Gardening

Yesterday we spent a wonderful (albeit rainy) day digging and planting. Since our own yard is not suited to growing much of anything, we helped my mom out with her garden.

You might  not be able to make out the bit of grass that Levi is holding in his mouth. He considers that to be the sign of a farmer. Today he told me in a melancholy voice, "Yesterday I was a farmer, but today I'm not. I don't have a leaf in my mouth."

Both kids were loving it. Okay, so Sophia might have created a few casualties with her enthusiasm, but the learning has to start somewhere, right?

We planted tomatoes, peppers, herbs, cantaloupe, watermelon, and strawberries, and we're planning to add some squash and pumpkins to the mix. How about y'all? Growing anything yummy this summer?

A Fall Garden

There are two things that make me sad about Autumn...1) The blueberry bushes are empty. And, 2) This is the last of the tomato plants. The only reason it's still hanging around is because it's in a pot, so it's not taking up precious garden space....The rest were ripped up and replaced with these beauties...
peas...sugar snaps and two other varieties whose names I've currently forgotten...oops!
And lettuce...yum!
I've also got some kale, spinach, arugula, and swiss chard popping up. Can't wait till it's ready to eat. Have I mentioned that I have a thing for food? ;)

Garden Happiness

Our mint is blooming. I love the delicate fuzzy purple flowers. From a distance, they're really nothing spectacular...but when you get up close it's like a whole new, quirky, little world.
The zucchini is FINALLY producing more than just an abundance of flowers. Hallelujah! Thank you rain!! Can you see that little zucchini tucked away in the jumble of stalks? Yummy is what that is.
And, just a little gardening tip for those of you who have a problem with birds eating your fruits and veggies. Buy a whole bunch of shiny pinwheels. They must be shiny for this to work. Surround your precious babies...er, I mean plants...with all the shininess. These are actually silver on one side...
It worked for us. I like to let my tomatoes ripen on the vine, but that seems to be an open invitation for birds to peck at them. This year, no bird problems. Yippee! For those of you who cringe at the idea of tons of shiny pinwheels in your garden you might try hanging mirrors. I also tied shiny strips of some plasticy paper to the tomato cages.
So, what's happening in your garden...or even just in your windowsill?

Levi Meets All Manner Of Beasts

I read Dera's post on the Hornworm attacking her precious tomatoes, and I thought, "Gee, I'm so glad mine are Hornworm free...nasty little buggers." And, then holes began to appear in my precious babies (to clarify I'm referring to my tomatoes here not my actual child who I promise is more precious than a tomato or even a whole bunch of tomatoes). I began to suspect but couldn't find the culprit. Oh, they are sneaky creatures. Then one day I was minding my own business, and my mom came to the door bearing a stick with this lovely but nasty Hornworm. Of course I grabbed my camera because really how could I not. But before I could get a good shot of the beast, Levi grabbed him and started playing with him. Guess what, peeps? These critters apparently bite. Levi let out a shriek and flung him to the ground. So this is the only picture I've got...the beast having been knocked around a bit in the dark under a magnolia tree where he will probably die...there are no tomatoes near this magnolia. I'd say good luck to him, but then that would in essence be wishing him back to my tomatoes. So, instead, good riddance! And, speaking of biting...Levi sustained his first snake bite yesterday. I've gone a whopping 28 years without any snakes getting that pleasure. My kid however only made it 20 months. For those of you who might be ready to panic at this point it was a non-poisonous snake, and my child actually inserted his finger into the snakes mouth. Oh. yeah. That's definitely my kid. God bless him! I think he learns things the hard way.

Everyone Needs A Little "Dur"

Summer is in full swing around these parts. And, Levi is loving every minute of it. This is pretty much what he looks like 24/7 now:
The boy just can't get enough of the outdoors...especially the dirt or "dur" as he likes to call it. Has the heat picked up in your neck of the woods? The temps are skirting and surpassing 100 around here. And, oh, that rain sit hasn't worked so far. Hmmm...we might just have to pull out the dancing shoes. My garden is languishing. I've even had a few fatalities. Oh. my.

Can't It Always Be This Good?

