What happened to my little boy that use to terrorize worms?

It doesn't seem that long ago that my little boy Andy used to get so excited to find worms in the garden - just to terrorize them. He used to think it was cool to cut them in pieces, smash them, drown them and anything else that caused them terror.

This afternoon as I was planting peas, he spotted a really fat worm and asked for it. As I handed it to him, I wondered how long the worm would live. It seems that the little boy that took great pride in the number of ways he could harm a worm has grown up. Today he studied the worm from all angles, stroked it gently and them put it back in the garden alive and unharmed. "Go and dig some holes for oxygen for roots, Wormy" the boy said.

Hard to believe that the little boy who was in preschool when I started this blog is now an 11 year old fifth grade middle schooler. Where has the time gone? The middle school that he attends is an E-STEM designated school - the E stands for Environment. He is really learning to take good care of the earth. The T stands for technology and the school recently handed out iPads to everyone of its students - good bye books and notebooks. The iPads are school property and have to be returned at the end of the school year but it is really cool to not lug around all those books and be able to record all of their data right on their iPads. So very different from when I went to school in the dark ages.

The boy still has autism and still has a severe learning disability. But it is harder to see those issues as he grows. I continue to hope that he will grow into a self sufficient adult.

I think the worms are safe in my garden once more.

Identifying Garlic and Onion Plants

At first glance, onions and garlic plants look alike. I always have some coming up in the spring that I didn't plant in the fall - I just didn't dig them up good enough - or in the case of my onions, I have walking onions that plant themselves from the top bulbs. It is helpful to know which are which.

Above is a garlic plant. You can tell it is garlic because the leaves are flat.

This is an onion plant - you can tell because the leaves are round instead of flat.

I remember being confused about this and once it was pointed out to me, it was a duh moment.

So there you have it - if you didn't know how to tell them apart before, you do now.

The seedlings are growing

The weather might not be cooperating outside but the garden indoors is growing nicely.

We did have some nice warm days last week, but then it decided to get cold again - it even snowed yesterday morning. The nice thing about snow this time of the year is that it never lasts. It is gone already.

Here is a picture of some of the seedlings - they are still small but they are healthy. Some of them are ready for transplanting to bigger pots already. Egg cartons are great for starting them but they are very tiny and the seedlings outgrow them quickly.

When I lift the egg cartons up, you can see they have a ton of roots growing out of the bottom - that is a sign that it is time to find them something bigger to grow in.

Here are my brussels sprouts replanted. I like to reuse containers rather than buy new ones. Yogurt containers are just the right size.