My Garden

I'm really NOT being selfish by calling it MY GARDEN- it really is! I did almost all of the clearing, growing, and planting all myself. Todd and the kids all together probably helped with about 1/4 of the clearing-the rest was/is all me. Yes, I am bragging because I have worked my A** OFF! This is the reason I have been so infrequent lately with my posts and not a very communicative friend/sister/daughter-sorry :( But it is almost all maintenance now. I have another row of corn starts to plant and 4-5 more pepper plant starts to plant and then it's just water,weed, & water. I feel so blessed to have such a large lot to be able to grow our own fruits and veggies in and also that I seem to have partially inherited my grandmother/grandfather's green thumbs (the ones that used to live here). As you can see below we also have a new pool. It has been nice lately since it's been in the high 90's & 100's! Some good friends of ours were generous enough to pass it along since they were no longer using it. The kids won't stay out of it-Todd too. I must say though my house has never stayed as clean as it is for so many days in a row (well, with the kids at home anyway). The pool is their new currency and they have actually been finishing their chores willingly, quickly and a lot more thoroughly! I wish we would have gotten a "real" pool years ago. I call it a "real" pool because it is 4 ft deep instead of 2 1/2 feet like we have always had before. I know this is a boring post, but this is my life right now and I'm enjoying not having any kids at home and not having to work outside of the home at this stage in life. Looking forward to this time is what got me through and gave me hope when I had 5 holy terrors running around all UNDER the age of 6! So even though I sound like a spoiled pampered brat, I've done my time and someday I will rejoin the workforce again, but for now, I feel truly blessed and I'm loving it!


Our New Pool!-or should I say, my new best friend ;)


Our co-op fruit trees from Dad & Sue. Pluot, Apple, Apricot, Pear, Plumb, Peach, Orange.


My wonderfully industrious husband made these raised beds for me. My tomatoes aren't looking that great, but the do have tomatoes on them.


Coming soon...cucumbers, see the pretty flowers.


I am trying to grow competition sized pumpkins. I'll post pics in Sept. or Oct. to see how big they really do get!


Gotta love fresh sweet corn. All the decorations are to keep the birds away because I had plants disappearing over night. So now it looks like a Garden Party! (OK that was a bit corny-sorry I just can' resist being cheesy. Besides, if you know my Dad you'll know it's an inherited trait).


more cucumbers with watermelons, and cantaloupes in the background.


Zucchini and yellow squash. My kids are already begging me for zucchini bread. When we lived in Idaho we had a very prolific zucchini season so I ended up pureeing most of them. Then I measured out the amount needed to make a loaf of bread and froze them. Guess what we ate all winter and spring?



Well, there used to be 4 ready to fruit sugar snap peas growing up this trellis. But then overnight they would get attacked by something and we thought it was birds. Until one morning Todd got home around 6:30am and found at least 20 slugs attacking my snap peas and zucchini. They were coming from the ivy right next to the garden. They work FAST! Those lil' suckers took out ALL off my snap peas and one zucchini plant in 4-5 days! So now if you look really close you can see my pathetic lil' snap pea starts. Those stinkin' snails won't get em' this time!



Todd also designed and built these trellises for me. I would always tell him I wanted one when we went to the garden center's but they're $70-$120! He built both of these for me for less than $20-he's so cool.I am growing sweet pea climbing flowers at the base along with whatever other flower seeds I had laying around. i forgot what they were so I'll post a pic when I find out :)