Garden update- Epic fail

I know I haven't posted a garden update in a long time. There is a good reason for that. The garden got to be too much for me to keep up with this year. I let everything die except for 2 tomato plants, a green bell pepper and my jalapeño topsy turvy.

The heat has been extreme and I honestly didn't have the time to go outside every night and tend to a bunch of plants. I don't even feel guilty about it this year.

Our tomatoes aren't doing well. Some kind of bug is plaguing them and we haven't gotten our usual yield. Overall the garden was an epic fail this year. I do have a couple jalapeños and a bell pepper growing right now though.

I'm hoping to plant in the backyard next year since that is where everything seems to grow better.

A cherry tomato and an early bedtime

Yesterday evening I put a certain little girl to bed early for bad behavior. She had come home from school with way too much attitude and sarcasm in her and it didn't sit well with me at all. So I put her to bed early and then went outside to check on the garden.

When I walked outside it began to rain which let me know that I didn't need to water that night. I did a quick check to make sure all was well in the gardening world and I came across our first ripe tomato of the season. A little cherry tomato that was marked for the same little girl I had just put to bed early.

What's a mom to do? Macie lives for her tomatoes. Particularly the ones we grow. Knowing this I did what I thought was right. I walked into her room and sat on the side of her bed. I explained to her that she was still in trouble but that I just couldn't let her miss the first tomato of the season.

She was still sad about her punishment but took the little cherry tomato with a smile on her face. Then she continued the rest of her punishment. And I continued the rest of the night with my heart at peace knowing my little tomato lover had her first taste of our garden.

Basil??

I'm to the point of pulling herbs pretty much every day now. However I do have a gardening confession. I hate the smell of basil. Hate it. I bought it because I wanted to start more herbs and because basil repels Mosquitos.I honestly don't like it. I'm giving what I harvest to my neighbor for now. At least it's not going to waste since they love basil.

Growing

Our garden looks to be doing very well so far. I'm happy to report that I have already put a 1/2 pint jar of green onions in the freezer. They grow at a ridiculous rate. If this keeps up we will have enough green onions by the end of summer to last us a year.

My happy place

When we moved here three years ago one of the things I loved the most was our front porch. Its not huge but it is where we always are. When we have company over the conversation always makes its way outside. We drink coffee on this porch. We have family meetings on this porch. Basically it is the heart of our home.

Thanks to planting season I have another reason to love it. Limo doesn't eat our tomato plants so I decided to solely grow tomatoes in the backyard. Everything else is planted out front this year. Blessing our porch right now is cilantro, lavender (in the rectangle planter on the railing), green onions, lemon balm, jalapenos(in the topsy turvy), green bell peppers, lettuce and one cherry tomato plant. We have five Roma tomato plants we need to plant out back.

This year is gonna be a good one.

Baking and gardening

I haven't taken any pictures lately. I made some peach cobbler and blueberry banana muffins this weekend but they disappeared so quickly that I didn't get to snap a photo. Today is a rainy day so I see more baking in my future.

Our garden is well underway. This year we are planting:

*tomatoes (Roma and cherry)
*jalapeños
*green bell peppers
*green onions
*lettuce
*cilantro
*lavender

I have a to-do list a mile long. Better stop blogging and get to it. Till next time my fellow blog readers.:)

The start of something good

Jalapeños, tomatoes and green bell pepper seeds started by 3 little helpers hands. Good stuff all the way around.

Yard Work

Yesterday was spent outdoors. Unfortunately we had a city wide ban on fireworks this year due to lack of rain. Hubs mowed the lawn and I spent a great deal of time planting what had been given to me. I ended up losing quite a bit from the heat and being dug up but I was able to save some tomato plants, a jalapeno plant, some onions and then something else that I have not identified yet. It was an exhausting day but very rewarding. Today I made a batch of pumpkin chip muffins. The plan to use what I have for meals is going great. Tonight we are having lemon pepper chicken, rice and cornbread. I have enough food to last more than a week if I really wanted to use it but I think I will finally go shopping early next week sometime.

