#gardenlife: Our Little Gardener

We were about 3 weeks behind planting our garden this year because it basically rained every day in May and every day for the first half of June.  Talk about depressing...

Our garden area was under water for a long time, and I was beginning to wonder if summer was ever going to come, and if we'd even be able to have a garden this year.

And then one day, the storm clouds parted and God gave us sun!  Along with hot, sticky humidity... there's the Wisconsin summer we longed for!  So we quickly got to planting.

Fast forward a few weeks, and we have growth!

We just picked our first round of sugar snap peas, along with a few zucchini & cucumbers.

New this year, we hired an a "garden assistant".  And by hired, I mean we feed, clothe, and provide shelter, and in turn, he waters our garden.

Meet Our Little Gardener:

Overall, he does a pretty darn good job.

Occasionally we catch him watering his own hands, or even drinking the water.  But after a gentle reminder that he's here to water the plants, he quickly returns to the task at hand.

I think we'll keep him :)

 

Other garden posts you may like:
Our First Garden and an update.
Round #2 and an update.
Round #4 -- baby Ellis!

#gardenlife, round 4

If you've been around for a while, you've read posts about our gardening adventures.  Our first garden, back in 2015 (and an update post) turned out better than I anticipated considering we basically had no idea what we were doing.  In 2016, we learned some things, and made a few tweaks to the garden (mainly, trying to get Grace to stop eating it all).  In 2017, we had a brand new baby and managed to still plant a garden, but I didn't get a single post up about it, because #NewMom and #NoTime.

Well it's 2018 & we're back at it!  This year we are putting Ellis to work, because that's why you have kids, right?  Haha, I joke (sort of).

Truth be told, Ellis LOVES the garden.

He really is such a good helper.

And, a few other pics I thought were cute, that actaully have nothing to do with our garden.

Always checking the apple trees with dad.

I hope you all have a bee-autiful weekend!

Where are all da Honey Bees at?

Zac has been telling me for a few years about this 'Honey Bee Crisis', and how he thinks we should "do our part to help."  He basically wants us to become backyard beekeepers.

What?

I do what I usually do when he tells me random, crazy ideas...  I say things like "uh huh." "oh, really?" "mmmhm, ok"  "But seriously, no. You don't need another hobby.  You're nuts, and where did you come up with this?"

However, if you know my husband, you know he loves to try new things.  And when he gets an idea in his head, he's gonna roll with it... i.e. Maple syrup harvesting. Trapping. Anything apple tree related.  The list goes on and on.

Don't get me wrong, I love that he's a "go-getter", but seriously... now he wants a backyard full of bees?  I haven't jumped on the bandwagon yet,  however I did Google "Honey Bee Crisis" and it's a real thing...

Beekeepers have been losing colonies left and right, from a variety of reasons.  But why should we care?  Well, for starters, honey bee pollination is in some ways responsible for most of the foods we eat.  And we all need to eat... so long live the bees!

But... I still don't want bee hives in my backyard.  And apparently we didn't need hives for the bees to find us... we have flowers!

To be fair, I'm not sure that these are actual Honey Bees, but they are doin' their thing & helping our flowers & garden flourish!

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#gardenlife: round 2; an update.

It's been just over a month since I gave you glimpse of our 2016 garden.  Since then, we've been rollin' in the garden goods!

Here was our most recent harvest (we pick about every other day -- it's insane how fast everything grows!)

To be fair, Zac spends a good amount of time in the garden, so it's success is mainly due to him (and I think we have really good soil, too).  I mostly just take pictures of it, and clean or giveaway whatever he brings me :)

This year we planted a row of mini sunflowers, and a row of zinnias, which are two of my favorite flowers.  The sunflowers aren't quite ready yet, but the zinnias are blooming in full force!  I love that I can have fresh flowers in my house year round -- we're definitely planting them again next year.

It's been so fun reaping the rewards of Zac's hard work -- if anyone needs beans, zucchini, yellow squash, or cucumbers, please let us know!

And of course, it's still a full time job keeping this monster out of the garden -- even with the fence, I've caught her sneaking zucchini... she's lucky she's cute!