Artichoke

I often envy my father-in-law when he tells me gardening stories about his beautiful artichoke plants that are completely full and producing. Well, now I can say that we can join his club! This is our first year to have success with growing an artichoke plant because it was one of the only plants that survived our harsh winter freeze back in early February. This baby is huge. Mike protected it well, and now, we're reaping beautiful and fresh artichoke. We enjoyed some tonight dipped in marinade sauce with our Easter dinner. Mmmm!

From El Jardin

*WTH is up with blogger's formatting now? Trying to figure it out, but in the meantime, I've got a little gardening update.

Spring cannot arrrive soon enough for me. I've started a majority of our veggies from heirloom seeds this year and our first set is sprouting nicely. The only seedlings that haven't shown any signs yet are some of the peppers; the purple tomatillos, godfather peppers, and one orange roma tomato finally sprouted yesterday. I feel like the the little boy from the classic story, The Carrot Seed, watching and waiting, but nothing comes up. :) I'm also starting many herbs from seed as well and so far the two basil varieties have sprouted. I'll learn to can and preserve this summer, and have many different varieties of tomatoes this year. I look forward to no longer buying tomato sauce from the store, and I'm contemplating a little urban porch stand for my neighboring friends.

Garden soil has been gently tilled and just the beds need to be made, and as you can see, the only items left from our fall and winter garden is some lettuce and spinach, so the hubby kept the tiller away from those. We pulled up the rest of the carrots, and the artichoke plant looks like it survived the recent freezes.

Another project we have is relandscaping the large plant bed in the front yard. A few weeks ago, Mike removed the large old bushes which were an eyesore and the rose bushes which just weren't producing anymore. My goal is to replace sustainable native and adapted plants, which also provide some greenery during the winter. I've been researching, but really feel at a loss with landscape design. So I keep putting it off since it's still February, and instead I go watch the seedlings.

Roses bushes from the front yard hibernating in the wheelbarrow. Will probably put them in pots and go from there.

Our baby citrus trees hopefully survived the recent freezes and even though Mike protected them with plastic and heat lamps during the low temps, we still don't know how they will fare. The trunks look ok so far.  We'll know soon.

Some petunias that the nursery was giving away for free post freeze, so I scooped up half a dozen. After a couple weeks here, colorful petals have emerged.

Hello Sunshine

In less than one year after planting, we are reaping fruit. Pretty little satsumas!

The Seeds Are Sleeping

But not for long!

The hubby prepared the rows and in went the seeds. I created photos of each veggie, got them laminated and placed the tags with the corresponding area of what we planted. I want the children to know what is growing and since they're not readers yet, what better way than with photos!



With all the heavy rain we've gotten this week, things should be sprouting soon.
Stay tuned!

Gardening | Not For Beginners

When I mentioned trying square foot gardening, the hubby looked at me sideways and as if I had insulted him. He said if we're going to garden, THIS is the way he wants to do it from now on. Just like his dad (who still gardens on this scale). Soil is ready and rows are dug. We're ready to go now. Had to pull out the wide angle lens and at 16mm to get this all in.

As my friend Sharon says, we're not gardening. We're FARMING.
Not quite, but pretty close.

BSM ~ Gratitude

When I describe my husband as an industrious little ant, I mean it. He can work, work, and work, and do these amazing things that would probably take most husbands 3 times as long to get done. He works non-stop, especially when it comes to a project. He wants it done. Weekend before last, he spent all weekend demo-ing the fence and pulling up the posts so we could get our back fence replaced. We hired a guy to replace the fence because, well, Mike has to work during the week.

I then told him I wanted the garden expanded. He had the double gate moved to the other end of the side fence to open up the area by our current garden, and he expanded the garden area this weekend. About 6 times its current size, from a meager 130 sq feet to 850 sq feet. He got himself a heavy duty tiller, put the tiller together and tilled the yard for approximately 10 hours straight yesterday. TEN hours. All while pulling out hundreds of pounds of the annoying limestone and caliche rock that is abundant in our area, along with the old posts from the first fence that we discovered. Domi helped. Then, the hubby came inside and made dinner for us.

