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Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
Garden update
Josh and I are boring, and I just updated about Grayson yesterday, so all I really have left to blog about is the garden.
Let me just start off by saying that I never want to see another zucchini or crook-neck squash again in my life. I give about half away, I have 10 cups of shredded zucchini in the freezer, I've made two batches of chocolate zucchini bread and baked two batches of zucchini chocolate chip cookies. We eat at least one zuke and one squash every night with dinner, and even with all of that consumption, we have another 8 fruits in the fridge, and dozens more that will be ready for picking in the next day or two. I go out in the morning to pick what I can see and the very next day, zukes that were 2-3 inches long the morning before have suddenly grown to 10+ inches. It's absolutely maddening.
Anyway, we're done harvesting radishes, beets and lettuce and we've pulled those plants completely out. We get the occasional tomato, but most are still green. My red peppers aren't red yet, and I'm getting very impatient waiting for them to turn. In the meantime, we've grown some fabulous cucumbers, jalapeños, beans and carrots. I think the beans are on their way out, though, which is fine because I have a gallon size Ziploc of them in the freezer. Does anyone know how to freeze squash?
We have cantaloupe and watermelon that aren't ready yet, but they look so cute growing out there in our little corner. You see, our garden started out like this, but it quickly grew into this:
The cucumber, honeydew, and watermelon plants were vining out all over the place and we had to intervene. Josh had the brilliant idea to make a remesh arch across each box to let the vines grow up and over. Here's a pic of the cucumber arch when we first put it in July 29:
Here's what it looks like now (can barely see it with the zukes growing so big and crazy in front):
Anyway, since the plants are now growing along the arch, the fruits tend to hang down through the mesh squares. The little melons are so cute!
According to Mel, the vines will have a strong enough hold on the fruits to keep them attached until they're ripe, so we'll see.
And just for fun, here's a pic of this morning's loot:
Let me just start off by saying that I never want to see another zucchini or crook-neck squash again in my life. I give about half away, I have 10 cups of shredded zucchini in the freezer, I've made two batches of chocolate zucchini bread and baked two batches of zucchini chocolate chip cookies. We eat at least one zuke and one squash every night with dinner, and even with all of that consumption, we have another 8 fruits in the fridge, and dozens more that will be ready for picking in the next day or two. I go out in the morning to pick what I can see and the very next day, zukes that were 2-3 inches long the morning before have suddenly grown to 10+ inches. It's absolutely maddening.
Anyway, we're done harvesting radishes, beets and lettuce and we've pulled those plants completely out. We get the occasional tomato, but most are still green. My red peppers aren't red yet, and I'm getting very impatient waiting for them to turn. In the meantime, we've grown some fabulous cucumbers, jalapeños, beans and carrots. I think the beans are on their way out, though, which is fine because I have a gallon size Ziploc of them in the freezer. Does anyone know how to freeze squash?
We have cantaloupe and watermelon that aren't ready yet, but they look so cute growing out there in our little corner. You see, our garden started out like this, but it quickly grew into this:
The cucumber, honeydew, and watermelon plants were vining out all over the place and we had to intervene. Josh had the brilliant idea to make a remesh arch across each box to let the vines grow up and over. Here's a pic of the cucumber arch when we first put it in July 29:
Here's what it looks like now (can barely see it with the zukes growing so big and crazy in front):
Anyway, since the plants are now growing along the arch, the fruits tend to hang down through the mesh squares. The little melons are so cute!
According to Mel, the vines will have a strong enough hold on the fruits to keep them attached until they're ripe, so we'll see.And just for fun, here's a pic of this morning's loot:
Monday, July 7, 2008
The Garden
I think I've hinted in previous posts how much work our yard needed when we moved in. After all that blasted snow finally melted, Josh and I got to work on the rose bushes, the lawn, and the flower beds. It's been a nightmare trying to keep up on weed control (anyone else facing serious morning glory woes?) and lawn maintenance, but we sure try. We get behind when we go out of town, but we've obviously made some progress because neighbors frequently tell us how excited and grateful they are that we're doing something about the yards because the previous renters did not. If I had a dollar for every hour Josh has spent replacing broken sprinkler heads, adjusting the spray, and substituting nozzles for the greatest coverage, I'd have enough to buy all y'all a slurpee. If you throw in the time he's spent fixing the lawn mower, I'd have enough to buy him a new one.
