How does her garden grow….

Posted on August 28, 2008 by Momzoo

I harvested a bunch of carrots yesterday evening. I figured they would be good in the kids lunches. They looked so pretty here fresh out of the garden I had to take a picture, then I realised that I hadn’t posted garden pictures for a long time.

My boxes have been doing wonderfully, there are a few thing I will do different, but for the most part I have been very pleased.

You can see in this box below the broccoli had pretty much taken over the entire box. I have never grown broccoli before so I didn’t realize how big they got, I will definitely grow them next year, I will just allocate more space! The onions are getting big, although they did get blown over in a wind storm the other night. I planted them from seed and a bunch didn’t come up, next year I will be either buying starters or planting my own indoors. I have already harvested all the spinach and lettuce out of this box, there is still some chard and a kohlrabi and a little bitty basil plant.

This box has mainly carrots. This is after I pulled that bunch in the above picture, so there is still a lot left. Those two baby cabbages are ready to pick and I have little ones on either side that I planted a few weeks ago when the ones before were picked. In the back of the box I had sweet peas, and they were lovely! However they had passed their prime so I pulled them. I also have some boc choi behind the carrots and some more broccoli, both are cool weather plants and since we can go into November some years with out a hard freeze I thought I would give it a try.

This beauty is one of my potato plants.

This is the potato box. They have done really well, I am hoping that under the big beautiful bushes are some big beautiful potatoes.

These are my beets. We have picked some and they are delicious! I love that you can eat the greens and the beet too. I need to pull them all in the next few days and put them up. I have never canned beets before, so it will be an adventure.

This is another view of the beet box. The other side had beans, but they didn’t do so well. I pulled them up and planted boc choi (Chinese cabbage) they are just starting to come up.

This is my patch of Summer Squash. They have done pretty good, they haven’t been as prolific as I had hoped, we have been battling squash bug all summer. I have gotten quite a bit frozen for the winter time, so I can’t complain.

This is my tomato patch, big beautiful GREEN fruit that won’t turn red…sigh…I just can’t grow tomatoes!

I planted the whole back of my yard with squash and they have been struggling, a few got munched by squash bug and the season was short this year, I did get a few winter squash, and if the fall is warm I might get a couple more.

This is a Queensland Blue pumpkin, I can’t wait until it is all the way ripe and take a picture for all of you to see, it is a beautiful squash.

and last, but not least, my number 1 super duper garden helper! She is always willing to do whatever I need done and she loves cutting my herbs for drying, but that is another post.

A Morning Ramble

Posted on June 23, 2008 by Momzoo

I was up most of last night with a restless baby. So when I woke up at 6:30 I tried really, really hard to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t, I was just wide away. I got up and made a special treat for breakfast and just enjoyed the quiet house. I took a short walk outside, I love the gardens in the morning, and decide to take a few pictures to share.

A whole lot of nothing

Posted on May 14, 2008 by Momzoo

There has been very little going on at our house as of late. We are just plugging along.

I am getting ready for the “big dig”. Around these parts we are at little to no danger of having a hard frost, so it is time to get the gardens going. My springtime efforts were a major failure. This spring was very cold with only a few warm days here and there. Then when things started to be consistently warm the cutter worms made short work of my peas, cabbage and lettuce. (That is why you haven’t seen any pictures of them for a while) So with a quick prayer of thanks that my family doesn’t depend on my gardening efforts for food I am digging in for the summer. I already planted my onions and potatoes, which are new to me this year, and yesterday I got carrots, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, boc choi, broccoli and beets planted. I am waiting for bean, cucumber and basil seeds to come in the mail, and I will be picking up tomato plants at the nursery tomorrow. I am hoping that Saturday I will be able to get the squash in too, I am planting two types of summer squash and a bunch of winter squash that I should be able to store in my basement. I will be planting cheese squash, Butternut squash, Queensland squash, and two types of pumpkin and orange and white variety. If I can just keep the critters away from my crops I think this will be a fun year for gardening.

My very favorite part is about to begin too. I love, love, love my flower gardens. Tomorrow I am going to the nursery to buy tons of flowers. My flower gardens are my pride and joy and I can hardly wait to get everything planted. I will be posting pictures, when I have pictures to post!

Flowers

Posted on March 18, 2008 by Momzoo

My crocuses finally bloomed! I had to take pictures and share it with everybody. They are just too beautiful to not share.

I just love these first blooms.

I planted these the first fall we lived here, so they have been blooming now for 6 springs.

When I was pregnant with #3 Punk, I was on bed rest for 4 weeks. Everyday I would look to see if my spring flowers had bloomed. My other two babies were away with their grandma (they were 2 and 3 years old) my heart was heavy, and these beautiful little gems made me feel a little better.

Here is a close up of a honey bee. My neighbors and good friends keep honey bees in their back yard. I have been watching for them, waiting for those little bees to get busy. We don’t have enough honey bees in this world, and I like watching them work on my flowers.