How Does Your Garden Grow?

My parents and I are gardening! Yay!!! I'm no longer growing weeds (in my vegetable garden that is) but delicious vegetables! We have a Fall Garden. Delight!!!


We have zucchini and squash:

And the most delicious tomatoes.  I love tomatoes!!

And some of the hottest jalapeno peppers.  They might be small but they are mighty.  Ole!

We have a few herbs too and one day plan to plant roses in the middle raised bed.  What a blessing!

Vegetable Garden 2012

I have been so busy lately, that I forgot to post pictures of the actual vegetable garden. The bunnies were a fun find in my garden so we left one raised vegetable bed just for them and planted the rest.  Last year, I simply grew weeds.  But this year, I have all kinds of goodness growing in my garden!

I missed growing tomatoes so much that I think I went a bit overboard.  I have 14 tomato plants this year!

There is yellow squash and zucchini:

A few tomatoes already growing on the vine.  Delight!

Little squash plants that will grow and grow!

Okra!

And lots of herbs such as Rosemary, cilantro, thyme, basil, and peppermint.

The weather man is predicting rain all week which thrills me because I know my garden and our dry land will love every drop of rain the good Lord blesses us with!  

What's growing in your garden?

Look What I Found!

This weekend, my man and I planted my Vegetable Garden. Delight! I so missed having a garden last year. Well, I had a garden, but my garden was made up of weeds. {Sigh!} This year, I carefully marked planting day on my calendar, made sure to reserve the date, and counted the days. Saturday was the day. Yippee!!!

While my man finished weed eating around the raised beds, I pulled a few weeds that were left in some of the beds. All of a sudden, I looked up to see something come flying out of the vegetable bed containing the most grass. It was lightning fast...so I thought it was a field mouse. My man was wearing headphones, and couldn't hear me call for him. What was I to do? I waved my arms like some crazy woman to try to get his attention. Finally, he looked just as I grabbed what was frantically fleeing the vegetable bed.  It wasn't a mouse:

It was the sweetest, but much afraid, baby bunny. I giggled with delight.

 

So precious! And to our surprise, there were two!

We had fun loving on them for a while.  What a fun surprise.  Before tucking them safely back in the burrow, I promised them that I would leave the tall grass in the vegetable bed that housed their burrow but only if they  promise to not eat my tomato plants. I think they grinned from ear to ear.  We will see what happens!  

Mystery Monday

Happy Monday!  I have to tell you that when I typed my title for this post, I left of the "t" in mystery.  So, my title read Mysery Monday yuck! Let's start over.  I like MysTery Monday so much better.  Hope you had a great weekend.  Ours went by way too quickly!

I couldn't wait to tell you that Mr. Incredible found a little surprise in my garden this past Saturday.  He was so excited to show me.  Can you tell what it is?  Look a little closer!  Do you know what the mystery is?
I've never grown this in my garden before.

What do you think it is???  I can't wait to hear your guesses! 

 I'll reveal more pictures and the answer tomorrow.  Ya'll have a wonderful, not "Mysery," Monday!



A Horned Toad Comes to Visit

Ya'll it is hot outside! I'm talking over 100 degrees. The are predicting 108 degrees today and tomorrow. Whew-ee! That is hot! It makes me want to make some sun tea...which will probably be ready, or should I say freshly boiled, in less than an hour.

It is so hot outside even the horned toads are coming out for a visit. Mr. Incredible found this big mama while we were working outside:



I don't know if you have horned toads, we call them horny toads (I'm not sure why), in your part of the world but we think they are so cool. Just look at the marking on this one:





The Great Creator is so creative! There are baby horny toads running around our land too. We think this one is one of the mama's and clearly she didn't seem to mind coming inside for a little break from her little ones. I think she enjoyed being inside where it was cooler. No, we didn't keep her inside very long, just long enough to snap a few pictures and then for Mr. Incredible to put her to sleep for a little nap.

Have you every put a horny toad to sleep? No, I'm not kidding. Mr. Incredible learned this as a little boy. You lay the horny toad on his/her back and then with your finger draw imaginary circles around the toad until they go to sleep. I just re-read that last sentence and it sounded a little crazy-didn't it? Go ahead and giggle-I am!

I should have grabbed the video camera so that you could see it. My description doesn't do it justice. Anyway, Mrs. Horned Toad went to sleep until Mr. Incredible woke her up. She was a tired momma toad. I sound like a hick, I know. Remember I am a big city girl just trying to make it in the country despite how I just sounded in this post. Yep, city girl "fer" sure! Ha! Ya'll have a great weekend and stay cool!

Our Weekend

Happy Monday! How was your weekend? Ours started off a little scary. Friday afternoon the storms rolled in and the weather warnings began. We ended up taking cover with all of our high school students for over an hour when we were under a tornado warning.

Most of the students handled the lock down very well...although a few were really afraid. After forty-five minutes this hallway really started to smell. The air was not circulating but we were safe and sound and I am so thankful for God's mercy. The tornadoes did not touch down in our area.




One of the teachers took this picture of me and emailed it to me this afternoon. Here I am trying to keep the peace in the midst of the crazy storms outside (no, I don't always wear my jeans but we are more casual on Fridays):



We did receive a lot of hail and rain. Many farmers fields are flooded even this morning. The girls and I headed home to find my vegetables, that I was hoping to plant this weekend, looking like this:
Would you like to see my garden? I grow Bermuda grass like no other! Yes, it has taken over my raised beds this winter and it is time for it to go.

