Wardrobe Wednesday

The last few days have been quite hot around here.

 Yesterday was no exception, further demonstrated by Flash who couldn't keep his giant, panting tongue inside his mouth.

The girls wanted me to take them to beach yesterday after school, but instead they settled for dragging out the blue plastic pool and splashing around until dinner time in last year's one size too small swim suits..

Today will be the last of the super warm temps for a while, with a giant storm and cold front moving in right now, putting on one heck of a light show outside.  This morning, lightning knocked out our power for 4 hours which in turn, made me ask myself a very important question, how do I get my car out of the garage during a power outage when I have an ELECTRIC door opener?  Turns out garage door opener manufacturers thought of such a situation and added a handy rope to pull so you can manually open your door and get your car out.  First time I ever had to use it, and when I returned home, the power was back on.  Hopefully it will stay on tonight!

Garden Update Just Barely On Monday

So, I'm late once again with the garden update, but at least I'm posting this week.  Last week was a holiday and with company in from out of town for the weekend, plus both the girls and the Gardener home, there was no way Garden Monday was going to happen. I don't have a good excuse why I didn't post on Wednesday or really any day last week other than the truth that life happens and other stuff ends up trumping the blog. Stuff like Binny falling at the park, scraping both knees and the entire right side of her face then getting some sort of eye infection in the left eye 2 days later.  There was also a field trip to the zoo in there, several sunburns and a new pair of glasses for a certain 8 year old and enough good gardening weather to keep all of us busy and outside as much as possible.

First an overview of the big veggie garden, and the freshly planted corn field in the background.

Many of the seeds have now germinated and I plan to re-sow any plants/seeds that don't emerge by the end of this week. 
The entire 55 foot row of onion sets are up and growing like mad.

The broccoli and brussel sprouts are growing as well.

Like last year, I'm growing a row of sunflowers and pole beans together.  It was so much fun last year, how could we not try it again?

The strawberries are blooming and fruiting in there current home smack dab in the center of the garden for hopefully the last time.  The gardener just tillled up a new garden for me back behind the shed that will be our new berry garden.  I already moved lots of raspberry plants out there but I'm going to wait until after the strawberries fruit to move them.

Tomatoes.

Zucchini.

Cherry tomato.

This is where the raspberries were taking over the garden living until I plucked some of them (just the new shoots from this spring) from their happy home in the big garden and moved them to the new berry garden.

The new berry garden.

Transplants.

After I planted the 40 or so rasberry plants, I knew I needed to water them, and carrying buckets from the house did not seem appealing to either of us, so off went the Gardener on his trusty 4-wheeler to retrieve this tank from behind the barn he had been saving to fill with water for the trees around our property.

And some of the plants were thirsty!

Also in the new garden is also where I stashed the extra tomato and pepper plants.  The greenhouse is finally, almost empty from all 6 flats of plants I started from seed.

There's lots more going on in the garden these days, but it's late and I still have some sun-burnt shoulders that are screaming for attention. Until next week...

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Wardrobe Wednesday

Binny turned 7 last weekend.  We had small family birthday party for her here Saturday afternoon while it rained outside. And of course there were presents!  Binny pulled this little sundress out of the box and insisted on putting the strap around her neck to try it out right away.

The weather cleared up by Monday morning so she was able to wear it to school when she brought in her birthday cupcakes for the class. I think this may be a new summer favorite.

Monday Garden Club

We have to stop meeting like this. Or, rather I have to stop waiting until the last possible moment in the day to post on a specific day of the week theme, especially one that I host, like say... Monday Garden Club.  Cuz yeah, my kids are already in bed and the Gardener is taking his nightly shower and still I'm working on a silly little blog post.  Albeit, the most important garden update of the entire year considering I (with the help of my brother) managed to get the garden planted last Friday, but still, I feel like a slacker for not posting sooner.

The Gardener worked the garden with the rototiller 2 solid nights until the soil was as soft and fluffy as it was ever going to get.  Fortunately, the heavy rain held off until after we planted and actually, Friday was a picture perfect day.  My brother and I were out in the garden for 9 solid hours (giving me one hell of a sunburn on the bridge if my nose and my forehead, thanks in large part to my oversized sunglasses and a ponytail for my hair), measuring and driving stakes, and hoeing rows, and drinking beer, and planting seeds. We planted everything.  It would be torture to make my brain remember everything we planted last week but let me tell you, it was plenty and there will be no shortage of produce at the Feet Off The Table house this year. 5 or 6 kinds of tomatoes, 3 kinds of beans, summer squash, winter squash, snow peas, 2 kinds of okra and enough peppers to make a Norwegian sweat just thinking about it.  Yep, overkill at its finest.  What the hell, it's gardening season!



Peonies



Strawberry flowers

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Wardrobe Wednesday

I actually had a few options for Wardrobe Wednesday this week.  I could have taken a photo of all the shoes Flash has chewed apart in recent days, but that would be incredibly depressing.  I also could have posted a photo I took of Binny fully clothed wearing an extra pair of bright blue undies and one of my bras on the outside of her clothing, but oddly enough, I've already done that. 

Instead, I will offer up a mix of Flash's destruction and Binny's knack of finding a wardrobe possibility in almost anything.

The girls brought a plastic inflated ball in from outside for Flash to play with and within about 10 seconds of him noticing its existence, he popped it.  As I walked over to pick it up and throw it in the trash next to my favorite leather sandals he ripped apart just hours earlier, Binny thrust her index finger in the air and said "Ooh! Can I have it?"  Minutes later, it was a hat.

Monday Garden Club

The weather here has been a little unpredictable lately, making Spring gardening extra tricky, which also means I have planted exactly nothing outside yet.  Heck, the garden isn't even tilled yet and all of the flower pots are still buried in the planting room of the barn. When it's not raining, the wind is blowing so hard that you have to watch for flying objects when you go outside. The cover on our charcoal grill blew off and landed in the flower bed, and we've been finding broken roof shingles from the barn scattered all around the yard.

The asparagus have finally emerged from between the weeds, but I haven't picked any quite yet.  I'm hoping to have enough to steam and serve with a meal by the end of the week.

The rhubarb is big enough to eat, and like every year, we always have more than we can use. I chopped up this batch and made a strawberry-rhubarb crisp the other day.

My Father-in-law called me yesterday to tell me he found peach trees at a local garden center for just $10 each and I should go pick one up before they are all gone.  I went first thing this morning and bought 2.  The going rate elsewhere for similar trees is around $30. Now that's what I call a gardening win!  Now we have to plant them and wait to see of they will grow and produce peaches!

The plants are all still in the greenhouse, and unless the weather makes a quick turn for the better, I may not get the garden prepared and planted by the end of the week like I was hoping. 

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.