More produce!

This is an older picture but look at how big it's all getting! 

I'm really done with this whole "being sick in summer" thing.  It stinks and it's keeping from being out in my garden as much!  (as well as from updating this). 

I really like to look back at a little more than a month ago you can see how far things have come!  The cucumbers were tiny for example!  Then if you look at a little less than a month ago you'll still see how fast they've grown.  I find it surprising and shocking.  It's nice that it grows fast!

An adorable baby cucumber.  I love how cute these are!

Even with me being sick (I caught what my hubby had over the fourth), things have still been crazy busy!  Just this last week (on days I was feeling somewhat good enough to go outside) I moved the sage and rosemary inside.  They are now sitting on my desk next to me.  The reason for moving the rosemary was that it never could seem to be happy in the garden.  At least in a pot I can monitor it a bit more closely and move it to accommodate it.   The reason for moving the sage was that we have discovered a HUGE June bug infestation!  They were devouring my sage plant and with the dill and cilantro next to it getting so big it was having a hard time recouping.  (The infestation isn't gone, but we are spraying plant leaves with a soap based organic spray to keep them from eating the plants.  We also put out a June bug trap (a jar with about 2 inches of oil inside with a solar light pointing in and surrounding it since they are drawn to the light and will then die in the oil) )  At first we thought we had slugs since all the research I had seen was pointing to that.  We put out our beer traps and tip toed outside with a flashlight in the middle of the night to catch the traps in action only to find no slugs but June bugs over everything!  Keeping our porch light off at night in the backyard also seems to make a huge difference.  Our mole/groundhog also finally did the evil unforgivable act and has tunneled into the garden.  As much as the traps appall me, I may let my husband put one in.  I don't want to kill whatever it is, but I also don't want it in my garden :(  I'm going to put up more of the pop bottles on poles (my husband was playing with them and didn't put them back in correctly or the same spots so I'm thinking this might be why the sudden "ohh garden" from the creature) and hope that it decides to go on it's merry little way!

My first harvest of green beans.

My garden is producing produce!  (see what I did there?)  I'm so excited!  I've always enjoyed cooking with fresh ingredients, but having my own grown veggies definitely rocks!  My first harvest was enough for my hubby and I to eat with two meals, my second filled a Wal-mart bag half way full (I ended up sharing with my friends down the street and gave them half) and my third has added even more to that.  I think I'm going to start freeze canning them (I sadly do not have a pressure cooker :(  to regularly can them yet) so that I don't run the risk of losing them!  They are really yummy! 

My first two zucchini and three cucumbers!

Even the zucchini and cucumbers are starting to come in now!  I'm extremely excited :)  We used the zucchini in this Rachel Ray recipe.  We first made it last year when it came out in the magazine and fell in love with it!  It's a very good recipe and I highly recommend it!  The cucumbers I'll be turning into cucumber sandwiches today.

My First Quilt.

I finally finished my quilt (in between being sick) and started my husbands.  To see more, visit my Crafting Blog: Something Crafty This Way Comes! 

Overdue Update ((July 2, 2011 storm update!)

Sorry for the long overdue nature of this update.  My hubby took time off for the 4th giving him essentially a five day weekend.  Of course, he ended up sick for the entire time and I ended up sick towards the end of it.  So finding time and motivation has been a little difficult :( . 



July 2, 2011 a big storm moved through!  They had predicted rain for us, but nothing like this!

Hail falling in front of our house.

A picture of the melting hail. 

 The wind was blowing rain and hail so hard at points that we couldn't see out our front door!  The hail was on average golf ball size.  Of course, not thinking fast enough or of pictures, I didn't grab my camera until the worst of the storm was over.  Half way through the storm we went out and tried to do save work on the garden.  All of our potato and zucchini plants were flattened to the ground.  Thankfully we had just put cages around our tomatoes and the honeydew so those were a bit more protected. 

Here are some pictures of the damage from the storm:

Our onions were pummeled and many lost shoots to the storm like this one did.

The types of holes the hail left in the cucumber leaves.

You can see some of the holes in the zucchini leaves.  The zucchinis had to be tied up to support them.

There were downed branches everywhere when we drove around.  Here's one at a local gas station.

There were whole sections of town without power (thankfully we missed that part) but some people are still cleaning up the mess this storm made!  There were no tornadoes in our area, but sirens did go off for other counties near us I believe.

The sky took on a weird butter/green color after the storm.

