April 3, 2012

We had tornado's in our area today. We came through okay (roof damage and lost quite a bit of fence...but were VERY blessed). I went out to check the garden...not totally sure how much damage the tomatillo plants took (I understand we also had hail)...we'll see in the days to come.

Took some photos of the garden tonight. Things are coming along.

This photo shows the radishes and onions coming up on the far right. Tried the onions from bulbs this year rather than sets. So far...I'm impressed. That side also includes the carrots & beets. I think we might actually get some beets & carrots this time!

If you look closely, you can see the trellis that we are going to train the cantaloupe and cucumber plants to grow up. The cantaloupe plants are in front & the cucumbers are at the back. First look at them after storms tonight...look like they were hit pretty hard.

Now we have the tomatillos and tomatoes.
The front two supports are tomatillos, the middle two are grape & cherry tomatoes, and the back two are romas.

The front tomatillo looked like it had taken quite a beating today...we'll have to wait and see what happens.

That big green plant to the left...that's the swiss chard from last year. I think I am going to get it out and put it in with compost...it looks like it has gone to seed. It really took off with the rains we have had lately.




The photo to the left show the peppers in the back (two jalapeno, two sweet banana, & two bell). Also another view of the cucumbers & cantaloupe. Sure home these plants make it. The peppers looked like they held up to the storm pretty well...

Oh...and right in front of that last red brick (you can barely see the green at the corner)...that's the ONE green bean plant that has come up. We planted about 18 seeds and that is the ONLY one that has popped it's head above the ground!







These last two photos are of our potato buckets. The buckets on the left (2) are red potatoes and the buckets on the right (3) contain yukon gold potatoes. Once the plants that are starting to come up reach 7-8 inches tall, I am going to add more soil (something I read...and am going to try). After they are finished growing...we'll dump the buckets out and have a LOT of potatoes!















Well...that's going to be it for tonight. I think I am going to take the dogs out (have to put them on the leashes since we have no fence...AND THEN...I am going to bed!

Good night... hope your garden is growing well!

RAIN!!!

Got home early enough tonight to cover the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, cantaloupe plants...just in case there is hail. The weather service says that we could have up to golf ball sized hail tonight and my baby plants wouldn't survive that...so hopefully they are safe under their covers.

New Direction for the blog...

So, this weekend we got our garden planted. I was posting and answer comments on facebook and Kelsey suggested that I should blog about our garden. I posted that on facebook and had several comments encouraging me to do it...so...I think I'll give it a go.

We have about a 12 ft by 6 ft (or so) area in our back yard that we have built a raised bed in. We added a chicken wire fence last year (to keep the dogs out of the garden). Last year we had so many green tomatoes and were excited about a large crop of tomatoes...but then overnight...they disappeared. :-( After searching the web, we decided that it was probably a possum. Aaarrrggghhh. This year, we are trying to come up with some ideas to keep the possum OUT of the garden. He didn't even share SOME of the tomatoes with us...he took them all.

The photo to the right is the garden after we had the frame. Our first year, we had it two boards high. Last year we added two more to give us a deeper garden area.

The soil mix we used was top soil, Moo-Nure (we call it "moo mix" or "moo"...we get it at Home Depot for about $2.37 or so a bag), and sand. I hoping to start a compost bin and start adding some good composted soil into the garden next year.

This photo on the left is the left area of the garden. We planted lettuce, spinach, and swiss chard last year. The lettuce and spinach NEVER grew last year...think we got it started too late and last year (2011) was SOOOOO hot! BUT...early in March of this year (2012)...we had lettuce coming up! LOL It was good too. The Swiss Chard took off last year and is STILL growing! Will have to post a photo of that in my next entry.

The photo to the right is the right side of the garden. I will start by saying that last year (and this year, we made sure the soil on this side was/is looser. This is where we plant our root veggies (carrots, onions, radishes, beets). Of all of those, the onions & radishes did well last year. We never saw any carrots or beets at all.

This final photo is the center of the garden. Last year we planted:

bush beans in the lower left section

(they didn't make it),

tomatoes in the upper left...

they were doing great...(remember the

possum from earlier...yeah...),

jalapeno, bell, & banana peppers --upper right

(finally got quite a few banana peppers

& a few jalapeno when the weather

cooled off)

squash (summer & zucchini) -- lower right...

(didn't work very well last year).

cucumbers (along the frame on the right). We put trellises up for them to climb. Not very successful last year.

This year, we have planted...Romaine lettuce, spinach, baby bok choy, 2 roma tomatoes plants, 1 cherry tomato plant, 1 grape tomato plant, 2 tomatillo plants, 2 jalapeno pepper plants, 2 bell pepper plants, 2 sweet banana pepper plants, 18 bush bean seeds (with plan to start more in two weeks), 1 pickle cucumber plant, 2 regular cucumber plants, 2 cantaloupe plants, carrot seeds, 64 onion bulbs, radishes, beets, AND...we planted another tomato plant in a bucket and yukon gold potatoes & red potatoes in buckets. We'll see how that goes. I hope to post a couple of photos of this years garden sometime this week.

I'm praying that we will not have a super hot summer and that rain will be great.

How is YOUR garden growing?

Not a good blogger

So, my last post was Dec 2008. I guess I am not a good blogger. Email and facebook have become my lifeline to the world. That's not a great thing. I have some friends/family who have dropped out of facebook world because of too much drama. I definitely don't blame them.

So...my family is all together again. Ben has moved back home and is getting ready to start college. I'm glad for him. I am trying to remain in the background. I don't want to push him.

That's it for today....

ER visits

Why does it always have to take so long to go to the ER?
No, not really an emergency...I was hoping to be able to go over to the Urgent Care center...BUT...at Cook Children's, they have you go register at the ER and then determine if you get to go to Urgent Care, or stay and be seen in the ER.

Em got her ears pierced 6 weeks ago. Saturday we changed her earrings for the first time. The new ones look really cool. Yesterday (Monday) after school, her ear was swollen and the earring was stuck. I couldn't get the earring out and it appeared that the earring back (a rubber stopper of sort) might have been stuck in the earring hole. My stoic child was in tears with me trying to get the earring out. So, after a couple of phone calls, off we went. We got there probably at about 7:15ish. We left about 12:30ish. Once we finally got back to a room & waited & waited & waited some more...finally a nurse came in a put numbing cream on the ear. The nurse was VERY sweet. Then the doctor poked her head in for a few minutes and told us that she really liked to let the numbing cream be on for 30-45 minutes...she wanted it good and numb. That was fine with us...I really don't like to see Em hurting. So, the doc finally came back in (she was really nice too) and proceeded to let Em know what she was going to do and do it. It was REALLY hard for her to get the earring out also. BUT finally she got it out. Then came the time to check for the earring back, because it didn't come out with the earring. The doc put a couple of different catheters through the earring hole to see if she could push it out...nope. So, we discussed several options and have decided it would be best to wait a few days and see what happens. We really don't think the earring back is in the hole...BUT...if it is, then they would have to cut a little "x" incision on the earlobe and dig around to get it...we could have done that last night, but all of us agree that it doesn't seem like it is in there. We were not sure that an xray would be of any benefit since the back is not metal. So we left he hospital with a very chatty girl (she was tired) and a prescription form for an antibiodic...and the earrings in a container.

Today is NOT Friday...

I had to keep reminding myself today that it was Thursday...not Friday.
BUT...it's almost Friday now! My kids are ready for it to be Friday...

A year later...

Wow...maybe I forgot about this blog.
A lot has happened during the past year.

One of the big things is that I started Grad school this summer.