The Tulip Wait is Over

I'm loving my tulips. I'm loving how each morning Dakota announces to me, "We have an orange tulip now!" or "We have a purple tulip Mommy!" I'm loving the color and I'm loving the beginning of Spring. More please :)

Gardening: Peek-A-Boo

Little things are starting to pop up and some things are still hanging around from fall.  I love Spring and I'm SUPER excited for us to really start gardening this year.  Jacob's given me a budget and a catalog and told me to pick out what I would like planted this spring so that is one of my tasks for the weekend.  If you were planting a garden, what would you grow??  I know I want some tomatoes (not a huge fan of eating them plain but I would love to make homemade salsa, spaghetti sauce & soup).  Possibly some blueberry bushes but they take a few years to bear fruit.  Oh and lots more flowers.  I would LOVE a rose garden (my favorite flower) and some potted gerbera daisies.  So many choices...anyway, just thought I'd show you what's starting to make an appearance in our yard.

We started some bell pepper seedlings in an egg carton.  You know what's so great about these??  I gutted them from a pepper I was cooking with in the fall, dried them out and saved them in a jar.  Since this is my first time doing this, I wasn't sure what would happen but was thrilled to see them poke their little green leaves out of the soil.  I'm all about recycling...I also saved some butternut and acorn squash seeds but those will be planted later in the year.

Jacob planted some tulip bulbs for me in the fall because they are one of my favorites.  I can't wait to see the color on them.  I think they are an assorted variety but I don't remember what I picked out.  :)

First flowers at our house!  Thanks to Anita who told me what this plant was last year.

Remember this?  Well, our broccoli never had ideal growing weather but somehow it hung in there and survived the winter snow.  We're hoping that it will finish growing but I'm glad to see the form of something that actually looks like broccoli.  There are about 7 plants from what I can tell.  Notice all of the weeds I talked about previously?  And...notice the netting.  Our white tailed pests friends thought we were planting our garden for them.  How silly of them.  The netting has worked great.

Same goes for our 45 day cabbage that is now on probably day 150 or something but at least it looks like cabbage and it's still very hearty.  And it is growing...just verrrrry slowly.  Hopefully this spring weather will give it the extra boost it needs.  We have about 9 plants.

Gardening: More Herbs & Some Green Stuff

We picked up some basil plants at Home Depot and so far have been able to keep them alive.  I've already made some delicious pesto with them and am looking forward to trying some more new recipes.  The rosemary and lemon thyme plants I got from a friend who broke off a sprig from her plants.  I successfully rooted them in cups of water and we transferred them to the dirt this week.  Let's hope they make it!  I was not as successful in rooting her oregano.  I'll try again another time.  We planted the broccoli and lettuce mix from seeds so it is exciting to see them popping up through the soil.  Unfortunately we bought some top soil that seems to have been tainted with something because we now have an immense amount of weeds coming up.  It's sort of frustrating because we don't want to pull anything in fear that it's something we actually planted.  Oh well.  Lesson learned.  The cilantro and cabbage from the earlier post are doing very well.  Hopefully by the end of October I'll be making some stuffed cabbage.

Gardening: Cilantro & Cabbage Start

We've started gardening at the Cartner Lodge (That's what we're calling the house.  When you have a 10 12 (I stand corrected) point elk over your fireplace it only seems appropriate!).  Jacob and I have dreamed about gardening for years but kept waiting until we had the perfect space.  We now have the space and are enjoying this new hobby.  Jacob LOVES working in the yard.  I must admit though; I'm not so fond of it and I never really have been.  Gardening seems different because you get to enjoy the fruits (and vegetables and herbs) of your labor and it's quite rewarding.  First, we planted some cilantro and cabbage plants (shown below).  Then, this past weekend we planted some lettuce and broccoli seeds and also purchased a few basil plants.  We've already enjoyed making some salsa with our cilantro and our friend Lauren made us mozzarella, tomato and basil hors d'oeuvres.  Although Jacob did most of the work:  built the beds, prepared the soil, planted the plants/seeds (with a little help from Dakota), I have been pretty good about composting and watering the plants.  I imagine I'll be doing much more of the work when the harvests come in...canning, freezing, cooking, etc.  So it all evens out right?? :)  Anyway, we'll keep you updated on this new hobby of ours and hopefully we can learn to be less dependant on Kroger and more dependant on what is in our own backyard.

Thankful for little helpers with the watering!