Some weeks it seems that problems just pop up left and right and nothing gets done quite when and like it's supposed to. And, then other weeks everything runs smoothly (even when it doesn't--if that makes any sense), and time is slow in a good way. And things just fall together quite nicely. This has been one of those smooth (even when its not) and good weeks. I've been busy as a bee and happy as a lark (Geez, I think I've read I'm As Quick As A Cricket ten too many times).
We've gone to appointments, run loads of errands, possibly skimped on the housework (but whose counting?), gardened, worked, and, of course, played.
My sister, Annie, came up for the weekend. We had a blast running errands, chatting, and playing with Levi. Saturday, we left extra early for the Farmer's Market, so we could run other errands before nap time. Being the genius that I am, I managed to lock the keys in the car which put us behind schedule by two hours while we waited for help to arrive. We still had fun though. The market was hopping, so there was plenty to look at and enjoy. Not to mention it was a gorgeous day, so how could a little thing like being locked out of the car put a damper on things?! We even managed to get all our errands run and get Levi down for his nap on time. We must have hit a time warp! That evening we went to a cookout hosted by some friends. Grilled eggplant was on the menu....Yummy!!
Speaking of food, my garden is becoming quite edible and oh, so yummy! I have 11 tomato plants, and they are huge and overflowing with lovely green tomatoes. I even broke down and fried some up. Generally I steer clear of fried food. I love fried green tomatoes, though. So, I finally found some recipes and tested the waters, or should I say oils? Mmmm, mmmm, good.
Some of these plants are as tall as me!!
Sigh....How cute is this little munchkin???!! And, when did he start running? Seriously, people. One day he's crawling, the next he's walking, and now running. He cracks me up waddling around on those short legs. He still loves to be held and cuddled though. Makes a momma's heart just melt.
Now why can't every week be this good?

Yummy Weekend!

Hope y'all have a fabulous and yummy weekend!

Full On Red

Gorgeous...Yum.
The first garden tomato of 2009 was transformed into this...
Add some mint and oregano mixed in with a couple farmer's market tomatoes and cucumbers, and we had ourselves some serious yum. Have I ever mentioned how much I love fresh summer veggies? ;)

Red Where I Want It And Red Where I Don't

Today, is Farmer's Market Day. Yay! Are y'all Farmer's Market fans like we are? In my dream world I grow enough veggies to eat year round. In reality, I grow vegetables that are still working on giving us more than one meal every so often. The Farmer's Market is the next best thing. Plus, I can get the scoop on different plants that can be grown in my neck of the woods.
Speaking of things growing around here. Ahem...we finally have ourselves a tinge of red!!!! Mmmm....my mouth is watering.
I lost a few bean sprouts to cutworms, so here we have some newbies adorned with cutworm prevention...paper cups sans bottoms. So far, so good.
The blackberries are still red for the most part. We've had a handful of ripe ones, but I'm waiting (not so) patiently for the rest to turn. This is one instance where red is not nearly so loved. At least it's pretty.
Wishing y'all a swell Saturday!

Garden Lovely

Yesterday, I lost track of time while digging and planting. I'm sort of a garden junkie--as if y'all couldn't tell. Sometimes...I check on my veggies 10 times in a day. You can actually see things grow that way. Yeah, I'm very cool. ;)
I planted some New Zealand Spinach. It's not a real spinach, and it thrives in hot weather. In fact I had to hold off on planting it because recently we had a weird cool spell. I thought the seeds were pretty fabulous looking. This is my first year to plant the stuff. I'd never even heard of it before.
A while back I planted some Burgundy Royal Bush Beans. They are beginning to flower, and oh, my. They are so pretty. They remind me of teeny orchids.
Sigh...I love Spring.

Lone Radish

I was up until 4 am caricaturing for an all night graduation party. Then Levi woke me up at 8, so let me go ahead and apologize for any crazy grammar and probably for the photo editing. My sleep deprived eyes like it.
As I was trying to harvest radishes, the bottom fell out of the sky, so I only got one before the rain drove me back in. It's pretty though, and it makes me smile.
Did you know that you can eat radish leaves. I googled it, so it must be true. ;) Not sure about testing that theory on this beauty, though. Something has already been chowing down on it's greenery.
Y'all have a fabulous weekend!

And, They Keep Growing And Growing And Growing...

The chives...
The dill...
The tomatoes...
And the cute little lima beans...
I just planted the lima beans last week. I kinda forgot that I had lima beans to plant. Whoops! Is anyone else as forgetful as I am?? I like to pretend it's the mommy brain, but, really, I think I 've always been like this.

Mommy's Little Helper

Despite the rain we've had lately, it was difficult to convince Levi that we really didn't need to turn the sprinkler on in the garden.
Luckily, after I snapped this pick of him trying to do it himself, his attention was caught by something else. Granted that something else was my zucchini patch. He thought it might need some attention. Sorry, no pictures of the zucchini patch dig. I was to busy rescuing my plants from his shovel.
Hope y'all are having a fabulous week!

Lunch!

A few odds and ends have been harvested over the past month...oregano, asparagus, mint, and some wild greenbriar but nothing worth writing home about. But, today there was actually a meal in the garden. Okay, so this harvest isn't all that spectacular, but it's still pretty exciting to eat out of your own yard. You'd think I'd never done that before, but it seriously never looses its appeal.
Lettuce, oregano, mint, one lone asparagus, and a tiny red dot of a wild strawberry that happened to be on my path. I was hoping for more of the wild strawberries, but with Levi in tow, I didn't really have the time or energy to wander around looking for them. They do make excellent additions to salads. Don't expect to bite into anything juicy or sweet, though. Wild strawberries are actually very plain. I mixed in a chopped apple, a little bit of broccoli and carrot, some locally grown pecans, and a homemade honey dijon vinaigrette....yum!

