Garden Update

It's been a while since I posted about the garden, so here it goes:

We've finished all of our radishes. We had a few that were the size of small apples! They were super tasty sliced up in a salad made from lettuce we grew :) The peas are about done. They were excellent; sweet, juicy. Next year, however, we will be building them a trellis rather than using cotton string to help them. It did NOT work like we wanted it to. Lesson learned. Last night we had our first bean harvest. Because we're apparently insane about beans, we have six different varieties in the garden: Three Grandpa the Great sent us (the long green beans are amazing G da G!) green beans, yellow beans, and purple beans. I've had to stop Geo from eating the itty bitty beans straight out of the garden-you've got to watch that guy, he'll eat just about anything from the garden :P

Our cherry tomato plant, which we thought we lost after the last big storm blew it straight over has apparently decided to become an over achiever. There are close to fifty tomatoes on the vine (none of the red yet though...come on cherries-ripen up!) I have a feeling we're going to have tomatoes coming out of our ears. Thankfully there are a few people we can share them with :) The "big mama" tomato plant FINALLY has a tomato on it. The Big Mama is an organic hybrid (apparently) it's supposed to be a ginormous Roma tomato from what I understand. Guess we'll see. Our third tomato plant, which is either a Roma or a Big Boy (I am assuming it's a big boy based on the shape of the tomatoes) has about six tomatoes growing off of it. Considering we dug the plant up and threw it in a pot because a storm cracked its' main stem, I'm surprised it's doing ANYTHING.

Our pepper plants are completely and utterly out of control. If we get HALF the fruit that it's trying to produce we are going to be eating green peppers until November! We have four California Wonder plants and one sweet red chili (that was an accidental buy to be honest) All of them are doing amazing. There's a pepper that keeps calling my name. Geo eats the beans and peas, I just want the peppers...mmmm green peppers...whoops, sorry. The robins ate all the damn leaves off of our pepper plants early in the season and we weren't sure they'd grow at all. They proved the robins wrong (thankfully)

We finally have flowers on our summer squash and zucchini-yum.

The pumpkins...oh my the pumpkins. If we get HALF the pumpkins off the vine as there are starter pumpkins no one in Maple Park will have to buy a pumpkin this year. Our pumpkin plant LOVES the spot it's in and has been sprouting between two and six flowers a day(!!) Not too shabby for one little plant that had a broken main stem after one of the hellacious storms that ripped through our little part of the globe in the last month!!

And now...the pictures :)

The overachieving cherry tomato plant


G da G's beans


Mmmm come to momma little peppers


This was taken three days ago-it's is a significantly larger plant right now.


And now a few of the lilies we've been waiting to bloom for at least a month now!

Picture Post

A bunch of pictures for your enjoyment...the kiddos, the flowers and our new friend, Mr. Toad!

Summer Time and the Livin's Easy

Summer has *officially* begun! Yay! Our garden is in full swing, the days are getting longer, and we've brought out the sprinkler more than once already.

The kids are thoroughly enjoying the garden. They check it three times a day, usually, though sometimes it's more than that. More than once we've gone out to "check" on it and end up sitting next to it for a half an hour or so, talking, laughing, and just enjoying the nice weather. Gabe has been watching a particular bean stalk in the garden to see if it's going to grow taller than him...and it has. Yesterday when we went out to check the garden before going to the butterfly garden, the bean stalk was just a hair taller than Gabe, this morning it's over the edge of the fence and definitely taller than him :P

It's been SO warm that the fireflies are out like gangbusters this year. It's so much fun to sit and look out the window at dusk and see the green lights all over our yard and in the fields. It's already been warmer this summer than it was all summer last year and you can definitely tell just by the sheer amount of fireflies in the yard. Our Godson Christian had a ball trying to (and actually succeeding) catch one in a bottle. Such simple pleasures for little ones :)

The crops around us are HUGE. The old saying [corn should be]"Knee high by the 4th of July" has been completely blown out of the water. The corn was knee high by JUNE 4th this year. It helps that we had such a warm spring (warmest in 30 some odd years actually!) and the farmers were able to plant so much earlier than normal. Hopefully the weather will continue to be conducive to good growing-the farmers could use it after last years' rainy harvest screwed things up so badly. I heard one farmer say it was going to be FEBRUARY before his corn was ready to be sold :( Hopefully it won't be like that this year!

We're getting ready for some excitement around here...the Michiwits are moving in! The second weekend in July we are going to Michigan to see Aunt Buzzy and to help them load their moving truck up so they can come down! In the meantime, I should probably get my butt in gear getting the spare bedroom ready for people to be in there more than one or two nights! The closet is a mess. It's become a catch-all for everything that doesn't really have a spot. I foresee a yard sale in our very near future :P

Hope you're all having a lovely summer thus far!

Peas Day 35

After a month of tending to our peas, we've been rewarded with a few blossoms!

Holy Pumpkins!

What does a week of 80+ degree days and lots of watering do for a pumpkin plant??



We've sprouted three new leaves and the plant has started to spread. If you look a few entries down, you'll see what it looked like just a few days ago. Crazy how fast it's growing. Can't wait for some flowers and itty bitty pumpkins to start growing. The rest of the garden is sprouting like crazy, our four different bean varieties are now about six inches high, our peppers and tomatoes, after being picked clean by the robins, have ALL started to grow new leaves and are doing well. No sprouting on the rows Geo planted, but I fully expect by this time next week, we will have itty bitty carrots, radishes, squash, and lettuce poking through. Crazy Geo has already decided to expand the garden next year...and we've JUST started this one :P

Updated Garden Pictures

We also have beans sprouting(yay!!) and tomatoes and green peppers started. We're hoping to plant the rest of our plants this afternoon! How's your gardening going?

