Baby Food Garden 2014

I wasn’t sure my garden would get put in this year. And I wasn’t too worried if it didn’t – obviously I have way more important things to play with, like a little boy. :)

But since I’ve been making all of Chisum’s baby food, I thought it would be fun if I did get my garden in, to make it a “baby food garden”.

Chisum came with me and we went on a quick adventure to the greenhouse on Saturday and got cucumber, zucchini, acorn squash, summer squash plants and one small roma tomato since Ronny and I like to eat them. I also have carrot seeds and peas so I planned to put them in as well. It will be a smaller garden than year’s past (2011, 2012, & 2013), but that’s fine for this year.

There was some volunteer lettuce growing from last year, so Ronny replanted them in the corner and I threw in a few more lettuce seeds just for fun.
  

This is my first time trying acorn and summer squash – hopefully my little squash-lover will like them.
  

I loved having little helpers. ;)

August Garden

The garden is a little bit more out of control since July. But Ronny has had enough and will be “cutting it back” soon. These are his words for pretty much taking it all out! At this point, I don’t care. :)

We’ve been enjoying lots of cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes and cucumbers.

Our pumpkins are finally matured and the vines are starting to die off. Notice our one stalk of corn in there? Yes, that was Ronny’s project!

We got four pumpkins out of the deal this year – one ginormous one!

And this one grew into the wire cage which made for some interesting markings.

Ronny harvested them last night. And decided to proudly display them on our front porch. I did remind him it is still August, but he thought it was close enough to fall to display. Oh goodness. :)

And we both had to display our prize “punkins”.

Lastly, Hank was thrilled with the sweet corn harvest – a raw ear of sweet corn is his favorite treat!

July Garden

Oh, wait. I have a garden?

That’s kind of how I’ve been feeling about my garden. Thankfully, Ronny has been taking pretty good care of it. As I told him, “I’ll plant it, but no guarantees on harvesting it!”

I like to look at it from my kitchen window, but thinking about going out in the heat these days – no, thank you!

Anyways, it really has enjoyed our hot, humid weather. Remember this from June?

Well now it is this. Kind of out of control. I haven’t had luck with tomatoes before. Well now I apparently do and they are prolific! Ronny put the pallet in to keep the cucumbers from growing over everything else. Kinda redneck, but it works.

And remember the random spots for the pumpkins that we picked out?

Yes, well here they are now.

Ronny set up a fence for them to grow on, but it’s going to need to be reinforced soon with the weight of the growing pumpkins. There are probably a dozen growing so far!

The best part has been consuming what has grown. We’ve enjoyed some broccoli and lettuce so far, and are just starting to get red cherry tomatoes. Baby Pope likes these! I should have some cucumber ripening soon. It’s hard to say about the green peppers – the tomatoes have kind of over taken their area, so we’ll see if anything comes from them!

Garden 2013

I forgot to get pictures of my garden when I first planted it in May. But it has really been enjoying the rains and warmer days.

This year, I planted tomatoes (after not trying last year when they were sprayed by the lawn behind us the year before), but I moved them to the front of the garden box hoping that keeping them away from the fence would help.

I also planted green peppers, broccoli, cucumber and started carrots and lettuce from seed.

Last year, our vertical pumpkins experiment would have worked better if we didn’t have a drought. They just didn’t receive enough moisture in the tubs. So this year, we removed two bushes (they were taking over and I wanted my spirea bushes to have more space). I’ll eventually put something else in their spots, but decided to try putting two pumpkin plants in them to see what happens.

Of course, Hank always loves spending time in the yard with me – especially the shade. :)

My goal was to get the garden in, but I’m making no promises on how much of it will be harvested by the time Baby Pope gets here!

Fall gourd decor

I shared last week that I did a DIY craft project with my gourds from my 2011 garden harvest. They have been drying and curing for over a year and I’ve made a few projects with them including these DIY birdhouses.

I started with this lineup in my backyard shed: gourds, cardboard & spray paint.

The Rust-oleum paint I used  (gold, bronze and slate) left a hammered finish which I love.

While I took a break to let the gourds dry, Ronny managed to steal the camera and snuck up on me as I finished up the last coat. Creeper! What is really funny is that I didn’t know about this picture until I was taking these photos off of my camera. :)

When they were all dry, I incorporated them in my china hutch and centerpiece.

I got the plate from a HomeGoods store when I was visiting my sister in Olathe.

What do you think about my placemats? They were our 3rd – leather – wedding anniversary gift from my parents. Love ‘em, thanks Mom & Dad!

The extra gourds that I spray painted may have shown up in other areas around the house. I decorated right before leaving for a work trip and Ronny called to tell me that gourds were poppin’ up everywhere!

I love fall decorations.

September Garden

I went into my backyard tonight wanting to conquer the garden. I was tired of looking at at the drying-up vines and overgrown broccoli that had changed from last month.

But I was pleasantly surprised at what I found.

I knew that there were a few carrots growing, but last year they turned out so puny that I didn’t have any great expectations for this year.

I was even more surprised when I pulled them out – they were nice and long!

My favorite carrot though seemed to be hugging it’s big brother.

Amongst the drying-up vines were even five cucumbers. There are also three pepper plants that have never come to fruition, but they were still pretty green and thriving, so I didn’t have it in me to pull them out or the cucumber vines. We’ll see what next month brings.