In Fields of Green

Summer is in full swing around here. Gardens are flourishing, flowers are blooming, and fresh fruits and vegetables are easy to find. We live in farming country and many locals have strawberry fields where you can pick your own for much cheaper than it costs in the grocery store.

I took the kids last week just to test out how they would do and they loved it! Unfortunately, it had rained the previous three days so it was exceptionally muddy and we left covered in it! I attempted to keep Noah out of it but he is like a moth to a flame when it comes to mud and there was no keeping him clean. I did not get a picture of him because at the time I was just trying to limit the amount of mud he was accumulating.

We picked just a few pounds and it was gone within a couple of days so we will definitely be heading back there soon before the season is over.

How about you? Are local fruits and vegetables readily available for picking and buying where you are located?

Vacation Part 3

This post is about our second day with Gabe's dad at the family cottage.

It was another miserably hot day so after a late breakfast and some lounging around, we headed out to swim. We spent the next 3 1/2 hours in the water. I conquered, if that's what you can call it, the floating iceberg (meaning I jumped and bounced off the top, throwing off my balance and slamming into the water on my back. ouch!). Of course, since I'm the only one who was taking pictures or videos, there are none of me. :(

Outside of all the swimming, we pretty much lounged around, rode the long board, and just tried to stay cool.  Both Gabe's dad and ourselves brought along a watermelon. We tackled one the first day and the second, the next day. With 5 grown men, 1 woman, and two kids, we ate them both no problem. We packed up our things because we were heading out super early (5 am early, ugh) the next morning and tried to go to bed early. But it was so hot up there in that little cottage, sleep was hard. It ended up cooling off a lot during the night and I woke up freezing. Christian and I were in the same bed and at some point he wet the bed. Needless to say, sleep was not happening and I was not a very happy camper when the alarm went off at 430. Mama needs her sleep! But we got up and got out the door on time which is a miracle in itself.

I love this shot I got of the kids playing Frisbee.I timed it perfectly to catch the frisbee knocking Alena in the head (lucky timing, huh?). lol Don't worry, she was fine.

Our watermelon pile. Gabe must be contemplating how many of those are his and how many more he will eat.

So delicious!

Hooked on Gardening

The longer that we have this garden, the more I'm loving it! In the beginning it can be a pain because nothing is happening and you don't see the "fruits" of your effort yet. Now that we have started actually being able to pick and see the vegetables start producing, things have started to get exciting! (I'm sounding like a total nerd right now, aren't I?) *shrug* Oh well.

I've realized lately that I need to be taking in more fruits and vegetables. The kids are constantly eating them but I just can't seem to eat them on a regular basis. I made the suggestion to Gabe about getting a juicer or blender so we can make our own juice or smoothies and he jumped on board right away. This way, we can get all the fruits and veggies that we need and it will be a great way to use any extra produce from the garden. (Also, it justifies Gabe's wish for a bigger garden next year.)

Now, for my favorite part. :)

Our blackberry bushes haven't been doing much. Finally got a flower on it!

Love the large green grape leaves!

Our Lantana bushes have finally taken off too.

Beautiful flower on the zucchini plant.

I see only two zucchinis in this pic, but there are really four growing on the plant.

The zucchini and lettuce. We've already made salads with the lettuce and it looks like we need to have more!

The Yellow Squash plant. You see the big one growing?

The snap peas have really taken off!

My "pride and joy". The corn. I can't wait for fresh picked sweet corn!

The watermelon plant that finally started to grow and the beans in the background.

We have Cilantro!

Tomato plant and carrots. The carrots are alllmost ready to pick. (Please ignore the weeds)

Honey Dew Melon, broccoli, and cucumbers.

Plums! There was one ready to pick the other day. Today, I found it on the ground pecked by a bird. ugh!

This grape vine is growing like CRAZY!

Peppers called Sweet Hots.

Garden Update

I've been taking pictures of the garden and all the plants in hopes of writing this post. I never end up writing it and then the pictures become out of date. But here are updates, finally.