I have been working hard to use what we have and do the most I can. In my opinion it is way more satisfying that just running down to the store and buying whatever I want. The other bonus is saving money. We have birthdays and three kids to buy school clothes and supplies for all at the same time. Every penny helps.

What a weekend!

We packed a lot into our Sunday. I went with our neighbor to a place she recommended to reserve a moon bounce for the girls party at the end of this month. The owner was SO nice and even threw in some free extras just because he was so great. We grilled with our neighbors again and this time they bought all the food since we are usually the ones who fund it.

Then tonight our other neighbor calls and asks if I want approx. 30 tomato, jalapeno, cucumber,etc. plants. His mom is moving and doesn't want to take them. They brought them over tonight and you would not believe how many there really are. An entire garden has just been given to me. Tomorrow I am going to be outside working on replanting everything.

One of the best things about this weekend though was that we finally got some rain!!
I love storms. So soothing to the soul. Good stuff all weekend long. :)

Summer so far

(This photo really doesn't have anything to do with this post. I just like seeing our tomatoes all together.)

So far the summer is going good. Today I am watching our neighbors oldest son(5) and my kids get SUPER hyper when he is around because they love him so much. Our days have been busy but also sorta slow paced which I am loving.

* I looked into swim lessons for the kids but really didn't want to pay $300 this summer. Thankfully one of my best friends has the best parents ever and they have a gorgeous pool. They have offered to let us come over every day and they will help me teach them. They have taught all their foster kids so I feel completely comfortable with it plus they are great people. All 3 kids start tomorrow. And the best part is that she said she would do it for free. We are so blessed to have great people around us.

* Little trips with friends are starting to get written down in my agenda book making them real and exciting!!

* Macie is enjoying fresh garden tomatoes every single day. Yesterday she ate 5. I had hoped to can some but I think I am just going to let her eat them all since that is pretty much what she has been doing anyway!

* I thought I would really be stressed about this summer with the kids but everything has been incredibly relaxed. We aren't making the kids go to bed early. They just pretty much play, read, etc. until one of them is ready to fall out or it gets to be a ridiculous hour and we are fine with that. Our family tends to do SO much better when we don't set the normal( to most parents) schedule.

* The kids and I are going to do our grocery shopping for the month this coming weekend. Gonna see how that works for us. We also have to do our hurricane kit( bottled water, canned goods, etc.)

* My dad and step mom gave us a much bigger t.v for our living room! We love it. Then last night our DVD player broke. GRRRRRR.

* We are happily welcoming swimsuits back into our laundry. :)

* Planning kids birthdays. They occur in July, August and September. Wow!

How is summer going for the rest of you?

Beauty

Our little backyard garden has really become a special place for our family. So simple but yet bringing us so much joy and happiness. There is such beauty in watching things grow.

Domesticated

I love what I do. And I may or may not have a slight obsession with hanging clothes out on the line.

The days bounty

Feels so good to watch my kids eat veggies grown in our own backyard.

Garden happy

I am very happy this morning because I just pulled TEN tomatoes from our garden! Our neighbor just took a second job and she said she doesn't have time for her garden anymore so she gave me her three tomato plants. I am so grateful. We now have 9 plants out there producing.

Yesterday we pulled a tiny tomato and Macie was just as thrilled.
And these are from this morning. The ones that aren't completely ready will continue to ripen in the kitchen. I wanted to get them off so the heat and bugs don't get to them first.

The most we have ever taken from the garden at one time is three so this is a huge gardening victory for us!

From the Garden

On Sunday we picked the first tomato from the garden. It was a funny looking thing shaped a lot like a heart. Macie said it was delicious. As I was cutting it for her ( it was shaped too wierd to eat like an apple as she normally does) she was jumping up and down with excitement. That kid could live off of tomatoes.

We currently have 52 more tomatoes out there waiting to turn red! It's gonna be a good season!

