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Early August Gardens, at Our House.

August 11, 2011 By Laura 6 Comments

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Just a quick update on how our gardens have grown. It’s August now.

The most exciting recent development, is we finally have some watermelons growing!

001_watermelon-patch They are still fairly small. I forget what variety we planted, so maybe they won’t get much bigger.

002_watermelon-patch
I need to find the seed packet, and find out, because we’ve got a (passed due) deadline here!

 

003_watermelon-patch We need to use the ‘Watermelon Patch’ as our ‘Pumpkin Patch’ soon!  If not yesterday.  If you were with us last year, you may recall we planted our pumpkins way too soon.  We had to harvest them by early October, and so we didn’t have any WE grew, by Halloween.  : ( But apparently, it takes 120 days to grow pumpkins!

That leaves us with…..83 days. Oh dear. This year we’re late!

004 I think we’ll just plant pumpkin seeds tomorrow, right in there with the watermelon vines. There’s room!

005 Are we blessed, with kids who LOVE to weed, or what?

I can answer that.

“Yes we are!”

006_cherry-tomatoes-on-vine Cherry Tomatoes, on the vine.

(The bigger kind.)

007_cherry-tomatoes-on-vine More Cherry Tomatoes.

And some other varieties too….

008_cherry-tomatoes-on-vine

009_tomatoes-on-vine

010_cherry-tomatoes-gardening

011_tomato-gardening
Soon, we’ll have Tomatoes to eat every day.  (LOVE tomato sandwiches.)  Right now, we are eating Cucumber spears every day, and we love it!! The kids eat tons.   The kids dip in Ranch Dressing. I like just Salt & Pepper.

 

012_green-bell-pepper-plant
We’ve got just a few Green Bell Peppers growing.  My mother-in-law was right. We should had started earlier, when we started with seed in the house.

Always learning as we grow.

Oh my favorite this year….

013_sugar-snap-pea-trellis
Our Sugar Snap Peas.

I just love even the SIGHT of them, growing up our trellis and twine.

  014_sugar-snap-peas

015_fresh-sugar-snap-pea It doesn’t seem we got as many as we should have?

016_sugar-snap-pea
But maybe that is because we can’t stop eating them!  Never enough.

Can you believe we have not gotten as far as to even COOK some yet? They are simply sweet, crunchy, divine, and addicting, raw and right off the vines.

017_sugar-snap-pea-flower
I love the sweet little flowers they put off, too.

 

018_hornet-on-wood1 There are constantly wasps collecting wood grain, to make nests somewhere.  I’ve come not mind them around.  It’s actually interesting to watch them work.  So far, I still have a trellis so, it’s fine.

 

019_sunflowers
Lastly, we have some sunflowers, that the kids began to grow inside, and replanted in the gardens.  They make me smile.

And so do your visits here to our blog.  Thank you coming by. How are your gardens/flowers fairing?  Please take a moment to say hi, and invite us over to your place, if you’d like.  Most think we’re pleasant enough folks. : )




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Filed Under: Gardening, Photography, The Homestead Tagged With: garden-bed, Gardening, gardens-in-August, gardens-in-early-August, green-bell-peppers, New-England-gardening, pumpkin patch, pumpkins, sugar-snap-peas, sunflowers, tomatoes, triplets, triplets-gardening, wasp, watermelon-patch, watermelons

What’s Growing in the Gardens!

July 13, 2010 By Laura 12 Comments

18_summer-squash-photos-300x200

Finally, I have gotten it together enough, to show you what we’re growing in all of these garden beds we’ve got going.   I’m telling you, I find it extremely challenging to blog about garden updates, because everything changes so fast!   So, this post shares some of the rapid garden progress that can happen in what seems like the blink of an eye.

But I also wanted to share this little story with you.  A couple of weekends ago, we had a spontaneous tag sale.  We had quite the traffic for it too (thanks to Michael’s  Tag Sale professional signage that no one could miss).  But what was so funny, was people were more interested in our gardens when they got here, than our tag sale items!!  It was comical.  They were walking around, peeking under leaves, asking questions and generally flattering us to death.  For 2nd year gardens, we were puffing up a bit and struttin’ around like peacocks. I know…then we felt guilty.  lol.  But seriously….people were all over our gardens.  We sold a lot at the tag sale though too, once they got on task for their stop in the first place.

So anyway, back to the point of the post….

01_first_garden_bed Shown here first, is garden bed #1.   This photo was taken June 23, 2010, as are several of the following photos.

