Blooming Blossoms

Our Orange tree has blossomed!  Oh, my goodness, I am so excited!  This may not seem like a big deal, but we have raised this tree from basically a stick with no leaves - for about the past 6 years!  Last year, it got about 2 flowers but they never did anything.  This year, it is just covered with blossoms and the first 2 have opened:

Maybe we will get some oranges next year???  That would be so amazing!  I only wish you have a way to smell through your computer - mmmmmmmm!!!! 

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Well, while I'm telling you about things growing, I may as well update you on our garden projects for 2011.  We changed things up a little from last year and are doing more of less things.

We will have more Tomatoes:

More Green Peppers:

And more Lettuce:

We have started some beans, spinach and basil from seed and have nothing to show yet. We will soon be adding some zucchini (this is our last year - if we don't get it right this time, we are DONE with zucchini!), spearmint, chives and grape tomatoes.   We added a new raised bed this year, so now we have 3 total and we are doing some things in containers as well.  Our plan is to grow more of less and to do it well.  That's the plan anyway!  We'll see what happens as we go...

Progress

Since my last post, we have added the second raised bed to the backyard.  At first, we just had some marigolds planted in it - to help with pest control.  I'm not sure that that is working, but they look pretty and bring the butterflies!  You can also kind of see that we added some bean teepees to the other bed.  In the big pot, we put some cucumbers.

 

Here's a better picture of the teepees and the tomato cages.  Silly me, put them in upside down at first!  I had no idea how they went, but we did get an amazing deal on the bamboo polls and the cages, so does that make up for my lack of knowledge??!!  We did figure it out and fix it, eventually!  Look carefully at this picture, cause it sure doesn't look like this anymore!

OK, before I get to the most recent picture, try to see the problem in the next two pics:

Do you see it?  In each picture, there is a tomato hornworm.  These things are so nasty and they eat a lot!  We saw one on Thursday and got it off.  Then, we went out Friday morning to check on things, as we do daily, and there were SIX of these guys and they were HUGE!  About 3 inches long and as fat as a thumb - munching away happily on our tomato plants!  Well, thankfully, Caleb was not quite as grossed out about them as I was and he happily picked them off and killed them.  We did some research and found out that they become moths - since we are not short on moths, I felt ok about getting rid of these six.  Once they were gone, we spayed a mix of water and peppermint extract all around the plants.  Supposedly, these guys do not like that smell and it will keep them away.  We shall see!  For now, we watch vigilantly and remove if any are found. 

Here is our new bed with pumpkins growing in the front and watermelon in the back.  We have thinned a couple of times and are about to do so again. 

On a side note, it has been neat because Caleb and I are reading "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder right now for school.  So many things that are happening in the book, Caleb is able to watch in his own garden and experience for himself!  For example, the other day, we went outside and our pumpkins had the first two leaves.  The same day, we read our chapters and the very same thing was happening there!  I wish I could say that I was on the ball enough right now to have planned this, but that is just not the case!  It is just happening for us - I love it!

So, this is the most recent picture from a few days ago:

We officially have 4 zucchini, about 6 green peppers, 5 heads of lettuce, baby spinach, more tomatoes than I can count and lots of flowers on the green beans.  Yes, the zucchini has taken over the corner of the garden - it is massive!  We knew it would get big, but didn't see this coming!  Everything is growing so nicely, except the carrots and the onions.  For some reason, we keep losing these.  I don't think that there is anything left there, so we are going to try again and see how it goes.  I love watching all of the things grow!  I can't wait to start eating from the fruit of our labor!

BTW - we are using an organic pesticide.  Here is our recipe to keep the bugs at bay:  1 tbsp. vegetable oil and 1 tbsp. dish detergent mixed in 1 gallon of water.  Put in a spray bottle and saturate your plants often.    Also, to help with animals, we have done two things.  First, the last time I cut Mark and Caleb's hair, we saved the trimmings and spread them around the bed.  Then, just for good measure, we sprinkled cayenne pepper all around the perimeter of the garden.  They don't like the smell of either of these and it really seems to keep the critters out. 

Growing a Salad and SpRiNg!

The day after we built and filled in our garden, we looked out front and there on the dirt pile were two HUGE woodpeckers!  I mean, they were as big as Woody Woodpecker.  We couldn't get a good picture of them before they flew up into the tree, but you can see them if you look closely below.  Remember, this is a very zoomed in picture, so just take my word for it, they were big!! 

Also, in the midst of planting, we got to watch spring officially arrive.  Now, if you stay inside all day, you completely miss this exciting event!  I LOVE to see the first blooms on our pretty tree out front.  It took a little longer this year than normal - I guess the cold scared it off!  But, it finally started poking out little buds as we were starting our garden.

