So check out my new blog please, Tamara Quilts. After learning to sew with the girls in 4-H, quilting has quickly become my new favorite hobby!
But back to the business of of our home and gardens. This spring has been dreadful. The coldest wettest June on record! I have just now got my garden planted in full. Except I still need to pot up my tomatoes. My lettuce is ready to be harvested. My peas are close. We did steal a few sprigs of asparagus this year and they were YUMMY!!! Next spring I will have to replant one half of the row that must have rotted underground since nothing has sprouted from those plants. My strawberries are coming in wonderfully. These are the giant Whoppers that I planted last year. The slugs were getting to them bigtime, of course eating all the ripe ones first, so I did bait for the slugs the other day, even though I hate that stuff.
I skipped planting potatoes this year because last year we only dug up about half of what I planted. The leftovers still underground are doing nicely, hopefully whatever we dig up is edible and tasty! Otherwise I've planted the usual, cucumbers, zuccini (only 2 plants this year!!!), butternut squash, delicatta squash, spaghetti squash, watermelon, canteloupe, beans, radishes, corn, onions, garlic, kale and peppers. Last year I didn't clean up one of my back garden beds full of parsnip, turnip and carrots, and they have reseeded themselves EVERYWHERE! So I didn't plant those again this year, just let nature take it's course. Need to still put in some spinach and beets, and time to put in more lettuce too.
Please post links to your garden pictures! I would love to see them! I will try and post photo's of mine soon.
Summer weather...finally!
Happy New Year...it is 2010!!!
Hard to believe another year has gone by! May this one be filled with health and happiness for all.
Our Fall was busy with getting back into the school/activities routine. Our holidays were lovely and quiet and joyful.
My younger 2 girls have begun to learn how to sew in 4-H, and I have learned along side them. I received a new sewing machine for my Birthday in December and have been busy over winter break sewing two new rag quilts for my oldest two girls. I have fabric on the way to start one for my youngest as well. I will try and post pic's shortly. I am anxious to make my first attempt at a traditional quilt, but haven't made up my mind yet on design or fabrics.
As we hunker down for the winter, I am anxious to thumb through all my seed catalogs and make a plan for the gardens this year. We are also trying to figure out which chicken breeds we would like to try and hatch in our incubator this year. We will need to be ordering some hatching eggs soon.
Happy 2010!!!
Zucinni overload!!!
First, a quick shout out to my middle DD Shannon. It's her 10th B-day today!!!
Second, I hope hope hope I remember to check back here next year and I'm reminding myself right now, DO NOT PLANT SO MUCH ZUCCINI!!!!! I had tons and tons last year, and thought I was under control this year, but no, I am still buried in it. For the record, I planted 3 regular zuccini plants, 3 Italian zuccini, 1 patti pan plant and 1 yellow summer squash. And it is WAY to much. Two zuccini plants really is enough, 3 max!!!! Ok, I feel better now!
Hot Hot HOT!!!!!
Oh my, I haven't posted in ages. Thought I'd come and post and update because it is just way too hot to do much else around here! It's near 100 today, and should break 100 the next 3 days or so. It never gets this hot around here, so we are really not used to it at all. It's also very humid, which just makes it so much worse.
ANYWAY. The garden is booming! We have harvested 5 gallon sized bags of raspberries in the freezer, and eaten our fair share fresh as well. We also have about 3 gallon size bags of blueberries in the freezer. Those are much harder to get in the freezer as my girls wolf them down as soon as they are picked!
Zuccini is coming in like crazy. We've had our first baby potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, beets, turnips, onions and lots of peas, and lettuce although those two are are just about gone now. We should be getting our first beans, cukes and carrots anytime now. Our corn, watermelon, canteloupes, pumpkins and winter squash look to be doing really well. For the first time our apple trees look like we will have a nice harvest and we are excited about that. Next year or maybe even this fall, the kids have requested that we put in some grapes and more plum trees. We have some very old Italian style plums here which are still producing, but they are very small, so I'd like to try and find some type of plum that produces the bigger plums. If you have recommendations, please let me know what has worked for you!
Hope you are all staying cool and sipping some lemonade while you enjoy watching your gardens grow!
We've been busy!
My how time flies! Last week was just gorgeous weather wise, including the entire weekend, and we got a lot accomplished around here. Our older chicks moved into the new coop about a week and a half ago. I'll post some pics on my chicken blog in a bit. I'm also pretty darn sure at least one of our chicks is a rooster, which is fairly disappointing. No one else sees it, but I'm waiting for it to start crowing any day now to prove my point!
Last week I got my first row of potatoes in and TWO rows of strawberries! I had thought the strawberries I ordered from Gurney's would fill one row, so having two rows full, plus two more small containers on the back deck filled with them, just thrilled me to pieces!
My husband also helped me dig lots of holes this weekend around the property to get a bunch of miscellaneous plants in and we also transplanted a few perennials. We got our 6 blueberry bushes in to replace the 6 our puppy managed to chew up. Although when digging them up, 5 of them had the faintest signs of life, so I stuck them in a garden bed to see if any of them pull through.
Then Monday, we were expecting a huge wind/rain storm to come in, so I frantically got all my onions planted which filled another row. BTW, each row is approximately
25'-30' long. Right after finishing planting them, I had a bit of an incident. The wind was starting to pick up, and it managed to catch our big heavy door in the mud room to the garage, and it slammed really good on two of my fingers. It was not a pleasant experience to say the least. I really thought one finger was broken for sure. I went into shock, blacked out, threw up, the whole nine yards. Luckily, it does not seem to be broken now. In fact, it doesn't hurt much now at all. But man did it hurt when it happened!!! Thankfully, I think it's just going to turn lots of different colors as it heals over the next week. I'm very thankful it won't keep me out of the garden!
Since Monday, it's been raining non-stop, so I've been busy playing catch up with things around the inside of the house. I have a few pictures to get posted and will try and get them up tomorrow. Gotta go catch American Idol....go Danny!!!!
Happy Earth Day!
I hope everyone pitched in and did something kind for the Earth today. My DH and I actually loaded up our SUV and took part in a recycle event at his work. I'm almost ashamed to say we brought in 3 monitors, 2 CPU's, an old TV, a printer, a scanner, and old broken X-Box and 3 old cell phones. It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate! I'm glad all of it went to an organization that will recycle what they can, and it reminded me again to really think twice about our future purchases. Is that something we really need, or will it just fall into the more "stuff" category? Good things to think about.
Gurney's box of goodies and more!
Look what came in the mail on Friday? 
It includes 5 bags of onion sets, 3 yellow Ebenezer, and one bag each of red onions and white onions.
52 bare root Whopper Strawberry plants
And last, 2 bags each of potato starts, in the Red Pontiac, Yukon Gold and Kennibeck varieties
I had hoped to start getting these planted this weekend, but we were too busy trying to finish the new chicken coop. Check out our progress at my Keeping Backyard Chickens blog. We're almost done!!! I'll have to hope my husband can get the rototiller out tomorrow after work so I can get these in in the next few days.
My seeds I started inside over Easter have been doing well also. Here's a peek at them as well! These include red & green cabbage, broccoli, watermelon, cantaloupe, cukes, zuccini, butternut squash, acorn squash and Burgess Buttercup squash.
I am feeling slightly overwhelmed as all I have to get done in the garden in the next few weeks. I love this time of year, but it sure keeps me busy! Hope you are all checking things off your to do list and making progress on your things to do.
