Garden

Wednesday, October 21, 2015
I tried planting some tomato plants and cucumbers this year. I think it wasn't quite the right place for the tomato plants because we only got a handful of tomatoes and the plants never got very big. The cucumbers struggled a little too but I did get a few cucumbers before the first frost hit.


Here is a picture of my red and yellow mums in full bloom:

Strawberries and Cheesecake

Monday, June 15, 2015

We have a small strawberry patch on the north side of our house and I used them to make a strawberry topping for some cheesecake that I made. It was super rich and delicious!

Peach trees

Wednesday, August 27

Our family loves peaches and we were a little sad to have to leave our peach tree behind - although it still wasn't big/mature enough yet to produce many peaches.  So we were pleasantly surprised to move into our new house and find that we actually have 2 peach trees here on the south side of our house.  They are actually fairly big and so we are hopeful that with some good pruning they will give us a good harvest next year!  (I also would really like to plant an apple tree somewhere.  We are really going to miss our apple trees from our old house - and the great homemade applesauce we were able to make from them!)

Here is some peach crisp that I was able to make from the few peaches we got this fall:

One last watermelon!

Monday, October 28

We harvested our last watermelon of the season.  This was another large, heavy one.  It wasn't quite as juicy/watery as the last one, but it was very sweet and tasty!  We ended up giving some of our watermelon to my parents and sister because we had too much and it was going to go bad before we could eat it all (plus we went out of town at the end of this week).

Pumpkin Harvest

Saturday, October 19

After our morning trip to the zoo, we came home and harvested our pumpkins from the garden.  We got one short, fat pumpkin this year, a couple of medium sized ones and then several small ones.  The kids always have fun picking them from the garden and deciding which one they want to carve.  A couple of the smaller ones we ended up having to throw away because they were really mushy on one side.  We harvested them a little before Halloween this year so we could line them up on our porch for decoration.

More watermelon!

Thursday, October 10

This was our first really big watermelon and it was super heavy and very juicy!  When I cut into the watermelon there was a ton of juice that almost poured out of it.

Potato harvest

Friday, October 4

We always get a good harvest of potatoes when we plant them.  I like to plant different types of potatoes that I usually don't buy at the store.  These are some red potatoes - that are great for making stews and soups.  We also harvested some Yukon gold potatoes which I didn't get a picture of.  We had some huge potatoes in the bunch!

MJ talk

One day we were driving somewhere and passed by some construction vehicles that were digging up the road.  Luke said, "Why are they digging holes in the road?"  MJ quickly responded with, "Because they want to check if there are squirrels there."

DH and I were working in the garden one afternoon and MJ was out there with us but was making a mess and getting into things that she shouldn't have been.  After telling her several times to stop DH finally said to her in frustration, "MJ get out of here."  MJ stopped for a second and looked at him and said, "But I thought you liked me!"

Garden harvests

This year our garden was so-so.  Not our best year but also not our worst year.  We ended up getting a TON of tomatoes this year and a surprise success for us was our first large watermelons!  When I was planting the garden I bought a few watermelon plants to try and I thought that I had bought all the same ones.  Well, after the different plants started growing and the watermelons started appearing, I was confused on why two of the plants were putting out much smaller, dark green skinned watermelons without the typical stripes on them.  At one point one of the plants died after a large wind storm that pulled it from the ground.  So I decided to pick the watermelons from the plant and try cutting into one of them.  I was surprised that it was a very nice pink color inside and had a fairly sweet taste.  The only downside to it was that it had a TON of seeds that took forever to pick out!  After looking at my watermelon plants once again I noticed that I still had the plant labels in the ground near the plants and discovered that the smaller watermelons were actually "Sugar Baby" watermelons and they are a round fruit that only weights 8-10 pounds.

Two of our Sugar Baby watermelons

The first watermelon cut open

One of the biggest, most perfect looking tomatoes that we have ever grown!

Sugar Baby watermelon #2

Kid talk

On our drive back home from visiting the state of Washington.
Luke: Are we in Idaho yet?
Me & DH:  No
Kay: Are we in America?

At lunchtime one day I had put some of my lunch down at one place at the table and then went to get something for one of the girls.  DH then sat down right next to my place and proceeded to spread out the newspaper so that I couldn't very easily sit there anymore.  When he noticed what he had done, this conversation took place.
DH:  Oops, I just kicked Mommy out of her chair.
Kay:  Did you just kick your wife?
MJ:  No, she kicked mommy.

DH was picking up a toy off of the floor and tossed it at MJ.
MJ:  Hey, you just hit me with that!
DH: Yes, I did.
MJ:  That wasn't very nice!

After our vacation I went out to the garden and saw that I finally had some ripe tomatoes.  MJ had followed me out there and said, "Holy mackerel! That's a huge tomato!"

When MJ and I got in the car to go somewhere.
MJ:  Hey Mom, could you please not buckle me?  I want to buckle me myself.

MJ:  Look, I have a cell phone in my pocket too!  (MJ had put a toy cell phone in her pocket and she was so proud of it!)

Homegrown strawberries!