Today, starting at 8 am, he brought in compost, from our own compost we’ve been “harvesting” for the last year, and an extra truckload of Turkey compost from the garden center, shoveled that in, then tilled it into the garden. He later tilled up that dirt and moved it from the flowerbed to the new garden area, (about 25 wheelbarrows full) then went back to the garden center for 2 more truckloads of really good Rose and flowerbed soil, shoveled it in, then tilled it. Domi was still helping. I don't think my boy has ever worked so hard in his life. Last year, he helped, but it doesn't compare to what he did today. They finished off by replanting the rose bushes. They're still in the yard cleaning up. I’m in here waiting for him with a cold cerveza and their favorite buffalo wings.

This is what makes my husband (and son) amazing.
AND the hubby still makes the time to read to his tot.



This is only the newly tilled area. The existing garden is to the left.


Replanting rose bushes.



I took this photo below, of our blossoming plum tree while the guys were tilling yesterday, and I intitially chose for my BSM, but now that I've typed all this up, I think the others deserve to be my BSM. Whatcha think?

Harvest Concluded (Almost)

This is about what is left from our garden. We have a few tomatoes still ripening, but for whatever reason, only 2 of the 5 plants are producing. The heat is here and the soil is dry. Once August and September roll around, then we'll be planting our fall garden and we've learned what to do differently next time.

A pleading from Rose

Found her sitting on my doorstep this morning in a white plastic bag.
How could we NOT take her in?





And to the kind soul who dropped her off, I'm flattered that we'd be considered a good home.

Gardening Update

I'm very pleased with how well our new garden has taken off this spring. Because of its success, Mike and I have discussed expanding it about 3 times its current size by fall! It will entail moving the gate to the other side of the fence, but he can handle that.

We've been harvesting the radishes and the lettuce for weeks now, the blackberries are beginning to darken up, the peppers are turning red, the tomatoes are getting plump, the eggplant is growing, and the corn is beginning to start its process. The cucumbers are taking a while, but they were placed in a different part of the yard, and did not get the same environment as the rest. Lesson learned. The carrots and beets have beautiful leaves and can't wait for them to be ready to pull up.

A couple weeks ago, my very industrious husband, trimmed the large oak tree in the backyard, rented a chipper, and he and Domi made mulch for our garden beds. There were so many branches that he filled up the entire bed of the truck. And then a neighbor drove by and asked if they could chip their branches, and they'd pay for the rental, so they did. All in one afternooon. It reminded me of a comment my mamá used to say about Mike--he's like an ant, always working and doing, and lifting things 10 times his size.

So very true. And I love that about him.





Lettuce


Beets. This is such a beautiful plant.


Tomatoes


Peppers


Eggplant


Blackberries


Corn

Compost

With us starting our own garden, the hubby decided he wanted to go full force and begin composting.
So he rigged up his own concoction in only a few hours. He's good that way.
Now, comes the part of reminding ourselves to save scraps so we can turn them into gold for our garden!

Rábanos

Lookie what we pulled from our garden today.
Radishes!

I can't believe how quickly they went from seed to this.


The peppers are well on their way.


As well as the blackberries.


The fig tree is also showing signs of swelling buds. We are going to have tons of figs this year.
Anybody want to trade food this summer? A co-op from our own gardens!

Zanahorias

Carrots, from my Father in Law's Garden

We have SPROUTS

The top four were taken a couple weeks ago...










Photos below taken today...





The tomatoes are coming!

Buckets, but no Boots

The tots watering the veggie garden at Casa T.









Then, Austin decided on some impromptu water fun.







Domi's Toes. =)


After looking at the photo of Austin running, I am dying to get my hands on a lensbabies.