2012 Backyard Garden

A few weeks before Levi was born, I was looking out the back window of the house at the garden boxes Sam had put in the fall before, and I worried that with a newborn on the way, they would remain bare this growing season. I had a bag of seeds, and all kinds of little starter planters I had hoped to do, but hadn't had the time or energy.  But I decided I should at least try - so I skipped the starter kits, and just took my bag of seeds right to the boxes.  I planted peas, carrots, beets, kale, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, and radishes, and tried to keep it wet for a few weeks, even though the irrigation water and sprinklers weren't on yet.  Part of me thought it wasn't really going to grow at all.  I had been spending all my time and energy on growing Levi, and it seemed like the seeds were taking forever to germinate. Box by box, little tiny green plants began to emerge.  It's been a few years since we had a garden, and I had forgotten how much I love watching the little plants emerge and grow.

 By the time Levi was born, the radishes were ready for harvesting. And the peas were starting to need a trellis to grow on.  A few weeks later, the spinach and kale were big enough for harvesting baby greens for my smoothies.  And the past few weeks we've been enjoying more peas than we can possibly eat.

Our peas got even taller than this  - I think they were close to 6 feet tall.  

 Spending summer evenings out in the backyard eating straight out of the garden is one of my favorite family activities.  I love watching the kids pick and eat as they play.

The other night Noah again complained of being starving right before bed, but proclaimed kale would quell his hunger.  So, out to the garden he went, where he picked and ate several kale leaves, and said he was satisfied.  I welcome a kale snack at bedtime any day!  The pea plants, spinach, and broccoli all got pulled today (it's getting too hot for them) and we've since added onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and we're trying to get watermelon to grow (our plants keep dying for some reason?) When we went to the farmers market last week, I didn't feel the need to buy any of their produce, because we were either growing it ourselves, or we could go pick it ourselves for much cheaper.

Gladiolus!

Our front lawn has a flower bed where we put in a bunch of bulbs. One of my favorite are gladiolus. We planted these in our San Diego garden, and has loved them ever since. Besides being beautiful out in front of the house, we love having fresh flowers inside on the table.

Peaches

Earlier this spring, we bought a peach tree as one of our early yard expenditures.  Living in the Northwest, we have a great climate for fruit trees.  Across the street from our house is a large orchard with apples and pears.  So we were really excited to get some fruit trees of our own.  We found a nice local nursery, The Flower Farm, which had many beautiful varieties.  After some consultation with the owner, we found out that apple trees and cherry trees need constant spraying for worms and whatnot.  We settled on a peach tree.

Growing up, my dad was always planting fruit trees in our yards. I remember Kansas and Texas, but I presume that he planted in Iowa, North Dakota and Missouri.  The only problem was that they took forever to bear fruit.  We only lived in these houses for about 5 years, and I just remember that we rarely got a good crop out of any of them.  The lone exception being the mulberry tree in Kansas, but that was planted before we owned the house.

The tree that we bought was significantly more mature than the average twig that you buy at walmart, but I was surprised when the nursery owner told me that it would bear fruit this year. This last week, we got ~20 beautiful and delicious peaches. They were so good that we may end up buying another tree next year. I could personally eat peaches all summer long.  They are amazing! And if we have so many that we can't eat them all, canned peaches are also good.  But I don't think I'd ever let it get to that point.

Cherry Picking

This past Saturday, Mollie and I and the kids went to a local U-pick orchard.  It was their last weekend for the cherry harvest. At work a lot of people have been talking up a local variety of cherry called the "rainier cherry" presumably named after Mount Rainier. So when Mollie said she found a farm with this variety, I was really excited.  Cherries fit well with the U-pick philosophy. They are pretty expensive at the store, and most of that is probably because they are difficult to harvest and bruise easily.  Wikipedia (which cannot tell a lie) says these prize cherries go for $5 per pound.  Our U-pick price was a modest $1.50.  And they were worth every penny.  So amazing.  I am extra appreciative of the flavor and quality because a week ago I purchased some cherries at Walmart.  Half the bag was past ripe and rotting.  The other half just did not taste very good.  So after struggling to find half a dozen good ones, I just threw the rest of the bag away.  I was totally sour on cherries.

The rainier variety does not get the deep red color that bing cherries do when they are ripe. They are more like a Fuji apple color. So I was not sure how to judge what was ripe, but given that it was the last weekend of the harvest, I guessed that everything would be ripe, and well... I was right.  Out in the orchard, we found plentiful supply of delicious ripe cherries.  We picked a 5 gallon container in about 15 minutes.

 Since it was the end of the season, many of the trees were picked clean up to about 6 feet high.  So I put the kids on my shoulders to reach up and get the rest.

