Our little harvest!!

Tomatoes have been trickling in for awhile now, about 3-5 here and there, and we've had a cuke here or there as well. Wednesday afternoon, when school was finished I had the boys outside to play on the trampoline. I decided to take a large bowl with me to pick what was ready in the garden. I almost filled my large mixing bowl with red, ripe tomatoes and 2 large cukes.

Suddenly I had the incentive to dig for potatoes in the tires I planted them in. I only planted 4 potatoes, which were cut into about 12 pieces. I came away from the back breaking chore with a bowl full of buried no longer treasure.

I noticed I have some peppers, but being quite small I am leaving them a bit more. I also had a lovely creamy, beautiful butternut squash I decided to leave connected to the vine a little longer.

We had quite a large garden, and learned a few lessons, about things like weeds and weedblock sheeting for instance! I am now very very excited for next planting season ALREADY! I know I can make improvements and get even great returns for my investment.

Potatoes Are A Go!

Last year I planted some blue potatoes a friend shared with me and nothing took at all. I believe I planted them too deeply. It was quite sad.

I planted 5 tires with potatoes this summer, and they are ALL sprouting. I planted these regular old farm potatoes, sold for eating and not necessarily planting, very shallow. When I realized the first two tires were sprouting, I then set up three more.

The first two have large beautiful greenery now, and I have already mounded additional soil up around the plants. The idea is to keep mounding dirt up and around as the plants grow, and eventually adding another tire to top the first. This method gives you a lot of potatoes for a very small space! Mike is going to find me four more tires so that they are available and ready when it is time to "king" the single tires. I have no idea how many potatoes we will harvest, I am hoping they will be safe from "pests" and we'll be able to enjoy the fruit of our summer labors.

A Rose by any other name...

would still smell as sweet. It would still be an amazing, beautiful, intricate design that is a delight to watch progress from day to day! It is mind-blowing to me to see an explosive vibrant bud, open up to reveal striking sherbet colored petals, slowly unfolding day to day, transforming and lightening as it is exposed to the rays of sun. Changing drastically, the rose loses nothing, it's beauty fully intact, speaking to me of God and His amazing, incomprehensible ways! Join me in observing this one rose bud, from my all-time favorite rose bush, over the course of 11 days:



June 5, 2009
June 7, 2009
June 8, 2009
June 9, 2009
June 12, 2009
June 16, 2009

A Gardening We Go....

The garden is finally "in" as of late yesterday afternoon. Mike rototilled the plot last week, and we were able to hand-pick our goodies to plant Sunday. I was excited to get them home, and tuck them in their new soil beds, as I normally plant about two weeks early (mid May), though this year being so unseasonably COLD that I am planting even later than the widespread planting time, Memorial Day weekend. I over eagerly, with childish delight, chose beautiful robust little growers, a wide variety, and was quite astonished to find I ran out of room, being unable to foster them all. Thus, I have offered the overstock to a couple dear friends, very glad that these sweet thriving plants will have somewhere to be at home, with their true potential realized in the joyous harvest time.



update: 6/8/09
Aiden and Ryan watering our plants