Tuesday Garden Party #3

Lots and lots of new stuff in our garden and yard this week!  Sod, flowers, dirt, sand, vegetables and herbs! 

 This picture makes me just a little sad.  You see, our backyard playset used to sit here, but as it was in pretty bad shape and my kids had mostly outgrowning it, we took it down last fall.  In it's place was a big bare dirt spot.  Hubby and the kids spent most of Monday afternoon and evening laying sod and filling it in with river sand.  It looks so much better!

 An up-close look at some of their hard work.  If you have never laid sod, let me tell you ,it is hard, dirty work and I appreciate all their efforts.

 I just had to show off my lavendar rhododendron. It is full of blooms, with more buds growing.  It looked better, but we had a rain shower right before I took this picture.

This lovely little lady will be finding a permanent home in my peony bed is a couple of days.  I got her for a STEAL at Home Depot this weekend as she was just about bloomed out and no one wanted her.  Don't they know she will be even more beautiful next year?  I'm thrilled add her to my peony garden as all my others are double blooms, so this single bloom will be a interesting addition.

And here is my next project -- peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and melons all waiting to be planted.  I planted some last week, but lost my 2 cucumbers to a late frost.  I thought I'd  lost 2 tomato plants too, but they seem to be recovering quite well.  I also have bean seed to plant along the back of each bed.  I'm going to try to get them to grow on the trellis, we will see just how trainable beans are. 

I ran out of dirt a couple of weeks ago, so this bed needs to be amended and then my basil will go in.  I'm planting 3 plants now and will add another 3 in a couple of weeks.  I only planted 3 last year and we ran out of pesto in December.  I'm hoping this will be enough for several pints to freeze. 

Thanks for joining my lawn and garden tour.  I'm linking up to An Oregon Cottage's Tuesday Garden Party.

Tuesday Garden Party #2

I posted a few weeks ago about my struggle with weeds in my raised beds.  Here they are, weed free (at least for the moment) and ready to plant!

I amended most of the beds with fertilizer and enriched dirt.  I also treated for vermin.  I have fought squash bugs for the past 2 years and I lost half of my strawberries to ants last year, so I mixed in some bug killer, trying to avoid those issues.   

And here are my remaining strawberries (This bed was full of strawberries, but due to the ant infestation last year, this is all that are left.)  Look at all those blooms and infant berries!  Our very warm spring has caused them to bloom early, I just hope we don't have a late season frost...   I have ordered 30 more strawberry plants, just waiting on them to arrive and get those in the ground as well.
 

This weekend I will begin planting tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.  Hopefully by mid June I will have my first homegrown salad. 

Linking up at

Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage

Tuesday Garden Party 2012 #1

The Tuesday Garden Party has returned at An Oregon Cottage.  And as luck would have it I started working on my garden this weekend.  I spent a great deal of time dealing with these

 

Weeds, weeds, and more weeds.  Our mild winter here in Georgia has created a bumper crop of weeds in all my flower beds and especially my raised vegetable beds.  I have tried Jamie's no till method of covering my beds with plastic to kill the weeds, but here in GA that only creates a haven for sugar ant and their infernal anthills and after loosing my entire strawberry crop to those sugar ants last year, pulling weeds it is for me.  And as much as I don't really want to I'm going to have to treat the weeds and put down a pre-emergent to keep the weeds from taking over anything I plant this year.  I'm in for at least 3 weeks of work before I even get a plant in the ground.  Those homegrown tomatoes, cucumbers and jalapenos will be worth it later on!

Tuesday Garden Party - May 10

The garden is looking great and producing a great deal of strawberries.  These are just the ones we picked the last 2 days.  They are destined for our Spinach Strawberry Salad tonight.

Here is my little garden helper planting basil and tomatoes.  She really likes working in the garden and gets so excited when things start to grow and produce. 

We also have spinach and lettuce shooting up as well as carrots and green onions.  The zucchini and cucumbers are growing too.  And the garlic is just taking off.  We have had a good amount of rain and cooler than normal temperatures, which have helped everything get off to a good start.  You can see part of the garden in the background below.

For more wonderful looking gardens check out the Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage.

Tuesday Garden Party - The Great Strawberry Experiment

The strawberries are coming, the strawberries are coming, the strawberries are coming!  We harvested our first strawberries this week and it is really exciting.  We have watched them bloom and grow for the past few weeks and picking those first new berries was wonderful.

 I planted these last year and diligently did not let them fruit or run.  Do you know how hard that was????  But we are being rewarded with many, many berries on each plant.  I did a bit of an experiment when I planted these.  I planted half the bed with inexpensive non-named plants from Lowe's and the other half with Seascape plants I ordered from the Burpee catalog.  I wanted to see if there really was a difference. Boy is there!  The non-named plants from Lowes have a lot of berries, but they are TINY and not very sweet.  The Seascape plants are full of medium to large size berries that have a delicious flavor.  I am contemplating pulling up the no name plants at the end of the summer and replanting with more Seascape next year.  We will see how things end up at the end of the growing season. 

I hope to have enough strawberries for us to eat through out the summer and make at least one batch of strawberry jam. 

For more garden fun visit the Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage.

Tuesday Garden Party - April 19th

 These are my roses, not so great looking.  They are a mess actually.  Usually at this time of year they are orderly and in the process of filling out to produce beautiful pink, white and yellow roses.  Not this year.  As I was preparing to cut them back several weeks ago, I found this....

A momma cardinal sitting on 3 lovely speckled eggs in a nest she made in my yellow rose bush.  There was no way I was cutting my roses back and jeopardizing Momma Cardinal and her three babies.  So, I will just have to do without my usual gorgeous display of roses this summer. 