More Garden-y Goodness...

This time in the form of *gardener* photos.

We've decided against raised bed gardens because a)I keep adding things that I want to grow and we're going to rapidly run out of bed space and b)they are pricey to build and we are at the tail end of paying down a BIG debt and don't have the cash to spare. We were going to rent a rototiller and till up a patch of the lawn but reason b strikes again :P Geo decided we should do it by hand; we started (and by we, I mean, GEO) busting up the grass today and the kids and I started getting the dirt free of weeds and grass chunks. I have pics of all of that and after the garden is completely dug up, I'll post before and after pics; however tonight I want you to see who the real hard worker in this family is...

Here we have farmer George (oddly enough, George MEANS farmer in Greek) working hard at breaking up the land...



Annnnnd here are the other three Witkowski's dinking around when we should have been working...oops :D





And there you have it; Geo is the worker of the bunch and we are the play-ers :)

Gardening Fun

Yesterday we planted our hills of pumpkins (six plants in total, though we'll see how that goes, one or two may be pulled out to let the others grow stronger) and today we planted peas. We had peas started in pots in the kitchen that we transplanted and then we planted another pack of peas from seed; my hope is that we'll be able to harvest peas for a longer time by doing it this way. The second set of peas is two weeks behind the first set, so hopefully that'll make a difference when it comes to picking them. Without further ado some crummy pictures of the pumpkins and peas! (he he)

A Seed Sown...

"The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies." -- Gertrude Jekyll

One of the things I love best about being a (mostly) stay at home mom is the opportunities I have to teach the kids about all sorts of things; today we learned about starting seeds and planting flowers. Our garden will be expanding this year, partly because we have more space, partially because we *want* it to, and partially because we are concerned about where our food is coming from and want to show the kids the process from seed to food.

Today we started some herbs. Some of you have seen my rosemary-my little baby, Rosey, how do I love thee??-she started out about six inches high and has turned into this monster:

She's my tasty, tasty monster. She sits in the kitchen during the winter time and soaks up the sun (and a half a gallon of water every other day!!) and makes my kitchen smell delicious. The kids love her (yes, I refer to the plant as a "her", I'm a *bit* crazy) and Bitsy regularly plucks leaves off of her to smell and to give to people; after all, she is the "Rosemary momma" Both of the kids will walk by the plant, rub the leaves, and smell their hands, I've even been known to put rosemary in their bathwater when they aren't feeling the best. It's an all purpose plant, for sure. (and my baby...don't judge me :P)

Yesterday the kids picked out oregano and chives for this year's herbs (last years, lavender and thyme didn't do so hot; the lavender is dead and the thyme is barely hanging on, we're hoping the warm weather and being outside will help it) We bought all the little pots and potting soil and the kiddos and I made our own "greenhouse" We ended up putting oregano, chives, and pumpkin seeds (wisely saved from our eight dollar a piece pumpkins from last year) into pots. Gabe labeled the pots, I filled them with potting soil, Bits tapped down the seeds, and Gabe watered. They had a blast.





After all that we headed outside to plant pansies and a very special Bitsy flower; Bitsy likes to dig in my flower beds-which is NOT a good thing, poor girl is trying to be helpful but has dug up a bunch of roots which is not helpful in the least. Geo and I promised her a special flower in her own special flower bed next to the porch. Yesterday she picked out a gorgeous little primrose. She proudly showed it off to daddy this morning while I napped after work and I'd bet she's going to show him "her" flower bed tomorrow when they take Gabe to the bus.



They ended their gardening afternoon with a ride on the garden wagon and a wiggly worm; a good day for all (even the worm who was put back gently in the flowerbed after he was touched and talked about!)

The Fruits of Our Labor

After months of watering, weeding, fertilizing, chasing bunnies, and praying we *finally* have something to show for our hard work...
A few gorgeous little tomatoes...going to taste so good with fresh basil and olive oil, don't you think???


After thinking we'd never even get any blossoms, we have been rewarded with baby green beans; it took all I had in me to NOT pick them and eat them tonight :)



AND, literally, the products of my labor...(okay, I only labored with *one* of them, but I have been watering, feeding, and praying for them, surely that counts for something, right?!)

It's that time again...

Casting Time! Gabe is going in next week to get DOUBLE casts. Woo hoo. Fun times. He is growing so rapidly that his poor tendons cannot keep up with his bones. This time even his left leg has lost some motion, so we're casting as a precautionary measure. He's only going to be in the casts over the weekend; he'll have them put on May 28th and have them off on June 1st. After the casting comes the *real* fun. Botox injections. Gabe's physical therapist thinks that he could benefit from botox injections; they will relax his muscle, give him more range of motion, and he'll be more comfortable (aside from the initial injection) I'm honestly not looking forward to the shots themselves, but do want him to be more comfortable. The botox will allow Gabe's braces to stretch his tendons properly without having to be casted again, so it's a good thing, just a bit scary (and a lot expensive!)

Other than that, we've been enjoying the gorgeous weather as of late and this weekend Geo is building us a raised bed garden. The kiddos and I are in charge of planting (tomatoes, peppers, beans, garlic, and onions) and he's in charge of actually building it. I think he's got the easy part ;) We finally got the rest of our flowers planted and just have sunflowers to plant and we'll be done. We have Lily of the Valley along one side of the house and wow does it smell gorgeous. When I hang laundry all I can smell is Lily of the Valley, what a yummy smell. Too bad it doesn't make the laundry smell like it ;)

Hope you're all doing well, I'll post some picture of the raised bed this weekend!