We made a discovery about a week and a half ago when we went to transplant some veggies. Some vegetables had been dying off or not sprouting at all, and then the soil under the surface was BONE DRY. It was like dust. Even though I watered every day, in this Arizona weather, that wasn't enough. We needed to give it more water, LOTS more. So we soaked every square inch of the garden and now make sure to give the plants plenty of water.

Gabe has also constructed some drip systems for the garden and trees and set them up on automatic timers to make things easier for us. You can see them in these pics below.

We are sooo close to being able to harvest our first veggie!! A radish (You can see it in the pic on the right up above. It's huge!). Only one radish survived when we planted 16 on March 1st. (Another mistake on our part. Planting too early.) We have had to replant some crops because of our mistake. (Live and learn, right?)

Carrots

Honey Dew Melon and Cucumbers have sprouted!

The grapes have taken off and are doing wonderful! I can't believe how fast they grew. I don't think we'll see any actual grapes this year but maybe next year. The plum tree was COVERED in plums until a wind storm (common for our part of Arizona) blew over half of them off. :( We also have some strawberries growing! They are small ones, but the plants are still young and have more growing to do before we can have a better crop of strawberries.

Our lovely grapes

Strawberries in the barrel to the left and blueberries to the right.

 Also, we have potatoes in the pots behind them.

A close up of the strawberries.

Yum yum plums!

Plum Tree

I really should have updated this sooner because now there is just SO much to write about! We have so many things growing right now that if I wrote about them all, the post would be way too long. So here are some pics instead. I tried to get everything we have in them.

Going Green... many pics

Gabe and I have decided that we wanted to grow our own produce by having a garden. It's something that we've always wanted to do and this year, we were finally able to.

We ordered a variety pack of seeds from online (52 different types of veggies) but because it is only our first year, we are only planting about half of them. We are doing Square Foot Gardening because we live in the city so land is scarce. It has and will be a LOT of trial and error the first year or two. I know that each year we do it, we'll get better and better and our goal is to eventually be able to get all of our produce from our own back yard.

Last October, we had 2 apple trees, a pomegranate tree, an apricot tree, 2 blackberry bushes, and 2 grape bushes planted throughout our property. We also have 2 plum trees that were planted in 2009 and 4 strawberry bushes and 2 blueberry bushes that we bought this year.

Our apricot tree starting to bloom.

One of the grape bushes sprouting green leaves.

The smaller plum tree.

The larger plum tree. Really hope to get some of them before the birds this year!

Gabe spent many hours building garden boxes and setting them up. He did such a good job!

There are three more other boxes on the other side of the house.

 We also had some left over drawers from our kitchen remodel that we re-purposed as more garden boxes. In the smaller one, we planted parsley, cilantro, and basil. In the other, we have a variety of flowers.

We started by planting green onions, sweet onions, celery, broccoli, cabbage, a lettuce mix, butter lettuce, and spinach indoors at the end of February and I'm ecstatic that they ALL sprouted! We were even able to transplant the lettuces and spinach yesterday!

A week later, we planted sweet peas, snap peas, carrots, red radish, corn, yellow squash, zucchini, and bush beans outdoors and tomatoes indoors.

The following week, honey dew melon, watermelon, cucumbers, and butter lettuce outdoors and more broccoli, celery, green/red peppers, and jalapeno peppers indoors.

Yesterday, we planted more corn, carrots, red radish, spinach, and lettuce mix outdoors and another cabbage plant indoors. And as I said above, we were able to transplant the previous plantings of lettuce and spinach.

You still reading...?

Whew! So much work but I know it'll be worth it. I love seeing the green popping up everywhere! here's a few more pics of the boxes and what's growing.

Red Radish and Corn

Carrots

Snap Peas

Even got a compost!

The 2 blueberry bushes.

Strawberries. YUM!

So there you have it. I know it'll be a year or two before we have much or any fruit but we are so excited to be growing our own produce and the savings will be nice too!