Vegetable Garden

Oh how I love summer!  Everything about it. And right now I'm enjoying the vegetable garden. Even though we have only harvested salad things so far, tomatoes, cukes, squash and beans will be ready any day now.

I weeded and cleaned up the tomato plants yesterday. We have so many little tomatoes coming on and one big one almost ready to pick.

Rick has been dosing them with manure tea and they are growing like crazy. I trim up the plants to about 12 inches from the ground. This keeps the leaves off the ground and away from pesky viruses and fungus. I also trim off water shoots. This keeps the plants in check and lets the sun in to ripen up the fruit.

For many years we used cages around the tomatoes, but I switched to stakes about 15 years ago after seeing it in a magazine. The plants are much more manageable and easier to pick. We use old t-shirts for the ties. They are soft and stretchy and expand as the stems grow.

I should be able to harvest some baby squash today. And also some peppers:

The small pepper plants were started late in the greenhouse, but the larger ones are already producing sweet bell, jalapeno, and chilies.

These plants have tiny cukes in with all the yellow flowers. I love cucumbers in salads and chopped on bagels. I can't wait!

Now this pile of bean plants were supposed to be neat rows of bush beans. I buy my seeds at a garden center that packages it's own seeds and I think they made a little mistake! I have since reseeded, but I left these and hope I can get in there and harvest some beans soon.

This is the salad bed. I just pulled up the spinach plants that had gone to seed and will plant more onions in their place. I'm still harvesting the mixed lettuces and will probably save the carrots for later and freeze them for soups and pot roasts.

Years ago we had a much bigger garden and it has slowly gotten smaller as we've added more perennial fruit plants and trees. Now we just have these 9 raised beds. The center bed is filled with annual flowers and a rusty windmill.

I love working in this vegetable garden. It is small enough to clean up quickly and large enough to provide us with the vegetables we can really use. So what are you growing in your gardens? I'd love to see!

Small Quilt Addiction

When I am tired out from working in the garden I like nothing better than sitting back with some kind of needlework. I try to always have something ready for hand work such as quilting or embroidery. These little quilts took just a short time at the machine and then I can take my time finishing them up. The little quilt above is from an Australian magazine.

I have lots of small scraps that are just too pretty to throw out, so these small quilts are perfect scrap busters.
Though those scraps have a way of multiplying no matter how many I use:)

The above quilt is from the book Quilted Gifts, by Barri Sue Gaudel. Love this book by the way.

So what do you like to do on your down time? Do you need to keep your hands busy at all times, like I do?
Have a great week!

June Gardens

June has got to be my most favorite month of the year. Our gardens are just bursting into bloom and every day there is something new to see. The pond has got new blooms and tadpoles growing tiny hind legs. Bluebirds are flying all over the yard, nesting in several places. Yesterday we watched an oriole gathering fibers for her nest from a hanging basket. And the new chicks have grown into beautiful birds loving all the weeds, scraps, and grubs we give them.

This is the third day of perfect sunny weather for us. Yesterday I was getting over a case of food poisoning and didn't get much done. Today I'm hoping to work in the veggie garden, tying up the tomatoes - they are growing like crazy - and doing some weeding (they are growing like crazy too!) I'll be sharing some pictures of that garden and some crafting pics soon.

Two Very Busy Weekends

The weekend before last our oldest son Justin passed through after a attending a conference in Canada. We had a wonderful visit with him and had several meals with all the kids together. We also opened the pool and Tad had a great time helping clean off the cover:)

This past weekend we worked in the yard all day Friday, sat for Tad all day Saturday, went hiking and had friends over for a cookout on Sunday, and had a houseful of family for Memorial Day and also to celebrate our middle son's 29th birthday. Whew! I am still worn out this morning!

But I love it all. Spending time with my family is my favorite thing to do (even when the weather doesn't cooperate:(
 

An Anniversary and Flowers, Flowers, Flowers!

Rick and I celebrated our 32nd anniversary yesterday and my sweet husband brought home this lovely bouquet of roses. Then we went to one of our favorite places for dinner. It is a bit of a drive, but that's one reason we like it so much. We go along the river and through some wooded areas that are so pretty this time of year. We had such a good time, eating and reminiscing about all our years together.

As you can see, the gardens are really filling up. Every day something new is blooming and I just can't get enough of looking at these beauties. The rock garden is doing especially well right now and there are so many textures and colors. It has taken us quite awhile to get it that way!

 I got a real surprise when I went out with my tea this morning. We knew there were baby bluebirds in the box at the back of our property, but we had no idea there was a nest in this house right off the deck! They have never nested so close. Bluebirds can become quite relaxed around people, so I hope they know what they're doing. I will be working on my vegetable garden right by them almost every day.  Can you tell, I'm really excited about these guys!

I Did It!

I'm so proud of myself! I finally figured out how to get back here and upload pictures using Google Chrome.  Boy, they do not make things easy for the computer illiterate. But maybe now I can say I'm a step up from that :)

Anyway... so, we spent a week visiting our son and his wife in DC. It was so good to spend time with them and, being in the middle of their spring (and ahead of us by about two weeks), it was just beautiful.

We saw so much...I won't bore you with pictures of monuments and museums. We took our kids all over the country while they were growing up, but we stayed away from big cities, preferring national parks and beaches. Now I wish we had taken them here. It wasn't that hard to get around. Though it was nice to have a Metro lesson from Justin first!

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. We went to a state park with the kids, went on a short hike and let Tad throw rocks in the creek while we looked for fossils, and then ate at a huge buffet at the park inn. They had fried biscuits and hot apple butter. Yum! What a great day!

Techinical Dificulties

We returned from a wonderful trip to DC to visit our son and daughter-in-law to find that I couldn't upload photos onto my blog. I have been trying all week and sent a complaint to Blogger, but so far .. nothing.

There are so many things in bloom in our yard right now. I go around with my camera everyday trying to capture some of the beauty, but can't quite do it justice. If I didn't have other obligations I think I would just camp out in my backyard and soak it all in!

Hopefully I will be back with photos of our trip, the yard, the chicks and some finished projects. See you soon:)