After the storm the sky was a weird butter/green mix color and everything was cast in this creepy light.  My husband loved it because he said it felt like special effects.  As night fell, another part of the storm moved over us (but didn't hit us) so we got quite the lightening show for once!

Lightening from that night.

Other than illness our long weekend was good.  We spent a lot of time together.  We did light fireworks off in the backyard (because what would the 4th be if you didn't?)  My husband bought some mammoth smoke bombs for the larp (because they are really long smoke bombs) and decided to test them.  He is a fireworks pro and has done this man times, but as he lit it and threw it, the smoke bomb (let me repeat smoke bomb) exploded and set his clothes on fire.  Thankfully he was not hurt he just lost a shirt and a pair of shorts.  (they were new, but at least he is okay, right?)  The rest of the evening went smoothly.

With us being sick and not much to do, I did get to finish my quilt!  Now I've started my husbands.  I'll be posting more details on that at my crafting blog http://somethingcraftythiswaycomes.blogspot.com/

Here are some pretty fireworks to leave you all with!  Until I feel better and take pictures of the garden to update with, be safe and have fun :)

Fountain Fireworks

Getting Ready for the 4th of July!

Things have been crazy around here.  I've had a bit of a bug (sick when I eat or drink but otherwise fine) that finally seems to be going away and we've  had a friend in the hospital.  I finally got to get out to my garden to take inventory and to really look at it!  Lulu is so much happier now than she was before!  Look at this picture!

Look at all the new baby tomatoes!

I'm excited.  the one tomato I've been nursing on her (you can see it in the background) has some pretty serious blossom rot.  Is it bad that when I look at this guys I see fried green tomato blts? 

At the end of the yellow blossom you can see the beginnings of the first baby zucchini!

While on the topic of baby produce, I've found my first baby zucchini!  I'm very excited to see these taking off so well!  I haven't dug around through all of them yet to see how many "baby" zucchinis I have, but with as many flowers as I've seen, I should get a good turn out!

A Honey Dew Blossom

The Carrots

My honey dew is growing like crazy!  It keeps sending out little vine tendrils like the cucumber plant does, so in order to contain it, I'm considering putting it in a upside down tomato cage so it can grasp onto something and grow up a bit instead of just out.  I'm not sure.  This is the first time I've grown a melon.  I just watch it grow up, up, up, fall over from the weight of itself and do it all again with the little vine tendrils just laying next to it straight.  I'm going to do more research, but that's my best idea at this time. 

The carrots are so happy!  I'm really excited to eat them!  Well, I guess I can say that about my entire garden.  ;)  Me (being the strange person I am) can't help but look at carrots and be reminded of cilantro.  The leaves just look so similar to me!

Alona is beginning to have leaves bud!

Our little rose bush is finally growing leaves of her own!  I'm glad.  I was really worried about her.  She wasn't in the best of shape when we brought her home from the store and then I was worried that she wasn't getting enough light, but she's growing.


Our friend who was in the hospital was mugged and attacked early Monday morning.  He's out of the danger zone after the surgery to see how bad the skull fracture was and to fix it, but he sadly has no health insurance to pay for this and (since he was mugged and his car stolen) now has to deal with a stolen identity, and a slew of other very hard things.  We're working on getting a charity/benevolent organization together for him to help him.  I'll update you all with more once that happens.  In the meantime, This is my crafting blog and the craft I put together to cheer him up while he's in the hospital.  I'll post again soon everyone!  Have a safe and happy holiday to those of you here in the US and everyone else, have a great weekend!  (if I don't post again before that)

Attack possibly solved, first "fruits", and an update!

Well, we're leaning toward it possibly being a gopher or something similar that ate our poor pinwheels (if confused see my previous post!).  This morning we went out to the back yard to get ready for company and there little raised "tunnels" all over the yard towards the house (no where near the garden thank goodness!).  The good news is that we already have the pop bottle on stakes in place.  This keeps gophers and tunneling creatures away because they don't like the vibrations.  :D  So it works for bunnies and tunnels!  We did reposition our bottles (and may be adding more).  We have one of each of the tall ones at each long side of the garden and then I moved the small one to the center of their little tunnels under Lulu.

The salad made from lettuce grown by us!  With cheese added of course ;)

We finally got to eat something from the garden!  I am so excited :)  Our lettuce was finally big enough to go and pick it all and (I chopped it up because I was excited) make a salad.  It was really yummy!  Some of the lettuce had a really nutty flavor when we ate it and when I was cutting it and then other types in there had a bit of bite.  It was really good.  I also pulled up one of my spring onion plants to go in there because I figured it was a good time to celebrate :-D.

