Garden

Our garden did pretty well this year. Matt and I went out last night and harvested 2 bowls ful of green peppers and tomatoes. Today I made 10 jars of Jalapeno Jelly, 2 pints of pickled Jalapenos, and 2 quarts of stewed tomatoes. Kind of a lot of work for only a few jars, but I sure didn't want all that food to go to waste. I think I am getting this canning thing down pretty good.

Garden Update

Our garden is really growing this year. All our plants are really big, but we have yet to really see much growing on them. Hopefully it will soon begin to produce the veggies so we will have something to show for it. Among all the plants I did spot one lonely zucchini the other day and it was ready to pick. I love to cook food using produce fresh from the garden. It always tastes that much better when you know you grew it yourself. Last night I made a zucchini casserole with it and it was delicious. Here is a link to the recipe Zucchini Casserole Now if I can just keep the pesky squirrels away we will be great!!

Flowers/Garden

Well I finally got my flower beds planted and our garden as well. The weather here has been so awful that I have been putting off planting either for fear of giant hail storms or freezing weather. Well I decided this past week that it was now or never. If I didn't get the garden in soon, we wouldn't have anything to harvest before it got too cold. So Matt got the ground all tilled and ready on Tuesday and I planted on Wednesday. We decided not to plant too much in the garden since we have been doing Bountiful Baskets and can get so much produce from there at a great deal. And also last year the squirrels ate so much of our garden that I didn't want to invest money for feeding them. So I planted things this year that they didn't seem to enjoy last year. We planted some cabbage, green peppers, jalapenos, tomatoes, and zucchini. I hope it gets warm so the plants can grow and produce a good crop!!

Along with the garden I got most of our flower beds planted as well. We had a two layered flower bed in front and the top layer was so over run with quack grass and weeds that I am going to just have to spray it and plant something next year. So there is nothing on top but between the front and back I planted almost 250 plants!! Isn't that crazy. Yeah, my back hurt the next day, but it sure looks pretty and it will be even prettier once they fill in and grow. I really enjoy having a nice looking and well maintained and cared for lawn. It makes me feel good. And I think if some one's yard is cared for than most likely their house is cared for as well. So having our yard look nice makes our house more inviting. (my opinion only) Now the only chore will be keeping it weeded!!

Reaping the Rewards

I am starting to believe that all of our hard work on getting a garden together this Spring will be paying off. I picked my first zucchini last night and made two loaves of zucchini bread this morning. I have about 10 tomatoes almost ready to be picked, some corn on it's way, 3 heads of cabbage, and some pumpkins. It might be worth all the work and fuss to enjoy a few fresh items home grown. I don't think our spot was quite big enough, maybe we will have to make room in another area next year. Now that I know that I can grow a garden I might get ambitious next year and really do a lot. I was surprised that the vegetables survived the two hail storms we had and seemed to recover quite well. There is something really wonderful about truly enjoying the fruits or your labor!!

This is what I'm watching!

This is what I will be watching on Sunday nights for the next few months! I am really excited about this season and something good to watch on TV. All of my other shows have ended for the season so I am excited to have something to follow throughout the summer. If you haven't watched it before you should check it out it is really good!! I am hoping this week I can get a decent picture of our garden and flower bed to post and show you all what we have accomplished, that is if the rain ever stops and the sun comes out!!!