Thanks to a few free lettuce plants, I'm having my first adventure in lettuce gardening. I'm totally hooked. Homegrown lettuce is about a kabillion times better than the grocery store varieties. It actually has real live flavor...surprise!
And, yes, that is a pinwheel you see behind the lettuce. A friend told me that pinwheels freak the deer out, and you might remember me mentioning that the deer annihilated last years garden. There are now pinwheels surrounding every plant that the deer might possibly find tasty. Levi thinks I put them there for him though, so don't tell!

More Garden Meandering

Here's a partial shot of the garden. The oregano in the right corner is destined to be moved. Some of it has already made its way into pots. The rest will eventually find its way elsewhere, possibly into friends yards. It has quite a bossy nature and likes to take over the place. The pot on the left is waiting for the dill to pop up. You can make out the little tomato plants and the bell peppers in the raised bed. The rest of the bed is planted with seeds and seedlings that aren't visible just yet. The row of shrubbery includes muscadine vines to the right, blueberries in the middle, and plum trees to the left.
There's another horseshoe shaped raised bed next to this one, but we still haven't reclaimed it from the weeds. We'll get there slowly but surely. My mom and I work on it in our spare time, with Levi's help, of course.
I could live off of fresh picked fruit, so summer feels a little like heaven when the fruit starts to ripen. Right now, it's just nice to watch the flowers bloom and the fruit begin to take shape. The one thing that we have trouble with in this garden is the muscadine vine. You would think since muscadines are native to this area we'd have a successful harvest, but, no, we almost never get a thing off of this vine. Unless you count looks!
The plum trees are full of little green plums. These plums won't get too much bigger. They are petite little things, but, oh, so yum.
The blueberry bushes look like they might fall over from the weight of the berries. I'm so excited about these. They are my favorites. If blueberry bushes gave fruit all year, I'd probably turn blue from eating them.
And, the blackberries!!! I can't wait. On my list of favorites, blackberries come next to blueberries. With all their thorns, they are a pain in the rear to pick, but they are certainly worth every scratch. And, aren't their flowers just lovely?
Have y'all planted a garden this year? I'd love to know what's in yours.

A Walk Through The Garden

Our garden is finally beginning to look like a little more than just dirt! After Levi's birth, the garden went sadly neglected for quite some time. It took a good bit of effort just to get it back to the dirt stage, and I'm so happy to see little signs of edible life popping up all over the place. We've rearranged a bit. The asparagus is much happier in it's new location. We moved the compost heap, and put the asparagus where that used to be:
I planted some radish seeds last Friday, and they had already popped their cute butterfly shaped heads through by Monday!
This is really a weed, but it looks rather like a radish seedling. I couldn't resist snapping a pic. I left a couple of them just out of curiosity. We'll see what they turn into:
Oregano makes me happy...the smell is heavenly. We have loads more herbs in the garden, but no pictures of them...yet:
Our first teeny, tiny tomato popping out with a couple of lovely little tomato flowers:
Our lone bell pepper plant:
He will soon have a couple of cabbage neighbors as well as a few nearby onions, carrots, and beans. What's popping up around you...in your yard or garden?

I Think We've Got a Farmer On Our Hands

These are the belated Earth Day pictures. Unknowingly, I presented Levi with the perfect Earth Day present-his own shovel. I figured it would keep him from stealing mine which he is apt to do. In reality it just encouraged him to dig his own holes in exactly the wrong places. Sigh...I guess we all have to start somewhere.
Doesn't he look like such a little farmer? He just needs a straw hat and some hay stuck in his teeth.
If only he had been content to just dig up the grass.

It Was An Earthy Kind Of Day

Until about an hour ago, I had no idea that today was Earth Day. How do I miss these things??? Despite having chatted with a friend this afternoon about Earth Day, it still managed to escape my notice that...duh...that's today. Granted, that knowledge probably wouldn't have had any real effect on the day's goings on. Except that I might have posted this much earlier and probably wouldn't have left my camera at my moms. Sorry guys! This one will be pictureless.
Most of today was spent in the garden digging and planting and digging and planting some more. Oh, yeah, and chasing Levi and re-digging holes that he filled in and trying to convince him not to pull up the tomato plants that I just put in the ground and then chasing him a bit more and on and on and on. I can say with some certainty that while we were out Levi indulged in a little dirt munching. The ring around his mouth gave him away. Reminds me of something we used to say as kids. Anyone else remember this one? "God made dirt, and dirt don't hurt!" What's childhood without liberal quantities of mud and dirt? Hope y'all had a down and dirty good time today. Happy Earth Day!!