Yesterday

Here are some random bits of things around here in the last day.

I made the kids green smoothies when they got home from school. They are always such a hit and I can sit back and smile knowing how much good stuff I am pumping into my kiddos. This particular smoothie was made of peaches, bananas, strawberries, fresh spinach, honey and milk. It turned out divine.
Found Makayla and the boy snuggled up together watching a movie. They have been fighting a lot lately so when I see a moment like this I have to document it.

Our garden is growing great. We have 36 tomatoes already. None of them are ready yet but just seeing them grow is giving us huge satisfaction!

Garden Growth

We have had several garden set backs again this year. The big joint garden fell through and then Limo once again ate my jalapeno plants. Then last night my remaining jalapenos and my cilantro was victim to my neighbors dog. BUT there is a lot of progress in my backyard.

Lettuce: I grew it from seeds and it is surprisingly easy to grow. This is my first year trying it and now I know that next year I am planting a ton of it.

My green onions are growing strong. This is what we pulled the other day and my kids ate them plain. Macie loves them as a snack.

As of Monday night we have 10 tomatoes already. Can't wait till they are red and ripe.

The kids are so excited about growing stuff. Macie can hardly contain herself about the tomatoes and I can't wait to feed Hammy some home grown lettuce.

Spring cleaning and planting

I have been spring cleaning like crazy and definitely enjoying the aftermath of that. Our home is looking so calm and peaceful at the moment.


I have also done a little planting. I took this photo yesterday afternoon during a storm. I added another pot to this group last night. At the moment I have 3 flower pots going. The blue pot is Cilantro and then last night I added a pot of green onions. I am LOVING these colorful little pots that I found at Wal-Mart for $1 each. They have tons of sizes in these colors too. I hate Wal-Mart but I am definitely loving their garden center at the moment.

I am hoping to get our tomatoes planted today. They are sitting on our porch just waiting to be transferred. Gotta get back to my cleaning spree. The time change is killing me so I have to keep moving or I will fall asleep.

A garden for us!!!

Between our house and our neighbors house is a vacant lot. When we moved here there was a 2200 sq. ft. house there with WONDERFUL neighbors who are now life long friends to us. After they moved out the landlord tore it down. All 3 houses on this piece of land are owned by the same landlord. We have GREAT neighbors in the house to the left of this lot. We have all talked and dreamed about how awesome it would be if our landlord let us do a huge garden in this lot. Well.... we talked to her yesterday and she said we could do whatever we want with the land!!! The sand (not all seen in photo) is 2200 sq. ft and then there is all the rest of the land. So roughly 3000 sq. ft. of land. We are doing a huge garden!!

The plan is to split the cost between us and our neighbors 50/50. Yes it will be an investment to have soil dumped but once it is done it is done. So it looks like we will have a huge garden to keep up with this summer. We are all so excited. It is going to take both of our neighbors and all 5 of us to keep this thing going all summer long but we know it can be done. We already have gallons and gallons of organic fertilizer that our neighbor had left over from a big job.

My kids LOVE gardening and I know that even though this is going to require a lot of work my kids are going to love it all summer long. My neighbor and I will have to get together on her days off and can like crazy. Luckily we have the same desires as far as what we want to grow. This is a huge blessing to us. I guess I can have my country life right in the heart of the city. :)

How my Garden Grows

I finally got around to taking some good pics of the garden. I am thrilled about the progress so far. I see lot and lots of fresh and canned salsa in our summers future.

These two tomato plants are approx. 4 ft. tall and have lots of blooms on them now!



One of my Topsy Turvys.



The other two.

Three more tomato plants. They are growing really well too but not quite as high as the ones in the first photo. Hopefully they will shoot up soon.

My jalapenos. I am not quite sure how they are looking. I have never grown them before so I guess I need to do a little research on them.

I never would have guessed that I would enjoy gardening. Each year we are planting more and more and I LOVE it all.