Happy Spring!

Happy first day of spring! Our first day of spring was bitter cold and windy and forecasts of snow all around the area so the only thing that feels like spring around here is sitting on top of my microwave. The seed trays are already steamed up and will hopefully be sprouting soon. I'm a couple weeks behind but with the cold weather still in full force I think I'm going to be okay. Round one is the tomatoes, peppers and eggplant.

Sweetness of Spring

I didn't get to plant much of a garden this year with being really pregnant and now taking care of a newborn but I am getting to enjoy some delicious sweetness from the strawberries plants we put in last year. The plants have grown tremendously and we're getting at least quadruple the berries than we got last year. They are oh so sweet and delicious!

And in case you didn't notice, I tweaked my blog design a little bit. Not a huge change but it needed a little freshening up.

Sights of Spring

It is absolutely gorgeous here today and I want to be out weeding and planting but baby and my body are telling me to take it easy today. I just wanted to share some photos of spring in my yard with you today. I'm hoping these beautiful things blooming will attract someone to our for sale sign in the yard. These are the first photos of flowers I've been able to take with our new 35mm 1.8 lens and I am in love, love, love!

Favorite Season

When asked the question of what is my favorite season my answer has always been fall, mostly because of that's when the air cools after the heat of the summer and well, I really don't like the heat but as L and I were walking around our yard I couldn't help but think about how much I love spring too, since all of my flowers and plants pushing their way through the earth into gorgeous blooms. And of course I love starting my vegetable plants while so many people tell me oh you could just go buy those at the store and plant them. Nope, I love to nurture a plant from seed into vegetables for my family to eat. I'm still doing my daily photo but I post it just for my family but here are the past few days of spring around my yard.

A lonely tulip in a mass of iris.

L did a Mother's day project at church which made me feel like I had a preschooler already which makes me both happy and sad... I'll get into that another day!

Our beautiful flowering tree which was planted where we can't see it which makes me oh so sad when spring comes. It's on the side of the house that faces the neighbors house where we never go. I only get peeks of it from our bedroom window. We did not plant it, otherwise I would have picked a better spot! We were told is was an ornamental peach, but I have no idea if that's right or not.

My beautiful bushes!

Make-Shift Greenhouse

Since I can't plant the warmer vegetables in the garden yet, L's room has turned into a greenhouse thanks to a couple of old decorator tables that were stashed in the basement. I have room for 3 of the little plastic green house trays in the kitchen window but these are the only two windows that get this beautiful warm growing sunlight during the day.

We did have a frost warning a couple nights ago and we covered the strawberries just in case since they are in full bloom. I've never planted strawberries before but I know the first year some people pinch of the blooms to send more energy to the plant for next year and some people leave them. I opted to leave them even if we only get a handful of berries.

Snow?!?!

When I woke up and looked out the window this morning, there was snow on the ground!! Thankfully it's all melted away already but it's pretty chilly out there still. I know, I know, this is northern Indiana and our last frost can be all the way into May but a girl can hope, right? I did some damage surveying this morning and it looks like my new strawberry plants might have sruvived despite me not covering them up. They are a cooler weather crop so I hope I'm right that they survived the spring snow.

Spring has sprung... maybe

Wow, I hadn't realized it had been that long since I made a post. I guess I don't have as much to talk about in the winter! Spring is trying to get started but we're still having some pretty cold days. What's going on with me? Our cute little starter house (that we've been in for 7 years) has been on the market for one week now. We've had one showing and the feedback was cute, but too small... that's exactly how we feel too! It's nerve wracking but I'm going to keep praying that the right person comes along and sees it! Afterall, we don't even have a sign in our front yard yet, suppose to be today or tomorrow. And when people find out where we live, in the past 7 years we have had so many people say, "Oh I've always thought that was such a cute house!" Even though the house is on the market I can't stand to not start spring gardening! So L and I planted taters yesterday and onions today. My dad always planted potatoes but this is my first year and I'm doing the barrel/trash can planting method. There are a million instructions and videos out there showing how you can plant them in containers from a barrel to a 5 gallon bucket. We also planted onions, 1 row of red and 1 row of yellow, in the raised bed next to the driveway. I marked where I wanted them, L put them in the holes, I pushed them in and we bothed covered them with dirt. Great teamwork!!

