From The Garden

Here is a picture of my first large picking from the gardens. I worked outside last Friday pulling weeds,  watering, and picking. I see shortcake, salad, zuchini bread, and beans for dinner in my near future.  

I've been picking strawberries and lettuce for a month and peas for a couple weeks.

I have created wonderful salads- Feta with mandarin oranges; mixed vegetable with homemade poppyseed dressing; egg salad on a bed of lettuce. My family just loves the peas- we eat thm raw all the time. My girls will pick them while they are outside playing. They run and get a handful out of the fridge for a snack. 

The zuchini and yellow squash is finally ready to pick. Time to make fried breaded zuchini, squash salad, and yummy zuchini bread.

An Eventful Weekend- Without Stamping

Even though we had spotty rain all weekend, my husband and I got a ton of yard work done. We had 4+ tons of dirt hauled in on Thursday evening. We borrowed a tractor and hauled all the dirt to the back yard to build a raised bed and to fill in a low spot (previous swing set/ playground area).  The swing set came down last fall and the cut out rectangular spot needed to be filled in. We got the grass planted and hopefully it will fill in quickly. Ahhhh... my yard back. Cannot wait to see the green grass.
All our neighbors have planted fences around us and as you can see from the picture, my yard bumps into yards of the neighbors behind us. This drives us crazy! It was one of the cons when we bought this house. We decided to go a little green and plant a NATURAL  fence line. I hope we do not regret this decision. It took us a year to decide what to do- we went back to our original plan after talking with professionals. I planted small perinneals (Spirea) in front of the trees (hard to see in the picture)  for a little color contrast in fron to f the everbearing trees. We are happy thus far.

I fit in some time while he was hauling the loose dirt (top soil) to plant my annuals in my planters on the deck and around the house. I have 4 of these large urn-like planters that I plant every spring. I always change the flower choice and colors. This year I decided purple (pansies) and orange (unknown) and instead of Sweet Potatoe Vine as I have always used, I decided to use English Ivy to grow and drape over the edge. I hope these do well.  I have always had great success with Pansies- one of my very favorite flowers. GORGEOUS!