Anyway, in between all of these projects, we had to hurry and put in our garden before it got too late in the year. We brought our planter box up from Vegas, but didn't know exactly where to put it. There was a weedy corner of the back yard with a couple of bushes in it that we thought would work, so Josh started pulling all the weeds to make it more attractive for our box to live. One of the bushes was a rose bush, and we discovered that it was actually dead and not just hibernating from the winter, so Josh had to pull it out. This is what we were left with:
With the rose bush gone, there was too much room for our planter box, so Josh built him some friends to fill up the space:
We wanted to make the area as pretty as possible for as little money as possible (remember how we're on a tight budget all the time so we can buy our own house to put our money into?) so I used all of our email addresses, our current address, our Vegas address, and my parents' address to print off some of these Lowe's coupons. Good thing I did, too. Even with these coupons, plus a $10 off $50 Lowe's purchase I found on the back of a magazine, we're almost $200 into our garden, but that includes the new boxes (plus two more small ones), all the filler (peat moss, vermiculite, and compost), the decorative rock and bark, and all the plants and seeds. Josh had to dig up underneath the bush to replace the sprinklers' water filter, so it's just messy dirt under there right now, and we're going to stain the outside of the boxes so they all match, but it will be finished (again) very soon. Josh has done such a good job. We couldn't be more pleased with our small bit of tranquility sitting outside!
This is the view from the street. All that grass is ours, and it goes ALL the way around the house. It takes us at least 2-3 hours to mow and weed-eat it all. Josh is dying for a riding lawn mower, but that kind of purchase comes only after we're mowing our own grass!
So there you have it. We've already harvested tons of super-yummy radishes (I'll be planting those again later this month for a fall crop) and we took out our peas and broccoli. We didn't plant early enough and they never really produced. But everything else looks good to go! We have three tomato varieties, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, strawberries, red potatoes, honeydew melon, watermelon, beets, carrots, lettuce, bush beans, red peppers, and jalapeños. And everything is already looking so much more vibrant than they did last year!
Anyway, in between all of these projects, we had to hurry and put in our garden before it got too late in the year. We brought our planter box up from Vegas, but didn't know exactly where to put it. There was a weedy corner of the back yard with a couple of bushes in it that we thought would work, so Josh started pulling all the weeds to make it more attractive for our box to live. One of the bushes was a rose bush, and we discovered that it was actually dead and not just hibernating from the winter, so Josh had to pull it out. This is what we were left with:
With the rose bush gone, there was too much room for our planter box, so Josh built him some friends to fill up the space:
We wanted to make the area as pretty as possible for as little money as possible (remember how we're on a tight budget all the time so we can buy our own house to put our money into?) so I used all of our email addresses, our current address, our Vegas address, and my parents' address to print off some of these Lowe's coupons. Good thing I did, too. Even with these coupons, plus a $10 off $50 Lowe's purchase I found on the back of a magazine, we're almost $200 into our garden, but that includes the new boxes (plus two more small ones), all the filler (peat moss, vermiculite, and compost), the decorative rock and bark, and all the plants and seeds. Josh had to dig up underneath the bush to replace the sprinklers' water filter, so it's just messy dirt under there right now, and we're going to stain the outside of the boxes so they all match, but it will be finished (again) very soon. Josh has done such a good job. We couldn't be more pleased with our small bit of tranquility sitting outside!
This is the view from the street. All that grass is ours, and it goes ALL the way around the house. It takes us at least 2-3 hours to mow and weed-eat it all. Josh is dying for a riding lawn mower, but that kind of purchase comes only after we're mowing our own grass!
So there you have it. We've already harvested tons of super-yummy radishes (I'll be planting those again later this month for a fall crop) and we took out our peas and broccoli. We didn't plant early enough and they never really produced. But everything else looks good to go! We have three tomato varieties, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, strawberries, red potatoes, honeydew melon, watermelon, beets, carrots, lettuce, bush beans, red peppers, and jalapeños. And everything is already looking so much more vibrant than they did last year!
Monday, April 28, 2008
Springtime!
Oh my, I just love springtime! Josh said these last couple days of weather have made the move to Utah worth all that s-word ('snow' for you potty-mouths), but I'm going to need about 10-15 more degrees to be completely satisfied. But hey, I'll gladly take this semi-warmth in the meantime.
We're finally blessing Grayson this Sunday and have spent the last two Saturdays working on the yards to pretty them up before all of our family comes to visit. We just love how big the lawns are, but they sure needed a bit of work when we moved in. Josh took the time to put down winter fertilizer after we had it aerated last fall, and it really paid off. It's already nice and green! We haven't successfully killed off the few dandelions yet and we still need to treat it for spots of grubs and crabgrass, but it's definitely doable for an outside gathering this weekend.