02_1st_garden_tags In it, we have growing 3 varieties of tomato plants:  2 Romas, 4 Early Girls, and 2 Burpee Big Boys.
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03_garden-bed Here is another view, taken the same day, to show the height of the plants.   As you see in this garden, we also have some Marigolds, Celosia, and Cosmos.
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04_2nd-garden_bed Garden bed #2.
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05_2nd-garden-tags In this one we have growing several plants of  California Wonder Green peppers, Jalapeno Peppers, and Straight Eight Cucumbers.  We also have in this bed, 2 more tomato plants, of the Sweet 100 Cherry variety.
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06_2nd-garden-newangle Here’s another angle, from the same day.
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07_garden-turtle-ii-decor Also in this garden, is my turtle.  I had a turtle just like this one some years ago, in my hosta bed, and the kids lost it!  We never did find it either.  So I bring it up now and then to the kids, when it comes to mind, because I really missed my turtle!  Well, we were in Michael’s Arts & Crafts one day, and one of them spotted the same exact turtle I’ve been missin’.  So they all pitched in a dollar and some change, and bought me a new one.  So this one has even more sentimental value, because the kids were thoughtful enough to buy it for me, and compassionate enough to feel bad about the one they lost, when I….was trying to make them feel bad about the one they lost. lol.  I love my turtle.  You don’t have to.  But I think he is cute.
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08_triplets-strawberry-bed You’ve seen a 100 photos of our whole strawberry bed, so I skipped that.  But we got quite the crop from our June Bearing plants!  The kids were out there picking them every day.    This photo was taken on June 8, when we were really cranking them out.
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09_a-strawberry-picking

The days were still occasionally cool, especially when the sun wasn’t out. Thus, Old Lady Winter here, in her fleece jacket. lol.  My mother used to call me Old Lady Winter, because I was always cold when I was younger.  “If you can hear me up there, Mom, I’m not cold all of the time anymore!  I’m more like Old Lady Hot Flashin’!“

Our Everbearing strawberry plants have put out some smaller strawberries (as is expected with this variety) but not the  impressive quantity yet.  We should have a crop in spring, summer and fall.  But spring gave us nothing, and summer has only given is a small handful so far.  Maybe the roots are still not established enough?  Maybe we should have plucked the flowers in the early season of this year too?  Anyone know?  We’re holding out hope.

10_strawberries But if they don’t start giving us some fruit this year, we may just rip the Everbearing plants out, and let the runners of the June Bearing take over.  Because they have been very good to us!!  I’m thinking we might need 2 strawberry beds.  Maybe 3. lol
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11_big-strawberry
Care to taste the fresh berry sweetness?
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12_4th-garden-bed This, is bed #4.  It’s the new bed we built this year.   The tag salers really couldn’t get over our squash plants. One tag sale’n guy was so very amazed, he just stood there staring and asked, “What the hell did you put in there?!”  (Pardon his French. lol)
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14_yellow-summer-squash-tag In it, we have Yellow Straightneck Summer Squash, and also Zucchini of some kind, which I forgot to take a tag photo of, just like the Sweet 100 Cherries.

So, just to show you some growth and progress, and proof that we haven’t killed anything yet:

15_1st-garden-bed-grown

….This is Bed #1, with photo taken this time on July 6, 2010.  The tomato plants had grown much taller and stronger for sure.  They are also beginning to produce fruit.  I am very excited about my tomato sandwiches to come.  : P’   Even the Marigolds and Celosia are bigger than we have ever grown.
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16_2nd-garden-bed-grown The Cherry tomatoes and pepper plants are growing well too.   Both gardens have grown even more, now a week later.  I cut the lower leaves on the pepper plants since this photo too, so we are expecting a big growth spurt.

But here’s what has really just grown out of control……

17_4th-garden-bed-grown ….the squash garden bed!  Man….that guy from the tag sale would probably fall right over, if he saw it today.   It’s truly insane, and I swear it has grown another half of a foot since this shot.  See that cosmo plant in the front corner there?  That thing too is MUCH bigger than our cosmo plants last year.  This thing has a trunk!

We water all of the gardens every night with the hose.  But I’ll tell you, the rain works magic.  If it rains during the night, we can’t wait to peek out there in the morning, because there is always very obvious overnight growth.  It feels like Christmas morning!
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18_summer-squash-photos Here’s just some fun summer squash shots.   I didn’t take any of the zucchini that day, because they were just so dark on the dirt.
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19_fresh-picked-squash We can’t even keep up with the squash picking.  I sent a heap home with my father, and the next day we had a heap more.  It’s madness.  Gave more to 2 neighbors, and there is a bunch more today.    I’m going to try making some zucchini bread.  We love steamed vegetables anyway, but we might not much longer,  if we keep eating it the way we’ve had to!  I think maybe we don’t need this many squash plants.  Does anyone have any recipes for us to use these?  Do send.

No Giveaway in this post.  But you’re certainly welcome to grab some squash, if you want some!

