Harvest time!

Mark and I decided that we would plant a square foot garden this year. It was quite the endeavour! It took us almost a whole day just to buy the supplies we needed because it seemed that no one store had everything. We had planned on putting the garden boxes together after we bought it but ended up having to do it the next Saturday (which, by the way, turned out to be the coldest day of the month of April. It was windy, rainy, and super cold- which is why I am wearing a headband to keep my ears warm and gloves.)

(Lucy wanted to help too)

Mixing the compost, vermiculite, and peat moss was work. It was made even more difficult in the rain and wind, but we actually had a lot of fun putting our garden box together. We felt quite the sense of accomplishment.

Doesn't it look so nice.?!

(I know, I know, who poses in front of some plain boring dirt? Hey, I have to tell you we were super proud that box of dirt!)

Pure concentration :)

(Do you know how hard it is to count out the right number of tiny seeds in the wind.?!)

We planted:

• 1 Roma tomato (had a difficult time with the late freeze, but is snapping out of it. There are lots of blossoms on it now!)
• 3 regular tomatoes
• 8 pea plants (only had to replant 1 because the birds ate it)
• 2 regular cucumbers and 2 lemon cucumbers
• 2 heads of cabbage-1 per box (replanted them a couple of weeks ago because our not so cute rock chuck was enjoying them more than we got to. And to think I actually thought the rock chuck was cute-until he found my garden. Thanks Mark for making him disappear! Although I think last week I saw his wife. She got some of my lettuce so she is now on my bad list-watch out Mrs. RockChuck!)
• 4 marigold plants (still not growing after replanting 2 times. They were supposed to keep the bugs out. Next year I'll have to plant the actual plant I think).
• 16 green onion plants
• 16 green bean plants-8 per box (not sure if it was the birds or the rock chuck but we replanted all those)
• 16 garlic cloves (Those were funny to watch. Everyday it seemed like a new one was pulled out of the box and dropped a short ways off. I picked it up and replanted it. Next day same thing. I think the birds were trying to eat them but did not like the taste. So those are growing great!)
• 16 onion in one box and 16 onion in the other box. The other day Dad came over and was doing something in the yard when all of the sudden he said "Are those onion?" and headed to our garden. He complimented us on how good they looked (which means a lot coming from Dad) and said that we better be careful because one of these days they might come up missing. Great, now we not only have to worry about the 6 legged animals, the 4 legged animals, and the 2 legged animals, we have to worry about him too!
• 16 carrots (do you know how hard it is to plant carrot seeds in a wind storm? We ended up having to replant 3 of those but later have found carrots growing in a couple of our other boxes-humm. . .:)
• 2 brussel sprout plants. Mark is not sure about these plants. I have never grown them before but like brussel sprouts so am kind of excited to see if they actually grow.
• 1 Jalapeno-for homemade salsa!
• 4 Basil plants-can't wait for chicken pesto. I think I should be able to harvest some in a couple of weeks. I think I am going to have to try a basil butter for fish too. Mom said Costco puts it on their salmon and it is really good.
• 1 cilantro plant
• 18 spinach plants (only 1/2 of them grew, but so far we have had more than enough. I think I am going to have to try to cook with it too, maybe add it to some chicken pasta dish or a casserole.)
• 8 romaine lettuce seeds (once we put the cans around them we didn't have anymore trouble with the best part of the leaf being eaten. Actually those large cans from school lunch have been quite the save for us this year protecting our plants from the wind and animals. Next year we will start out with them earlier and I think we will have better luck.)
• 4 pepper plants-I think one is green, one is red, one is yellow and the other is one of those repeated. (I can't remember which)

I know I know that is awfully boring for you to read, but it nice for us to document everything we were able to get in one 4x8 foot box. We are actually talking about adding another garden box next year. We will see. It is kind of addicting! Another bonus is that so far we have only pulled 4 weeds from our garden-if you can believe it. I actually saw another one this morning but didn't have the heart to pull it yet-it is so tiny :)

We also have several other plants that are embedded into our landscape. Around the tree and rock we have peas (again), oregano, cilantro, a pepper plant, and spaghetti squash. We have a strawberry patch and a raspberry jungle. Around the water fall area we have zucchini, watermelon, summer squash, spaghetti squash, and butternut squash. The zucchini is looking amazing. The summer squash was looking good but um, Mark, do you by any chance know why its leaves are curling up like the weeds leaves next to it? :) He tried to rescue it by washing off the leaves after the spray bounced up on them, but so far it is not looking very promising, but the weeds are looking good. Thanks husband! :)

Yeah, spinach, our first harvest! (It was actually about 2 1/2 weeks ago, but it has taken us awhile to post this.) Since the time of the picture we have eaten a lot of fresh spinach. It is so nice to just go cut off a few pieces to put on your sandwich or wrap at lunchtime or pick some and make a spinach salad for dinner. We also have romaine lettuce growing beautifully. Why does it taste so much better home grown?