Our crepe myrtle tree out back is always cut back to sticks about March, so it is exciting to see the first sign of buds.  Here is a picture of one of the branches the day we were building the garden:

This is the same branch, 3 days later:

Again, the same branch, one week after the original.  God makes all things beautiful in His time!

Ok, Ok, on to the garden.  So, the garden was built, we added good organic fertilizer to the soil in the bed, mixed it around, and we were ready for some veggies.  We bought a few that were already started, since, according to Florida guidelines, we were a little late in getting things in the ground.  Plus, we were a little nervous about critters coming and eating up all our seeds before they could grow, so for us, a mix of some starters and some seeds seemed a good decision.  Here, we are getting things going:

Here is the partially finished plot.  MaKenna made the cute little signs!  In case you can't tell, we planted 3 types of tomatoes - Better Boys, Roma and Cherry, Bell Peppers, Zucchini (all the starter plants), and from seed, Sweet Onions, Carrots, Lettuce, Spinach, Blue Lake Beans and Zipper Peas.  In two smaller containers, we also planted Cucumber (plant) and Basil (seed).
 

Hmmm, while the girls and I planted the veggies, what did the guys start??? More on that to come!  You'll have to be surprised!

This picture shows a couple of things - first, we "mulched" it with some leaves.  Also, this picture is one week from planting - do you see our beans, peas, carrots, spinach, onions and lettuce growing????!!!  How exciting!  We are almost at 2 weeks now, and they are even bigger.  I will post more pics soon and the newest addition to the garden scene.

We are about to build one more raised bed garden next to this one, while we still have the wood and dirt here.  We may plant some watermelon and pumpkin in that one!

We have worked hard to get this going, but we are loving the process so much.  We have had a few critters dig in it and found that when we sprinkle cayenne pepper around the perimeter, they stay away!  We will have to redo it tomorrow, since it has rained the past few days, but it seems to be a good, safe way to keep unwanteds out.

Anyone else gardening this year?  What are the tricks that you have found to work with critters - both bugs and animals?  What are you growing?  I have so much more to share and will hopefully get there soon!  In the meantime, I will dream about the yummy meals I will make with my homegrown vegetables!

Raised Bed Gardening

Oh, I have so missed my blog.  It has been wayyyyyy too long!!!!  I am not even sure when I was on here last, but I know that it was looonnnggg ago!!!!  I have so much to share, too!  How will I ever catch up??!!   Let's just say that while I haven't been on here, we have been enjoying life around here and the journey that we are on.  It isn't always just how we want it to be or perfect by any means, but it is ours and we have decided to make the best of it as it comes and be joyful at all times, even when we may not be "happy."  Think on that for a while, it's worth it!!!

For now, even though I have so many blog topics and posts in my mind (and my camera!), I am going to share something so exciting that we have been doing around here, in all our spare time!!!  So, get ready, here we go...

Last year, we decided that enough time had passed since we lived here, it was time to start a garden.  We planned small, just to see how it would go and actually used a small child's wading pool and placed it on our back porch.  All things considered, that went well, but this year, we knew we were ready for bigger and better!  For what we had in mind and the space that we had to work with we decided to build a raised bed garden.  Here is what we did:

We chose a spot in our backyard that got at least 8 hours of sunlight a day and that was kind of out of the way of the usable yard.  We chose a spot near the back left corner by the fence.  Next, we marked off our space and prepared the ground - dug out the grass and pulled all the weeds.  Like this:

As we brought out dirt that was no longer needed there, we took it behind out shed where there is a little erosion.  I really only mention this because in this picture of Holly working, you can see the little swimming pool that was our garden last year.  This year, it is a compost pile in the making!

The next part was to build the garden walls. Oh, have  I mentioned yet that we did this whole thing for FREE!  Yep, that's right and here is the first how.  Before starting the garden, we took apart Caleb's fort that he is wayyy to big for and never uses.  This gave us a tremendous amount of wood at our disposal!  So, the labor was free and the walls were free - so far so good!  Here are the first posts laying down and ready to go:

 Caleb and Holly decided all work and no play is no fun, so they take a break for some playtime! 

OK, the walls are built - now to fill it in!  It takes lots of dirt to fill a garden that is about 4'x8'!  Lots of trips with the wheelbarrow!  The dirt came from that pile that sits between our house and our neighbors.  He had a truckload of soil brought in last year for a planter project, he used the amount that he needed and the rest has just sat there.  We asked if we could use some and he gave us his blessings to take as much as we liked!  More FREE materials for our little garden!  So, here are the first few piles: (notice the difference between soil and sand!)

Here's the dirt pile we are working from.  After all that we used, it seemed like we barely made a dent in it!  (We are actually about to start another raised bed and use some more of the dirt this weekend!)

OK, that's all for now!  You will have to check back for the next part, adding the plants.  We are LOVING our garden!