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Filed Under: Gardening, Seasonal Home decor, SUMMER Home Decor, The Homestead Tagged With: cucumbers, front-yard-garden-beds, gardens, green peppers, raised garden beds, strawberries, summer squash, tomatoes, triplets, zucchini

Front Yard Gardens – Progress Update

August 25, 2009 By Laura 8 Comments

Everything we planted in our front yard gardens, is really growing!  We wanted to give you a progress update.

front yard gardens

In our last post, we shared with you the very beginnings of our front yard transformation.  We planned out 3 gardens, built 3 garden beds, had loam delivered, filled the beds with the loam, and got our strawberry plants planted all in mid-May.

At the end of May, after the threat of frost had past, we planted all of the vegetable and flower plants in the beds.   I did not take photos of the extensive work we did that day along the way, because frankly, I was covered in earth and sweat, and wasn’t about to touch my camera. : )

front yard gardens

Here’s a photo of our front yard now, with the 3 garden beds. I think it’s a dramatic improvement to the ‘blahness’ it was, already!  Don’t you?  We even have some green weed/crabgrass growing in our dirt where the driveway was extended!  Since we don’t have plans to plant grass anytime soon, we’ll take anything green!   In the long run here, we’ll likely be putting in more  gardens, little walkways, maybe a small tree or 2 ….who knows what.  So planting grass at this point is not wise, when it mostly will be getting dug right up, soon enough.

front yard gardens Here’s a view from this angle, taken in mid-July.  I’m going to take you from garden to garden here and show you what we’ve got.  All of these photos coming up were taken in mid-July.

front yard gardens

First on the far left, while acing our house with your back to the street, is our strawberry bed.    This is the garden that was done first, a couple of weeks before the others, because we could do that with the strawberries.  So I had done a couple of posts on how the plants and strawberries were coming along.   Rather then re-hash all of that, and re-post all of those photos, I’m just going to link you to those 2 posts.  They will open in their own window, so don’t worry about losing your spot here if you want to take a quick peek.

Strawberry Fields Forever

We Picked Our First Strawberry

Being the first year, the plants needed to get established, so we weren’t expecting an abundance of berries this year.  But we have high hopes, jam recipes, and many desserts on our agenda for next year!

front yard gardens

This is the second garden from the left, next to the strawberry garden.  Or, the middle garden. : )

Aside from the flower, which I will get to a little later on, we have growing 4 varieties of tomatoes:   Beefsteaks, Better Boys, Early Girls, and Cherries.  We also have cucumbers in this bed.

front yard gardens

front yard gardens Just a couple now-outdated tomato photos. More to come.

front yard gardens

In our last bed here, 3rd from the left, closest to the drive-way, we have growing summer squash, zucchini, and green peppers. Plus the flowers.   I had read how helpful having certain flowers in your vegetable gardens were, to their growth and production.  They attract certain bees that help pollinate, as well as other certain insects that are good for the garden and good for keeping other harmfuls away.

I know that sounded a little vague, but I just didn’t want to get into the full explanation right now.  Besides, I’m not sure I can remember it ALL at the moment.   But I can tell you, that everything I knew at the time, and therefore did, seemed to have done exactly what it should , and it all worked!  So that’s got to count for something. lol

front yard gardens Here’s one of our first baby squashes.  I learned real quick that I can’t be all in the squash leaves, working around, with bare arms!  I got a rashes all over my arms almost instantly, and I was going nuts.  Not sure if that happens to everyone, or if I’m just sensitive?  But….I was more careful from there on out.  Kind of like my jalapeno chopping incident, but I’ll spare you the story on that. For now.  (But eventually, these dramatic complaints need to come out. So…be forewarned. : )

front yard gardens

On the corners of some of the beds, I had planted cosmos, that have really grown beautifully.  We let them grow tall, and they are not only lovely, but really beneficial to the garden.

front yard gardens Pretty, huh?  We have this color, and white ones as well.

Mid-August….

front yard gardens

These photos are now from mid-August, and things were looking great!

Look at all of the tomatoes growing!…

front yard gardens

front yard gardens

front yard gardens

front yard gardens

front yard gardens

Here is one more shot of the middle garden, with the white Cosmos.

So as I said, the second half of this this post was mid-August.  A week later, so much had changed, and there were so many new surprises!  So up next, will be yet another garden post, to share with you how things developed from here.   I have discovered a new love of garden photography.  Shocking??  Probably not.

But soon, we’ll be heading inside the house for a bit, to show you a couple of new things that we’ve been doing in there.  I can’t wait to show you!!

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Filed Under: Gardening, The Homestead Tagged With: cherry-tomatoes-on-the-vine, cosmos, cucumbers, flowers, front-yard-gardens, garden beds, garden photography, garden photos, green-bell-peppers, peppers, squash, tomatoes, vegetable photos, vegetables, zucchini

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