What's Growing...

Some people grow roses... I buy mine (actually, Roger buys them).
Some people grow cucumbers and zucchini...I just wait until my firends (thanks Rebecca and Karan) have more than they can possibly eat and are giving it away. We just don't eat those veggies very much...so I don't want to expend the energy or space for them.

Here's what I DO grow...

Lovely cantaloupe! I've harvest 2 so far and they are fabulous. I have about 14 on the vines right now.


Tomatoes...


Tomatoes...


and tomatoes... I've harvested about 75 lbs so I can make tons of spaghetti sauce.

I planted the green beans because we had the extra space. I've been getting about a handful each day and have harvested about 2 gallons. I think we'll plant more of those next year! They're yummy!

Becoming a Gardener

It's the Friday evening of Good Friday and I've got a little time to waste. Two of my chickadees are spending the night somewhere else, and it makes a huge difference. I've been tossing around all kinds of bloggy ideas and thought I'd go ahead and write about one of them.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am no gardener... I even posted about it last year. However, my desire for homegrown stuff has exceeded my aversion to dirt. So, I'm doing a Square Foot Garden. If you want to know about SFG, you need to check out the book and read up on it. The author, Mel Bartholomew, makes all kinds of promises about weed-free, quick growing, easy to maintain gardening. Lord knows I wouldn't even attempt this if he didn't promise that it would be easy. I looked up SFG online and found lots of other people blogging about their garden, and singing Mel's praises. So, I'm jumping on the bandwagon.

My Handy Man built me 2 boxes, each of them 4' x 8'. Then, we went and bought the stuff to make "Mel's Mix", which is what he says will make the gardening so easy. The mix is made of 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 compost, and 1/3 vermiculite. They are close to the house because I know myself well enough to know that I won't take care of them if I have to trek across our 5 acres to get to them... I know...I'm so lazy!

Here you can see the boxes... Technically, I have 4 4'x4' boxes, they just happen to be connected. Mel assures me that it's fine. We put that plastic stuff on the bottom before we added the dirt.

My plan was to have a Spaghetti Sauce garden... only tomatoes, onions, peppers, oregano, and basil. Well, once the boxes were complete and the mix was in, the kids got interested. My first instinct was to tell them no way was I going to let them plant stuff... I just want to keep it simple and I don't want to be responsible for their stuff. But, being the good home school mom that I am, I put away those selfish thoughts and told the kids they could plant some squares. My littlest is going to plant a square of Catnip. Isn't that nice of him? Now we can use our precious soil to help the cat become even more of a spaz... Awesome. Sam loves corn, so we're going to let him plant several squares of corn while Katie is going to plant marigolds because we've heard they are natural pest repellents. Then, Handy Man thought that it would be silly to waste any soil and have empty squares, so he bought a bunch of bush bean seeds... Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "Keep it simple. Keep it simple."

So, I went ahead and planted 3 squares of onions because Mel says I can plant them up to 6 weeks before the last frost. Guess what!! They're growing!! I'm growing onions!! And, to prove that I'm really serious about doing this, I actually started seeds for tomatoes, peppers, and cantaloupe inside. Did I mention the cantaloupe? Keep it simple...keep it simple.... Anyway, I started them and they're growing. Hopefully they'll do well when I transplant them outside in another week or two. And, I know you won't believe this, but I've even started composting. Handy Man took a plastic barrel and sliced off the ends. Then, he put screen over the top and bottom, and made a door on the side. Now, I take our compost stuff outside, open the little door and dump it all in. Then, I close the door and roll the barrel so it all gets mixed up. Truthfully, composting has always intimidated me. The thought of having to use a shovel to turn everything over and move it from one pile to the other has always been overwhelming to me. But, we don't really need a whole lot of compost and I can at least roll a barrel.

I'm pretty excited to see if I can do this. Is this a small measure of what "real" gardeners feel?

Hey Trish! What's for Dinner?

Did you ever watch Hee-Haw? I used to love that show! Roy Clark lived in Tulsa and I would pass his rather large house when I drove anywhere near Utica Square. Anyway, on the show, Grandpa would give the menu for dinner by listing a heart-stopping, grease soaked, butter drenched meal. Now that we know all that stuff is bad for you, our meals are much less entertaining... Nevertheless...here goes.

Breakfasts
Sun -F - We have your choice!! Cereal, oatmeal, whole wheat toast with honey/jam/peanut butter, eggs, fruit smoothies
Saturday - Whole wheat waffles w/syrup or jam, bacon, fruit smoothies

Lunches (Our lunch menu is almost always the same every week. I can barely keep up with dinners, so I don't want to expend brain cells thinking about what to fix for lunch!)

M - sandwiches (PBJ), chips, veggies/dip
T - chicken nuggets, applesauce
W - pizza, orange slices
Th - sandwiches (ham/cheese), sliced apples
F - mac/cheese, crackers,
Sat - leftovers
Sun - potluck at church

Dinners -

M - CP Chicken Fettuccine, green beans, applesauce
T - Honey Dijon pork chops, bow tie pasta with veggies, whole wheat bread
W - Manicotti, salad, bread sticks
Th - Hamburgers, whole wheat buns, corn, whole wheat chocolate chip cookies (these really are the best cookies I've had...they're fabulous!)
F - CP Taco Soup, Frito's, cheese...
Sat - leftovers
Sun - breakfast (make a big batch of waffles to freeze leftovers for following week)

Whew... I'm trying to sneak more fruit and veggies into the plan. I need to do a little research on it because I tend to do mainly apples and oranges, which can get old. I have blueberries and strawberries in the freezer for fruit smoothies, but I need to be more intentional in getting those into the plan. Any ideas?