It was a great, fun quick summer outing.

 I plan to do a lot of U-pick this summer, we had great luck today, and in the past with both blackberries and peaches.  On a related note, I hope that they have good side-of-the-road corn stands; those are awesome.

Trip Highlights

We've already covered a lot of the highlights from our trip in previous posts, but there's more!

We had a great time in Huntsville with the Payne's. here's the highlights (in no particular order):

Riding the "tractor" mower with Grandpa. - Noah & Harrison

Seeing 3 movies: Harry Potter, Ratatouille, & License to Wed - Sam & Mollie

Seeing a military band play at SHSU. -Everyone

Seeing Hilary, meeting her husband Ian, and visiting with Debby and Alison. - Mollie

Playing with Grandma's instruments, beads, blocks, stickers, pennies & banks. -Noah & Harrison

Taking LONG naps. -Noah

Taking Naps. -Harrison

Taking a campus tour of SHSU in a "golf-ball" cart. - Sam, Mollie & Harrison

Evening visits with David & Grettle. - Sam & Mollie

Holding, and at times, torturing Kat. - Noah

Helping 4 Rushing Oak get Wild Blue. - Sam & Mollie

Getting bumped to a nonstop flight, having our bags delivered right to our home, and for all this getting compensated $600 in flight vouchers. Thanks again Delta! - Everyone

Texas BBQ twice. Once with the Gibbs, and once on the Ranch. -Everyone

Cream-cheese stuffed jalapeño peppers at the Ranch. - Sam & Mollie

Playing in the garden. -Noah & Harrison

Play Rummicubes & Apples to Apples with Roman & his bride-to-be. - Sam & Mollie

Eating fresh veggies from the garden. - Everyone (well, maybe just Sam and Mollie...)

Getting to see a real flash flood downpour, and not getting wet! - Everyone

And of course, all the other things we previously mentioned: trip to the ranch, fishing, the fire station, and the animals

Fruitful Summer

Or should I say "veggie-ful" summer? This is what was waiting for us in our garden when we got back from our trip to Texas. Thanks, Isa, for watering while we were gone. We had at least a dozen roma tomatoes, and a couple HUGE heirloom tomatoes. We traded some tomatoes for zucchinis (gotta love co-op gardening) and had some really nice cucumbers also. The bean plants look healthy, and we have a couple new tomato plants that are growing bigger by the day and our zucchini plants are coming a long too. Tonight we'll be having some bruschetta thanks to the bountiful amounts of basil. Did I mention that we have 6 ripe pumpkins on our porch as we speak, not to mention the 2 that are still on the vine? Yes, and all from a volunteer. Not sure what I'll do with those... The strawberries are just about finished, but I guess there are plenty of other veggies to keep us busy!

The Harvest

I love this time of year in the garden. There is always something to harvest. Everytime we go there, even when it seems like we picked everything that was close to ripe yesterday, there is always more to pick. This year everyone's favorite has been the strawberries. They started early (about 2 months ago?) and they just keep coming. I picked these today, and we get about this many everyday we go. Noah picks everything that is within his reach, and exclaims "stawbury! stawbury!" anytime we are close to the garden. I was only able to take a picture of the harvest today because Noah was napping - when he's around they dissapear pretty fast! He often leaves the garden with a brown and red stained face (becuase he ends up eating dirt along with most of the strawberries) and is often not patient enough to take off the green stem. The other day a garden neighbor asked Harrison what his favorite vegetable was that we grow in the garden. Without hesitation he exclaimed, "Strawberries!" They can't last too much longer, but as long as they do, we'll be stopping by the garden on a daily basis.

Garden Harvest

One of the really nice things about where we live is that we have a co-op garden. Not really sure why they call it co-op, but basically you get a little plot of earth that you can use to grow whatever you want. We have had our garden for over 3 years now, and we just love it. Well, most of the time. Right now we definitely love it. We get a new zucchini almost everyday, and our green bell pepper plants are hanging heavy with over 20 peppers. We have enjoyed carrots and garlic, and we are sad the the strawberry season is finally coming to a close. Our tomato plants are large and have many green tomatoes - we can’t wait until they ripen. We only hope that we can keep our basil alive long enough to enjoy some bruschetta with the harvest. The green beans are coming up, and every morning we are greeted by large and lovely bright blue morning glories. Yesterday Harrison helped me plant some bachelor buttons, California Poppies and pumpkins. So that will be fun. Our lettuce is going to seed, which means it’s time to replant. An activity that Harrison will most definitely want to help with. So, although I may gripe from time to time at the constant need of watering, the truth be told, I love our garden.
Mollie