Saturday, June 1

Our strawberry patch has really grown since we started planting the strawberry plants a few years ago.  This year we got a ton of strawberries over the course of about a week or two.  We were able to fill up a 6 cup container in 2 days.  We made some strawberry shortcake and homemade ice cream and some green salads with strawberries in it - YUM!!  I was nervous that they were going to be really sour like the few we have picked in the past, but they were delicious!  Blondie has especially been a big help with picking them each day.  There have been a few times since these pictures that we have just gotten a couple of strawberries here and there and MJ usually eats them before I even get back into the house.

May 29th:

May 30th:

June 1st:

Weather

We have been having our usual crazy Utah spring weather this year.  We have had already had a few days in the 80s where we had to turn on the air conditioner and now it's cooled off again.  We may need to turn the furnace back on this weekend.  So far we have had perfect weather for the kids' soccer games.  I'm not looking forward to the games in the upper 80s and 90s that we usually have by the end of the season.

We had an unusually mild winter with very little snow fall.  I think we maybe had 3 snowstorms over the winter where the snow stayed on the ground for at least one day.  It was pretty disappointing and we will pay for it this summer with the lack of water in the reservoirs here in Utah.

I was able to get out to work in the garden a little on Tuesday.  Hopefully I can get it ready here soon so we can start planting some things for this year.

Fall harvest

Okay, I totally slacked with our garden this year and it pretty much all turned to weeds... Here are a few things that we miraculously managed to get from it, despite my lack of care: 5 peaches from our tiny peach tree (that we planted last year), one cucumber, a small pumpkin (which I still need to take a picture of) and TONS of tomatoes. We have also gotten several strawberries throughout the season.

Garden update - 5/27/11

Yesterday we finally started planting some things in the garden. We planted some spinach, lettuce, broccoli, cucumber, cantaloupe, carrots, watermelon, pumpkins, and radishes. The hardest thing for me this year will be trying to keep Kay from walking in the areas where things are planted. She thinks she can just run around anywhere in the garden and she keeps stepping on the lettuce, onions, carrots, and strawberries that are already planted... I was also able to put flowers in our flower pots earlier this week.

Rain, rain & more rain!

That has been our weather for the last week and we're supposed to get even more! Last week we finally had some nice sunny weather so we could go out and work in the garden. Then on Saturday we had some storms go through, Sunday and Monday were nice and then it has rained everyday since! The kids and I were able to work in some compost and fertilizer into the garden soil on Monday and we planted some strawberry and tomato plants. I love the rain, but right now it is really putting a crimp in my gardening! It would be nice to be able to have another sunny day so I can plant some seeds in our nice soil now and not let the weeds enjoy it all!

And it's been a little too chilly! I had to turn the furnace back on - it's the middle of May! The temperature got down in the 30s on Tuesday and we even had a few snowflakes fall!

Kid talk

When I came home from the General Relief Society Broadcast, Kay ran upstairs and said, "Mom! You missed me!"

On Conference Sunday we were talking about going to Grandma's house after the morning session:
Kay: "Grandma's coming (here)?"
Me: "No, we're going to Grandma's house. Is that okay?"
Kay: "Course!" - (of course)

A little bit later that same day:
Kay: "Am I going to come too?" (meaning to Grandma's house)
Me: "Yes, you get to come."
Kay: "Oh, great!"

Then a little bit later I went out to the garden with some of the kids to pick some vegetables for a salad to take to Grandma's house. Kay brought in a few carrots for me and she took them downstairs to show them to her dad:
DH to Kay: "Are you going to eat that carrot?"
Kay: "No, it's for rabbits."

Outside work

Yesterday morning and afternoon we spent outside working in the yard - and thankfully the weather wasn't too hot. DH and the kids painted/stained the wood fence while I worked in the garden (and M&M helped some too). Luke helped out a lot with Kay so the rest of us could do the other work.

Garden update - 6/23/10

I went out to check on the garden last week and noticed that the lettuce really needed to be thinned so I pulled some of the sprouts and brought them in to use in a salad. I planted a mixed variety of lettuce seeds and it is fun to see what is coming up. This is my first time ever growing lettuce and I am excited at how it is growing so far! I now have onions, carrots and green beans that have sprouted and I did a ton of weeding and planted some more corn and cantaloupe. Cantaloupe is the only thing that I have not seen sprout so far. I'm also excited that there are flowers on my tomato plants already and the cherry tomato plant has some tomatoes on it!

Garden update - 6/2/10

Last Friday I was able to get out and do some more planting. Some of the things that I planted several weeks ago still hadn't come up at that point so I did some double planting of those things just in case the first plantings don't sprout for some reason or other. I ended up planting some cantaloupe, carrots, onions, lettuce, broccoli, corn, watermelon, pumpkin, cucumber, and radishes.

After some more rain this weekend and then last night, I finally made it out to see if anything had sprouted yet. This is what I have sprouting so far: lettuce, broccoli, a few corn seeds, one of the pumpkins, and some cucumber. These were all from the original plantings that I did a couple of weeks ago so I am excited!

On Saturday I took some time to spray the apple trees for codling moth. Hopefully we can stay on top of the sprayings so we can get a good apple crop again this year.

First Strawberry

I finally picked our first strawberry the other day. It was a pretty good size one too. Unfortunately I think I should have waited a couple more days to pick it because it was a little sour. It looked a much darker red on the vine then it did once I picked it. Hopefully we will get more later on in the season.