{not} gardening...

 I've been feeling completely unmotivated to garden so far this year. Last year we had our garden totally in by now... but this year, I'm dragging my feet. I know, we are only 8 days into May... but it's been such a cold and unpredictable spring I just don't trust nature to not freeze my plants if I plant them yet!

There are a couple of really pretty lilac bushes and a snowball tree here that were so beautiful last year. But we had a cold snap a few weeks ago and most of the bushes have just looked like this.

Frozen and dead. I figured we wouldn't have any of those pretty flowers this year. Then yesterday I looked around long enough to see there were some survivors that have come shining though!

Maybe not all hope for growing is lost?

We talked over the weekend about when to get the seeds in the ground for our garden, and then we woke up on Sunday morning after a huge windstorm to this...

Trent really wants to plant beans this year that we can bottle. Mostly just green beans but he also wants to do pickled beans. He has been helping his friend out on a construction job on his days off and brought all of these boards home to make a bean house for all of the beans he wants to grow. I hated it at first... a 7 foot high bean house was not what I was envisioning. But after spending a good week staining the wood to have that nice dark/weathered look and tying all of the strings up for the beans to grow on... it really wasn't so bad.

But now the bean house is strewn all over the back yard and totally ruined. That was were the motivation flew out the window for me. I'm leaving it up to Trent to figure out what he wants to do with his beans. I'm not sure a 7 foot tall bean structure is going to hold up in the part of the state where the winds howl like I've never seen before. Granted... he didn't stake it down as well as it should have been, but I don't want to lose all of the beans if we get another good wind storm (which I'm sure we will).

I am glad that we planted one bed early on and it is starting to grow well! So we will have something! And if I can get my wits about me to plant the rest of it... I'm sure that I wont regret it and I will be glad that we planted another good garden.

Maybe the planting can just wait a few more weeks? I don't know. I think part of my lack of motivation is preparing for the baby. Will I really have the time or desire to harvest the food that we plant in the fall when I have a snuggly newborn that I want to be with instead? Or will I welcome the break and something to do other than change diapers and nurse again?  Not sure...

In the meantime, I'm spending good time outside when I can. Instead of working on these bare garden beds I've decided to pull out all of the dandilions out of the grass. It's a large yard... with lots of dandilions this year. I realize it's a battle I probably can't win, but it's pretty rewarding to get these little buggers out of the grass.

Goodbye garden...

I've spent the last few weeks ripping out what was left of the garden. The only things that are left are the tomatoe plants and the swiss chard. I decided to leave them because the deer have been coming down and eating them up so I figure why not? Might as well let them go for it.

Half eaten swiss chard...

 

 

We picked what was left of the green tomatoes before it froze. They've already ripened though, so I made some raw salsa this week with our last tomatoes.

 



I loved growing a garden this year. It has been one of the most rewarding things I have done. We're already making plans of what we want to do next year. More tomatoes and peppers so I can make salsa for canning, lots more squash. We're hoping to grow enough pumpkin to can some puree next year to keep us stocked for the winter.

Also, more flowers. The only flowers I did this summer were my sunflowers. Next summer I want flowers that come and go all season long! I'm thinking some orange poppies, black eyed susan's, daisies... I can hardly wait!

Diced Italian Tomatoes...

I've been dabbling at canning the last few weeks, and I've been canning my own home grown tomatoes. I wanted to do something big like large batches of spaghetti sauce or salsa... but I've only had enough tomatoes turn red at the same time for 12 jars of diced Italian tomatoes. I think I need more tomato bushes next year... 6 just didn't cut it for a large scale canning operation. I might be able to do a few more before the growing season is over, we'll see.

I owe a big thanks to my sister in laws for letting me use their pots and for moral support at a moments notice. I had no clue what I was doing, but they know how it goes so they were super helpful!

There is something magical about picking your own tomatoes and then canning them. And at the end of your hard work when those little buttons seal on the lids... now that is success! I may have only gotten 12 jars so far, but that is 12 more than I've ever done before so I feel good about that!

I used this recipe which is also in the official Ball canning book. What do I plan on using these for? Taco soup, it's super yummy!

Wild...

 Here is what our tomatoes looked like the end of June.

And here they are mid August...

They've turned monstrous! They are growing out of control. Can you spy a creepy face in the next picture? They are taller than me in some places.

We got five big red ones off yesterday, plus a dozen cherry tomatoes. I just hope that most of them turn red at the same time so that I can do something with them like make salsa or tomatoe sauce to can.

The boy loves helping us gather up our food. He was super excited last night because we picked a watermelon that he's been eyeing every day. It's his favorite and the one thing that he wanted to grow in the garden this summer.

And it did not disappoint! He loved it. I think he ate half the watermelon and finished off my piece (I'm not really a fan). Oh the joys of summer!

Sunflowers...

All 15 of the sunflowers that I planted have grown! And they are all taller than me (I'm 5'9"). It makes me happy everyday to see their beautiful yellow petals.

