-grown hardened plants that are resilient enough for the great outdoors. Admittedly, it drives me a bit nutty at times to have to delicately dodge the traveling seedlings as he rotates them around our house during their various stages of growth. They've not only spent time in our basement, but they've also frequented our family room window sills, been perched atop our entertainment center, spent an extended stay on a table in our master bedroom, and seen the sights of our master bathroom. While Jeremy is able to see them for all the beautiful vegetables they will one day become, all I see are needy, time-consuming little containers of dirt that take up valuable space in my house. But don't get me wrong, I'm all about chowing down on some homegrown kale, tomatoes and zucchini!

Jeremy even lent his gardening know-how to Maribelle's daycare and has been working on a little project with the kids the past few months. A while back, he showed them how to plant green beans and tomato seeds, and last week, we spent the morning in Miss Karen's backyard showing the kids how to transplant the full-grown seedlings into pots.

While it was tough to keep the attention of four toddlers, they had a blast playing in the dirt and watering (i.e. DROWNING) the happy plants. However, Jeremy has a cautionary tale to share: be careful when lifting a large bag of dirt that has been sitting in the rain for three days -- you just might pull something in your lower back and have to take a course of steroids for a week.

Just sayin'.