While Hannah was at a band competition and Mr. Incredible was doing inventory at work, I grabbed my handy dandy helper and we went to work on my 7 raised vegetable beds (I took all of these with my I-phone so they are not as clear as I normally like them to be).

We worked and worked to dig out all of the dirt and grass...and finally finished ONE bed! Really? Rachel helped me lay down newspapers and weed block. There was a picture of Elton John on one of the newspapers and she kept me giggling as she tried not to cover him up. Eventually, the weed block won. Somehow we even buried the rake under the weed block. Oiy! It was looking a little lumpy and then we realized what we had done.

A few minutes later we heard my dad's voice call, "Kristi, Rachel...time for lunch!" Instantly I was a child again being called from playing outside with my friends to come home for lunch. We thought he was kidding but much to our delight he was serious. Mom had fixed a delicious chili soup on our unseasonably cold spring day and the soup and sweet fellowship hit the spot. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Saturday evening the girls went to see the new Letters to Juliet movie, which they really enjoyed, while my man and I ate dinner with his parents. We helped set up his dad's new blue-ray player complete with netflix. He was pretty excited that he could watch movies on his television through live internet streaming.

Yesterday morning was a wonderful time of worship where my dad's sermon really stepped on my toes...but I needed to hear it! We enjoyed lunch together as a family, I had a quick nap and then I had the privilege of taking a senior's portrait pictures this weekend. I'll try to post pics tomorrow but for now I better get myself ready for school...we only have 10 more days! Yipee!!!

How Does My Garden Grow?

Would you like to see my vegetable garden?

Do you remember how we started and designed it last year?

If you don't that's ok, just click here

to see before and after pictures of our raised vegetable garden.

This year we just had to add a bit more soil to the 7 raised beds:

Here are a few transplants awaiting planting:

The above picture was in May. Everything was planted and carefully watered and then we went on our wonderful vacation. We heard that our little corner of Texas was blessed with abundant rain while we were away.

We drove home to see our garden looking like this:

Apparently, the Bermuda grass was busy seeding itself in my raised beds this winter and just had a wonderful time growing in my garden while I was away.

This was growing in the rock paths too...it's a cantaloupe and it seeded itself too. This I like, the Bermuda grass...not so much:

It took the girls and I most of the week, but this is how my garden looks now:

Ahhh, that's much better.

Would you like to join me for a little walk through my garden?

It looks like several squash need picking:

And a zucchini too!



We put down mulch in each bed to hopefully keep the Bermuda away:

Do you see the little jalapeno?


Yay! I have a couple of tomatoes starting to grow:


This bed looks much better:

And a beautiful flower in my herb bed:


The lavender is in full bloom:


And the basil is delicious in homemade pizza:


This is what we picked along the way: squash, zucchini, and fresh mint for tea.

Thank you for walking through my garden with me today. Please, come again!

Joyfully,

Kristi

Please, visit this delightful blog for more Metamorphosis Monday inspiration.

Gardening Galore!

I have always wanted to try a vegetable garden planted in raised beds. So, I drew out plans for my dream garden last year. Life got a little too busy and it was left on the back burner.

I really didn't think much about the plans this year until Mr. Incredible asked me for them. He was headed to Lowes to buy the supplies.

For my dream garden? I was ecstatic.! Boy, does he know my love language! That, my friends, in the words of Paris Hilton was hot! Thank you Mr. Incredible! Okay, focus! Back to the garden.

Here are my Before pictures:

Lovely shot of the dirt, don't you think?

Here is my man making the raised beds:

(I must have channelled the Pioneer Woman or something. That shot of Mr. Incredible makes me giggle! Sorry, dear!)

Here are the 7 raised beds put together. We placed weed block in the bottom of each bed. I used a staple gun to secure them to the frames. We did not stake our beds into the ground nor did we bury any part of it we just set them on top of the ground, so easy! We filled each bed with a mixture of organic compost that had Miracle Grow fertilizer in it. Looking good:

It became a family project. Everyone pitched in!

Here is Rachel:

and Hannah who kept us cool:

Mr. Incredible had river rock delivered to line the beds for walkways. You should have seen us trying to put down the plastic and spread the rocks. It could have been an "I Love Lucy" episode."

And here are the After pictures!

This is the garden after several weeks. We planted tomatoes, jalapenos, chile pequines, squash, zucchini, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkins, okra, rosemary, mint, thyme, and flowers. Everything was starting to grow nicely:

It kept growing and growing!


Finally! Harvest time arrived. Oh, joy!






We are still harvesting watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, jalapenos, squash, and pumpkins. It has been such a delight. I always wanted to harvest my own pumpkins. This was my first one. Isn't it cute?

Hannah asked me if we were going to carve it! Are you kidding???? It's proudly displayed in my kitchen. Here are pictures of some of the flowers that we seeded in the herb garden and watermelon patch:

This picnic table belonged to my husband's grandparents. It fits nicely in the garden and is always a welcome place to sit.

Here are 2 more garden helpers:

It has been a fun family project! I've gardened before but this has been our best garden ever! If you want more instructions, please let me know. Thanks for stopping by!

Joyfully,

Kristi

P.S. Please visit Boo Mama for more Before and After projects!