The “Harvest” of 2012 has officially begun! We are very proud of our first zucchini that we picked.
We planted only 10 seeds that have grown into 8 good-looking healthy plants. There are blossoms all over them and many have little zucchinis growing. Right now, this is the only one big enough to pick.
Our first garden seems to be off to a good start. The corn is a little sparse and our carrots and onions were planted too late, but the beans, lettuce, and zucchini are looking good. We’re still not sure about the broccoli. It may have been planted too late as well.
You can see how all the grass is trying to grow back up through the garden as we didn’t get it tilled good enough, but all in all we may actually have some sort of crop from this!
Finally, our other order of trees and raspberry vines came! We ordered this list of trees and raspberry vines below on April 25th.
When we arrived home from our weekend trip to Chimney Rock, NC you know the first thing I do is head straight to the bathroom. It is only a few hours drive, but still my bladder can barely hold…LOL! But when I go to wash my hands there is no water. Oh my!
Then of course I realize that the toilet has flushed, but it is not refilling. Of course I go check the kitchen sink and yup….no water there either. So, I tell Jon, and we start checking the breaker box. All good there. Then it dawns on us! We asked our son to water the garden in our absence.
So, we go check the outside water spigot and sure enough it is still on. I quickly turn off the breaker to the water pump so the motor doesn’t burn up (if it hasn’t already).
Continue reading “Running the Well Dry”
Our one year anniversary was coming up May 20th. We wanted a little weekend getaway to celebrate, but we just couldn’t work it out around the 20th. So, we planned a weekend trip for just the two of us in the mountains at Chimney Rock, NC leaving on the 5th.
Some of our trees and bushes came and were planted, but we were a little worried our apple and peach trees would come while we were gone. Also, we had just planted our first garden so we were a tiny bit anxious. We left our second oldest, a high school senior, at home for the weekend with instructions to water the garden and to keep an eye out for our other trees. If they came we wanted him to put them in the shade and give them some water on the roots. I know they are supposed to last 30 days with that gel stuff on their roots, but that is new to me and well we were nervous about them.
This is the first time we had left him home alone and before we got 2 hours up the road he was calling because he had cut himself at work (restaurant) and was going to the emergency room. Oh my! We were worrying about the trees and garden thinking he’d be OK, and here he is only his second day at a new job and on his way to the ER!! He kept reassuring us it was OK and we didn’t need to come back. He was telling us it wasn’t that bad and he didn’t see why they were taking him to the ER. So, we hesitantly proceeded on our trip checking in with him constantly now. He ended up getting a couple of stitches and texted us pictures! Still he says there is no need to come home.
Other than obsessing over leaving him behind, the garden, and the trees we had a wonderful time at Lake Lure and Chimney Rock. Lake Lure is where they filmed the movie Dirty Dancing. What woman hasn’t seen that movie a few hundred times? We took a pontoon boat ride the first evening and just chilled and enjoyed the gorgeous evening.
Our sweet little cabin:
The Nursery at TyTy ships fast. One of our orders arrived today.
Jon works all kinds of weird days and a lot of weekends and was luckily off today so he could plant them. This is how they arrived. Ummmm, ok. Looks like a mangled mess of sticks to me.
So, now we’ve just tilled up the yard…..so what to plant?!? We were already starting pretty late on this whole garden thing so we needed to get on the ball and buy some seeds and get planting. We bought various seeds from Tractor Supply, Walmart, Lowes, and Dollar General.
We were out in town and thought we’d run by Lowes and Walmart and pick up some seeds. These were not our usual store locations, but we were already there and they were more convenient at the time. Let me tell you don’t even bother going to a Lowes or Walmart in a city. Their selection is pitiful! We had much better luck going to our usual rural Lowes and Walmart.
Man, everywhere had tons of different types of green beans. We thought we wouldn’t do green beans because both of our Mama’s always keep us generously supplied with canned green beans. So, we were thinking maybe some other kinds of beans. I thought maybe we should try some October beans. I knew from growing up they are about the same thing as pintos, but is what most people around here always had. At least that’s how I recalled it…lol. Well, we couldn’t find October beans or pinto beans anywhere. We found some dragon tongue beans that look similar to a pinto but with some purplish stripes. We were curious so bought them.
Continue reading “What To Plant?”
We had been talking for awhile now about how bad the economy has gotten and how expensive everything has become. Just the fundamentals in life like food and water just keep creeping in price. And if you want fresh fruit or vegetables, well it’s just plain ridiculous!
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to supply some of our own fresh fruit? Oh, and even better if we had enough for preserves and jams! Growing up we always had apple trees, pear trees, black walnut trees, black berries, and dew berries readily available. I took it for granted as a child.
As kids when out playing we would just go pick an apple when we wanted one. I used to like to pick them green before they had ripened. I did suffer the random tummy ache because of eating too many!
