#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!

#gardenlife: an update.

It’s been just over 1 month since we planted our garden, and good news!  We didn’t fail, (yet)!  In fact, I can’t believe how much it grew in such a short time.  See my first garden post, here.

Most of our plants are flourishing & it’s so fun to watch their progress. We did have to replant our cucumbers & zucchini because OUR DOG ATE the original plants, but we’re back in business.  In fact, we picked our first zucchini yesterday & I promptly made this zucchini bread… it’s delicious – I’ll share more on that later this week.

Take a look, at how our garden grows:

This gardening thing really is fun… Zac & I care for the garden together (though admittedly, him more than me), and I love seeing our work pay off.   It’s also SO nice to be able to go the backyard & pick an onion, or cut some lettuce for supper.

Happy gardening, friends!

Create: DIY Indoor Herb Garden

Browsing the web, I came across this lovely idea for an indoor herb garden.   I immediately used it for inspiration & decided we needed an indoor herb garden, stat.  I even added 'make an indoor herb garden' to my summer list.

I love the idea of being able to cut fresh herbs for cooking dinner, right from our kitchen table.  I also want to try my hand at drying out the herbs, to use for later.

Here's how we made our indoor herb garden...


Supplies

- Various sized soup cans  -- we used all the same size

- Seeds -- we planted basil, parsley, & oregano since those are the herbs that we use the most
- Large terra-cotta saucer
- River rock
- Potting soil
- Hammer
- Nail
- Ribbon
- Card stock

To begin, remove the labels from your soup cans & make sure they are washed well.

Then flip the cans over & put several drainage holes in the bottoms of the cans with the hammer & nail.

    *make sure your dog is supervising...

Next, fill the cans up about an inch or so with small river rock or pebbles.  Honestly, I grabbed some stones from the landscaping around our house & they worked swell!

 Fill the cans with potting soil, but leave about an inch or two of space at the top.

 Next, plant your seeds & give them a sprinkling of water.

Now comes the fun part... arrange your cans in the terra-cotta saucer & adorn them with ribbon & labels.

 

 Water every few days & watch your herbs grow!

This is such an easy & budget friendly DIY... and, it makes for a great center piece on your kitchen table!