Happy Spring!!

I wonder how many things I can do with squash?

After losing 10-15 yellow squash to blossom-end-rot, I've been picking 2-3 every other day or so. We've steamed them and topped them with butter and parmesan cheese. On the 5th, our 4th of July holiday from work, we brushed them with oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper and put them on the grill until tender. Since I just picked another yellow squash this afternoon plus 2 zucchinis I need to look through my recipes to refresh my memory of what else we can do with them.

Some of the squash from this weekend and today:

I have had people ask me why I pick them so small. It is simply because I like to use the whole thing. When they get to be the size of the county fair entries you have to scrape out the huge seeds and stringy stuff in the middle. When they are smaller I just slice off both ends and can use the whole thing with out the mess of taking all the seeds out.

Today is also iFellowship day at seeds of Faith!

and the garden keeps growing and growing...

L and I did a large picking of lettuce which we added to some we had in the fridge from previous days and we finally had enough for wilted lettuce salad! Yum! Wilted lettuce is a taste of summer from home for me. We always made it with the abundant lettuce from grandpa's garden.

It's never just the same as mom made it but the recipe is as follows: Cook your bacon, reserve 1/8 cup of grease. Combine 4 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar and 4 Tbsp. sugar, stir until sugar is dissolved. Add reserved bacon grease and a diced small onion. Now, here's the part I'm wondering about, my mom always took the dressing and microwaved it until hot but there were many occasions that it cooked too long and exploded in the microwave. I'm wondering now if it wouldn't be easier to just heat it back up on the stove again, not as fast, but it might take the exploded risk out! Anyway, crumble the cooked bacon over a big bowl of lettuce (or spinach) and pour the hot dressing on. Toss and eat immediately!

Also in the photo are 3 tiny yellow squash. I've been having trouble with end rot on my yellow squash, lost about 8-10 but these 3 hadn't started rotting so I picked them quick! They made a one serving lunch for me. Chopped them up, steamed them and put butter and parmesan cheese on it.

Happy Summer Eating!!

Garden Progress: 6/21/2010

HAPPY SUMMER!! Today is officially the first day of summer so we got out the kiddie pool and L splashed and played for a couple hours!

Not a full update on the garden, but a partial update of 2 of the boxes in the backyard. We've been enjoying lots of spinach, lettuce and radishes. The radishes and spinach have almost reached their end but there are plenty more vegetables come in!

I have 6 big tomato plants all blooming! The onions are coming along nicely. We've been picking some here and there to use in cooking already. And the carrots are hopefully coming along since all I can see are the big tops!

My one big mistake this year, the yellow squash plants on the left were not suppose to be a bush variety, then were planned to climb the trellis, so I planted a couple more lemon cucumber plants to grow up the trellis with the ones I had started earlier. The lemon cucumber are sending out their first "climbers" and wrapping around the trellis. What is the name of the little things they send out to wrap around things anyway??

Garden Harvest 6.1&2.2010

The first couple harvests out of the garden weren't photo worthy, just a few spinach and lettuce leaves here and there and a few radishes. Yesterday I was able to harvest enough spinach and lettuce to have a salad along with a bunch of radishes. Today brought another bundle of radishes!

This was today's bundle, one odd white one in there!

I know that I can let them get a lot bigger, but my husband prefers them when they are smaller.

And yesterday's harvest:

Garden Progress: 5.20.2010

The gardens have been getting some healthy rain lately so I had to wait to get some new photos! Dh and I built a trellis for the lemon cucumbers to grow up from PVC and twine that we had on hand. You can't really see the twine grid in the photo.