They're getting a little top heavy and starting to bend down. We're going to try and get the seeds out of them. I'm just continually amazed how beautiful things can grown from a little water and sunlight.

Basil = Pesto...

It wasn't that long ago when I was first introduced to pesto sauce. One of our friends mom's made the most amazing asparagus/mushroom/squash/noodle stir fry ever that had a pesto and cream sauce and I was hooked. It was divine!!! I really don't think I'd ever had it before, but I loved it. I bought my first jar of pesto afterwards to re-make the meal... and it was a bit pricey as far as sauces go. For an itty bitty jar, I was surprised. So I don't use it or buy it a whole lot, but I wish I did. Ever since I've wanted to grow my own basil so that I could make my own homemade pesto sauce.

Well, my garden pesto was finally big enough to harvest and start making pesto this week!

We spent forever picking it and forever washing it... but my kitchen smelled so good!

I gathered my ingredients. Lots of pesto sauces use walnuts but they aren't very nice to my mouth so I went with pine nuts... toasted that is (brings out more flavor).

Not pictured was the olive oil.

 I threw some pepper in there too, just for fun.

So simple to make! I made two batches (6 cups of fresh basil) which only filled half of my quart jar. Guess I need to get some pint jars for this. I'm hoping to bottle it and have it throughout the year. Look at that beautiful bright green color! It just doesn't look like this when you buy it from the store does it.

I'm going to make Tracey's famous pesto stir fry on Sunday and I'll share the recipe here. It's one of my favorites, and I can't wait to try it with my own sauce.

Two months into the garden...

We planted our garden 54 days ago...

and it is doing so awesome!!! Check out all this lettuce...

My tomatoe plants are dripping with green tomatoes. Some are starting to turn orange.

The whole east side of the garden I planted big sunflower plants and they are all growing so tall! No sunflowers yet, but they are coming. Even without the sunflowers the leaves follow the sun throughout the day.

My herb garden is sparse. This is the one area that didn't grow so well. I'm going to re-plant them pretty soon here. But we have some cilantro and basil growing, just not as much as I wanted.

Basil leaves are so pretty...

And the yard is full of the most beautiful day lillies...

A few days after I took all those pictures (I'm a slow blogger) we went out and gathered a bunch of stuff to make a salad...

Snap peas.

Cherry tomatoes.

And lettuce coming out my ears!!! Anyone want some lettuce? Come and get it!

Growing this garden has been one of the most fun and rewarding things that I've done. It's so nice to come out in the morning and check on my plants. They are doing so good! I can't take too much credit though, this soil here is amazing. I think about all the hands that have worked this ground for the past 100+ years. There are very few rocks, the dirt is dark brown. It's a pretty cool thing to be a part of.

Homemade tomatoe cage...

We needed to get some tomatoe cages for our little tomatoe plants but I didn't want to spend money on them. So we decided to build our own "tomatoe cage" of sorts. We went to a heavily wooded place in the area and gathered a ton of sticks (over 50). Then we put together this cage and tied the junctions with bakers twine.

It's a pretty sturdy little structure. I love the natural, organic look of it. I'm trying to imagine it with 80 lbs of tomatoes on it... we'll see!

Garden...

We really wanted to find a house we could rent that had enough land that we could plant a garden (I know, tall requests for renters). We were so happy to find this house and the landlords were more than willing to let us take up some of the sod and plant a garden. We wanted to get our seeds in the ground pretty quick so this is a run down of how moving week went:

Monday - Emptied out our storage unit and move all of the contents up to the house.

Tuesday - Get all of our stuff out of my in law's house. Clean my in law's basement where we had been staying. Spend our first night in the new place.

Wednesday - Husband wakes up bright and early and maps out where he wants to put the garden. We wanted 3 beds that were 5 x 30 feet. Unpack and put stuff away. That night, rent a sod cutter from Home Depot and pull up all the sod. Fill up our truck and drive the sod down to my sister in laws who can use it.

Thursday - Husband goes back to work. I spend my day trying to get things unpacked and put away.
Friday - Still unpacking. Almost done. Buy all the seeds for the garden.
Saturday - Borrow grandparents tiller. Till the whole garden area and till in fertilizer. Mow the massive lawn (I did this, it took 2 1/2 hours... and I was already super exhausted from everything else. Had my first doubts about moving into this place with the massive yard!). Plant our garden!!!

We were all moved in with a garden planted in 6 days!!! It was nuts, and I was so exhausted by the end of the week! I can't believe that we did all that in such a short amount of time. But we were able to get our garden that we've been dreaming about put in.

Here's what we planted:

Spaghetti squash

Butternut squash

Zucchini

Crook neck squash

White beans

Green beans

Three kinds of tomatoes

Swiss Chard

Beets

Watermelon (not sure if this will grow, but wouldn't it be cool if it did?)

Green leaf lettuce

Spinach

Sugar snap peas

Cilantro

Mint

Basil

Peppers

Pumpkin

Sunflowers!!

Our little plants are starting to poke through the ground now, we are so excited! I hope that some of this stuff grows, that would be so cool!