We Grow Dreams

Last year I heard (can't remember how) about a great greenhouse/nursery in the Western Suburbs whose mission was to give folks with developmental disabilities training and work experience while providing high-quality plants and seedlings to the public.  I was intrigued, but never had the time to go.  Finally, this spring I made it there.

We Grow Dreams is a great source for beautiful flowers and vegetable seedlings.  I took the kids on Mother's Day, and purchased some eggplant, summer squash and winter squash seedlings for the vegetable garden.

We had a great time wandering in and out of the greenhouses admiring all the plants. 

In an unrelated note: thanks for the Thing 2 shirt, Shannon!

The good folks at We Grow Dreams have an extensive aquaponic vegetable garden. 

Of course, while I was marveling at the entire system, Little Guy and Little Miss were fascinated with the fish...

...which the folks at WGD were kind enough to let them feed.  It made their day!

If you are in the western suburbs, be sure to check out We Grow Dreams in West Chicago.  Happy shopping!

***Disclaimer: We Grow Dreams has no idea who I am. But I was VERY impressed with their seedlings, and their mission, and I just had to share this organization with you!

Starting from seed

Last year, all my vegetable plants (with the exception of pole beans) entered my life as seedlings. This year, almost everything will be from seed.  I bought seeds for Little Miss's farm birthday gardening activity, and once I started planting them, it just seemed the route to go for this year's garden.

Twelve days ago the kids and I started our King of the North pepper seeds from Seed Savers. 

We used a Burpee seed starting kit I bought on clearance at the end of last season. It came with these fun pellets of seed starter mix that expanded once they were wet. 

Clearly, it was really entertaining to watch them expand. The process was quite interesting.

Once the pellets had expanded, we planted the seeds. I let the kids do this part and they had a lot of fun.

So now we have 25 pepper seeds planted, and hopefully all of them will germinate and grow into fine seedlings and plants. 

I'm not sure I'm a start-from-seed gardener, but I have high hopes for this method.  After all, I'm totally thrilled with how my first two homegrown projects are turning out.

Have a great weekend, everyone!