The shrubbery and flower beds still need a bit of work, though. The owner planted several varieties of rose bushes around the house, but they hadn't been pruned the last couple of years and were becoming an eyesore. So Josh got some pruning shears from his parents' house and I started cutting away on Saturday. Our neighbors, Bill and Kit, came over to inspect my work and Bill asked if he could try it. Although we disagreed on how short to trim the bushes (the owner told me to trim the bushes down to about 3 feet, but Bill was dead-set on 13 inches), I gave him the pruning shears anyway. Over the next hour-and-a-half, Bill nearly obliterated four rose bushes in the front yard, all the while assuring me they weren't too short. I gave up protesting after the first bush, and Kit and I pulled weeds instead. While the rose bushes look much better now (you can see the front of the house!), I'm a little worried we won't get any actual flowers this summer.
After Bill
There were an awful lot of really long, thorny rose branches to dispose of afterward, so Josh had to cut them all up to fit in the trash can. What you see in this picture are the cuttings from only one rose bush!
I don't think either of us realized how much we missed yard work until we came back to one after having a small patch of grass in Las Vegas. We even fight over who gets to mow the lawns (although Josh usually wins because my time's better spent in the laundry room). Oh, I can't wait to plant my garden this year!
We're finally blessing Grayson this Sunday and have spent the last two Saturdays working on the yards to pretty them up before all of our family comes to visit. We just love how big the lawns are, but they sure needed a bit of work when we moved in. Josh took the time to put down winter fertilizer after we had it aerated last fall, and it really paid off. It's already nice and green! We haven't successfully killed off the few dandelions yet and we still need to treat it for spots of grubs and crabgrass, but it's definitely doable for an outside gathering this weekend.
The shrubbery and flower beds still need a bit of work, though. The owner planted several varieties of rose bushes around the house, but they hadn't been pruned the last couple of years and were becoming an eyesore. So Josh got some pruning shears from his parents' house and I started cutting away on Saturday. Our neighbors, Bill and Kit, came over to inspect my work and Bill asked if he could try it. Although we disagreed on how short to trim the bushes (the owner told me to trim the bushes down to about 3 feet, but Bill was dead-set on 13 inches), I gave him the pruning shears anyway. Over the next hour-and-a-half, Bill nearly obliterated four rose bushes in the front yard, all the while assuring me they weren't too short. I gave up protesting after the first bush, and Kit and I pulled weeds instead. While the rose bushes look much better now (you can see the front of the house!), I'm a little worried we won't get any actual flowers this summer.
Before Bill
After Bill
There were an awful lot of really long, thorny rose branches to dispose of afterward, so Josh had to cut them all up to fit in the trash can. What you see in this picture are the cuttings from only one rose bush!
I don't think either of us realized how much we missed yard work until we came back to one after having a small patch of grass in Las Vegas. We even fight over who gets to mow the lawns (although Josh usually wins because my time's better spent in the laundry room). Oh, I can't wait to plant my garden this year!Friday, May 11, 2007
How my garden isn't growing
My garden has been doing so awesome since I planted last month, but Vegas has sustained 98+ weather for the last week or so and it's really taken a toll on my little plants. :( The heat plus the wind have been drying out my blossoms before they have a chance to become much more. My pea plants have basically dried up now, and my zucchinis haven't produced any fruit yet, even though they're blossoming like mad. It's really quite frustrating because my peas were sooo delicious back when they grew. Here is a picture of one of my peas compared to a frozen pea. mmmm...so plump and delightful!
The good news is strawberries grow splendidly in the heat, and my plants are cranking them out! Here is a picture of one of my strawberries compared to one of my peas. They're huge and taste like they're straight out of California!
I got my first blossoms on my jalapeño and cucumber plants yesterday, and I still have about 10 tomatoes that are growing nicely - just need to ripen up. If there's a silver lining to moving back to Utah, it's that my gardens there flourish.
The good news is strawberries grow splendidly in the heat, and my plants are cranking them out! Here is a picture of one of my strawberries compared to one of my peas. They're huge and taste like they're straight out of California!
I got my first blossoms on my jalapeño and cucumber plants yesterday, and I still have about 10 tomatoes that are growing nicely - just need to ripen up. If there's a silver lining to moving back to Utah, it's that my gardens there flourish.
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