Nature Study: UNplanted Garden Style

So, after all of our garden studies last year, we didn't plant a thing this year. We had plans for a Dill's Atlantic Giant Pumpkin (we own champion seeds over 1200 pounds of pumpkin champion there!, a few seeds from a 300 pounder and some regular ol' commercial seeds from our 4-H group pumpkin group) and some other stuff. But Dan is grumpy about gardening and I didn't have the inertia necessary to overcome his anti-garden philosophy. Maybe next year...I am seriously considering blueberry bushes. We'll see how that turns out.

However, as the summer wore on, we noticed that even if we didn't plant things on purpose, plenty of stuff started to grow! I decided it would be a terrific study to see what grew in spite of us. Here are the results.

The gardening spot

My absolute favorite flower of all time...Black-Eyed Susans- The Maryland State Flower!

Remember our marigolds from last year? I didn't realize marigolds are annuals. Yay for us!

Maple seedlings! A whole group of them....undoubtedly from our large trees next door.

While out that morning I took a few shots of the "bush fort" Dan made for the kids in a large brambly bush

Here's a close up of the seat up in the branches. I'm not sure the animals love the spot Dan cut out of this bush, but the kids sure love it!

We went out that morning knowing there was a lot of rain on the way...it sure was windy and take a look at these clouds. I made sure to get some shots so that we could talk about them later.

We played some soccer. The older boys both play on youth teams this year. This is E12's last year as homeschoolers can't play on school teams here. We have at least one other option for next season.

And of course there was some stick "sword fighting"

All in all we had a most enjoyable morning and we did take a lot of notes about what's in that garden. Just as soon as I snap a picture of what the kids did, I will share it. The lap boards worked terrifically. We are all looking forward to more outdoor studies. More information on this very soon!