Baby Corn Plants

As I was replanting the lettuce (the kit we bought came with lots of different types of seeds and you're suppost to harvest and replant as desired) I decided to weed around the area as well.  As I was pulling things up, I found that the squirrels have been planting some corn kernels from their feeder in the garden and now they are growing!  0.o  I didn't even think that would be possible!  I identified the baby plants and planted the new lettuce around them.  I'm excited to see how they turn out!

My cucumber plants

The cucumbers (and honey dew for that matter) are growing like crazy!  I'm trying to train them to grow up the string but they're a little set against it.  Some of the cucumbers (just like the honeydew) already have little buds.

I had originally meant to take pictures next to a ruler for this post, but maybe the next post.  I'm so excited by how big it's all getting!  The zucchini is starting to flower (I also had flowers on some of my basil) and the potatoes are flowering.  It looks like Lulu is going to be getting a few more tomatoes soon (the food and compost really helped her) and even the pepper plants are looking up.  Eating the salad was so much fun and it felt good to enjoy all my hard work.  This weekend is nice (so far anyways) and I'm hoping at some point we'll go out to a park and walk around with our dog so I can take pictures :)

A picture that almost includes the entire garden.  Before I moved the pop bottle stakes.

A view from above where the lettuce is planted.

I hope all of you have a blessed weekend!

An Attack!

In between 2 am and noon today, there was an attack on my poor garden!

Evidence One

Evidence Two

In the long run it's good that none of my plants were hurt.  I am very sad however to see that my pretty little pinwheels have been eaten.  We aren't sure exactly what caused this, but we're working on finding a way to keep them out.  

I also tied back my zucchini leaves to give the pepper plants more room to grow.

A view of my garden from the door.

The good news in all this is that plant food and compost seem to be helping.  Our tomato plants no longer have blue leaves and everything is growing once more.

Lulu's tomato is growing :)  I'm so excited to eat this tomato!

That's all for this update folks :)

Father's Day Weekend

Well our original plans were to go camping, but when we checked the weather to finalize (it was a bit of a spur of the moment plan) it showed nothing but storms all weekend.  So we decided to instead stay home and spend time together.  Of course, the rain didn't come, but we did get work done in the garden!

Left section of the garden.  You can see the green beans, cucumbers, some tomatoes, cilantro, rosemary , potatoes, and dill here

Middle section of the garden.  You can see the dill, basil, potatoes, tomatoes, green bell peppers, onions, and honey dew melon plants here.

Right section of the garden.  You can see the zucchini, bell peppers, onions, garlic, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, and lettuce plants here.

I think the best news of all we found while working in the garden was this!

The potato plants are starting to bud!  Flowers means no more burying them all!

My photobombed cilantro picture :)  Isn't it growing well!

All in all it was a great weekend.  We went to Howell, Mi and the outlet mall there Saturday to find shoes/clothes for my husband.  It was a nice day (once it stopped being humid and I changed from a dress into some pants) and we had Olive garden for dinner.  Sunday we played video games with one another and then did our garden running.  We came home, worked in the garden and smoked a small brisket!  It was delicious!  The work we did in the garden was: 1. Add in the cage and strings for the cucumbers to grow up  2. Tied small stakes to all the tomato and pepper plants in hopes of making them stronger 3. Added more dirt to the potato piles 4. Planted Alona, our new rose bush 5. Added organic plant food and compost to Lulu, the hanging tomato, and the entire garden.  I hope everyone else had a nice father's day!

Sad news and updates

Well, our lettuce patch had an accidental incident with the person our landlord hires to mow, so we're most likely going to have to replant the lettuce :(  The good news is that the garden is still doing well :)  Here's pictures to prove it!

Lulu's first baby tomato!

My dill plant :)

Green beans, cucumbers and the herbs.  Look at those green beans!

zucchini

A close up of a potato plant

The weather's finally cleared up a bit, not too hot, not too cold, I just haven't been out taking pictures of wild life as much.  I finished making curtains for my mother in law :)  I think they came out really nice!  She also recently found me some old sewing books (some of which have bra patterns and such) so I'm sure I'll be playing with that soon too :)  Over all, things have been busy with the LARP (our online event ends tonight) and just life.  My house is a mess and I'll have to fix that soon :/  but we're looking at trying to go camping this weekend!  Just have to figure out who will watch our puppy!