6 tomato plants went into the old bed that's surround with the crazy onions and tiny carrots coming up.

Here's a closeup, on the right bed is a tomato plant, onions and carrots(that you can't see yet!)

On the left you see the edge of the trellis where the cucumbers are planted, a row of radishes in the front and the other tiny green things are the lettuce. The lettuce is growing so much slower than the spinach!

On the left is the spinach, they are growing really fast and starting to sprout the second set of leaves, in the front is more radishes including the part of the row that was dug up, my probably a neighborhood squirrel. The 2 plants under the trellis are yellow squash.

I'm seeing so many gardens so much further along, but we are in the north and we just had hopefully our last frost last week!

Growing Spinach

I have failed over and over again at growing spinach and lettuce but I'm trying again!

I wanted to share the simplest explanation of how to grow spinach that I found on the Hidden Valley website. The biggest thing that has caused me to fail previously are planting too late when it's already getting too hot. I think I finally got them planted early enough as they are growing like weeds in the cool weather!


(from the Hidden Valley website)
Grow your own

Spinach is fairly easy to grow, and it’s delicious fresh. The key is that it likes cool weather.

Plant spinach in early spring; it can resist mild frost. Spinach likes sunlight but not heat, so you might choose a location that gets shade for part or all of the afternoon.

Keep the soil moist, but not wet. You can spread grass clippings from your lawn around it, and that will also give it more organic material.

You can harvest spinach as soon as it looks big enough to eat. Pick leaves from the outside of the plant, because the inner leaves will keep growing and you can pick them later.

The spinach plant will eventually “bolt” — grow a long central stem, with seeds. Pull it up at this point, and use the leaves. The stem is too tough to eat. But your own fresh leaves, washed and eaten right away, are the most delicious spinach you'll ever have.

Find more tips at www.loveyourveggies.com

Garden Progress: 5.6.2010

The weather has been so beautiful, everything is green and growing!

We picked up these chairs at Ace Hardware and they are really comfortable! We've never had any chairs to relax in outside and these are perfect to have in the backyard to relax in while L and the pups play.

Happy to see my columbine have made it up again. These have traveled many miles from seeds we got from my Grandma's old house.

Onto the garden progress, onions are going crazy! I planted a row of carrots in the first bed and lettuce, spinach and radishes in the second bed.

This is the other new bed that we built this year, it's right by the garage along the driveway, very convenient to get to. The green pot is our hearty chives! The first year we planted the chives we left the pot out in the winter, through all of the snow and we were surprised when they came back again the next spring!(we hadn't done our research on chives!) The 2 square pots(who also received a spray paint makeover that I talked about a few days ago) are an experiment of how well they will do in a pot. The one with the trellis has our sugar snap peas in it and the other has our jalapeño pepper plant.

Flower Pot Spruce-up

We were getting a little tired of our hodge podge of flower pots, all different sizes and colors, but we don't have the budget to buy new ones. We picked up a couple pots at a garage sale too and of course they didn't match any of our previous pots.

Before: Old cracked plastic pots.

I had painted the rim of the right pot and used duct tape to fix a crack in the pot before I took the photo.

After some duct tape and Rustoleum hammered finish spray paint:

We planted this one with cilantro and found it a sunny home by our rhododendron bushes

This one still needs dirt, a plant or flowers and a new home.

Garden Progress: 4.13.2010

We're making progress!! The seedlings have been taking a trip outside into the warm sun the past few days.

My "Grandma Bristow" heirloom tomato volunteers are coming up! Usually I have to hunt through the weeds to find the but I actually got my bed weeded and tilled before they started coming up!

And L and I had planted onions in one of the raised beds and they are poking their way through the soil! We planted the second half of the bag in a different bed today.

I would love to just plant everything into the ground today, but we're not past our last danger of frost yet!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

But they also topple over April flowers!! So since my hyacinths were in full bloom and toppled to the ground thanks to some heavy April showers I decided to cut a few and bring them in to enjoy their fragrance.