My helper and progress

I recently had a little helper in my garden. Riley needed to wear an apron to protect her dress from dirt and my green "crocoffs" were sturdier than her pink sandals -- and more fun. I thought the hat was perfect, but she wondered why I didn't want to take a photo of her pretty hair. Of course I did.

I wanted to get a photo of her new shovel, hoe and rake that are just her size, but she really didn't have time for posing. She needed to dig.

I think gardens are perfect for children. They can really learn something of value and enjoy the outdoors, too. My job is to provide tools and bug repellent and her job is to dig holes in the garden. I was lucky enough to convince her to dig the holes where I wanted them and we then planted hot peppers. She tired of the work pretty quickly and was ready for something else, but we did have fun.

Our lettuce is growing nicely. We got the watering system ready and have started watering with lake water. It's not terribly dry, but the thirsty young plants do need a drink every couple of days.

And -- we were surprised late yesterday evening with spaghetti squash plants peeping out of the dirt. I am very excited!

When we check around, we found the kale was coming up, too.

The zucchini plants look big, compared to the other squash plants. We planted the zucchini before the spaghetti squash so it was nice to see them coming up and looking so good.

And then we saw our potatoes. We planted them first but they were deeper than the other plants and it was so nice to see them already making an appearance.