Sharing at The Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage

Tuesday Garden Party

I just love Spring in the South!  Here's what's been blooming in my yard the past 2 weeks.

 Forsythia

 Flowering Almond

 Tulips

The last picture of my Bradford Pear.  A HUGE part of it broke off in a storm 3 days after this picture was taken.  We have an tree service coming to cut it down next week. :-(

Linked up to Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage

Tuesday Garden Party - Seasonal Recipes

I have not participated in the Tuesday Garden Party since school started in August.  I am thrilled to find a little bit of time to link up a post about they yummy food we have been eating from our summer harvest.

Our favorite has been the pesto we made from our abundance of basil.  We love this on pizza, on sandwiches and in the new family favorite Spinach Ravioli Lasagna.  We are already lamenting the fact that there is only ONE container of pesto in the freezer.  I have already promised to plant more basil next year.

photo credit - Southern Living Magazine (www.myrecipes.com)

We continually enjoy the jams and jellies we made this summer.  Spiced Cherry Jam, Jalapeno Pepper Jelly and Strawberry Jalapeno Jam are among our very favorites.  The kids can't get enough of the Grape Jelly we made, but that one really doesn't count, as I purchased organic, unsweetend juice to make it. 

Finally, we just adore the Roasted Tomato (Veggie) Sauce from An Oregon Cottage.  Our favorite way to serve it is over cheese ravioli with lots of fresh parmesan cheese. 

Linked to Tuesday Garden Party

Tuesday Garden Party #9

Finally a Harvest!

This is more like it!  I just love it when everything in the garden starts to produce at the same time.  In my basket this morning are a couple of strawberries (saved from the chipmunks), Roma and Early Girl Tomatoes, the first cucumber, banana peppers, jalapeno peppers and green peppers.

The strawberries, tomaotes and cucumber will be our lunch today.  The banana peppers and a couple of the green peppers will be made into Sweet and Sour Pepper Relish.  The rest of the green peppers and jalapenos will be made into Jalapeno Pepper Jelly. 

The Jalapeno Pepper Jelly is a TNT recipe from the Ball Blue Book.  I will post it in the next few days, after I make the jelly.  The relish is from the Ball Blue Book too.  I have not made it before, so will hold off on posting for a couple of weeks, until I know it is worth eating. 

For more great garden posts, visit Jami at An Oregon Cottage for her Tuesday Garden Party.

Also posted It's A Blog Party for Weekend Warriors. 

Tuesday Garden Party #8

This is my entire garden, minus the blueberry bushes.  It has finally taken off, however I found squash borers in my yellow squash and one of my zuchinni plant today.  YUGH!!!!  I thought I had those taken care of.....apparently not!

These beautiful banana peppers will be either in my salad or on my pizza tonight.

My cucumbers are coming right along.  We had 2 inches of rain in the past 2 days and these babies are GROWING.  I just might have one to eat by Saturday.

Aren't these just lovely??

Most of this basil (this is acutally 3 plants that have grown together) will be pesto, happily living in my freezer, by the end of the week.

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I harvested most of my jalapenos last week to make salsa.  I have  this guys and a couple of others that are much smaller.  I need them to get bigger so I can make some pepper jelly.

To see some more awesome and inspiring gardens, visit Jami's Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage. 

Garden Party #7

                                                       

Jamie's theme for this week's Garden Party was all about getting back to the basics.  That is truly the reason I have a backyard garden.  Some of my fondest summer memories are of spending a week at a time on my grandparents farm in eastern Kentucky.  It was a working farm.  My Papal grew tobacco and bell peppers to sell commercially.  My Granny had a HUGE vegetable and fruit garden that provided most of the fruits and vegetables for our family.  I still can't eat green beans out of a can from the store!  My favorite lunch was to go to the garden, pick a tomato and cucumber from the garden and eat them when they were still warm from the sunshine. 

Each summer I would go help her shell peas, string beans, make applesauce, blackberry jelly and a million other treats.  Last summer I started making my own jams and jellies, just like my Granny does, even calling her for advice and suggestions.   I hope one day, my own children and grandchildren will ask me for advice on how to make jelly, can beans or pickle cucumbers.  I will be more that thrilled to share all I have learned from my Granny.

Now, here is what my little backyard garden looks like this week.

Just look at those tiny cucumbers!  Can't wait to put one on my salad.

My herbs are doing great, especially the basil.  I have already made one batch of pesto and I believe I will make at least one or two more this week.

This is my first ripe non-Roma tomato.  I believe he will have a special place of honor on my dinner table tomorrow night.

Look at this beauty!  I have about 5 more just a bit smaller that this one.  Once they all are ready, they will make a wonderful batch of greenpepper jelly. 

For more great gardens, jump on over to the Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage.

Also linked to Weekend Warriors at It's a Blog Party

Tuesday Garden Party #6

Harvest Time

My Roma tomatoes are looking fantastic.  There are about 10 more on the vine in varying stages of ripeness.  I hope to dry these in my dehydrator and make sun-dried tomatoes this week.

The pitiful onions are the only ones I could rescue from the chipmunks.  They had eaten all the others. 

I found potato beetles on my potato vines this morning, so I sprayed them and then dug up a couple of potatoes to see if they were healthy underground.  Luckily, so far so good. 

Dinner tonight consisted of the potatoes and onions roasted with zucchini, yellow squash and baby portabella mushrooms.  I had to buy the squash and zucchini because mine keep getting infested with the squash vine borer.  UGGGHHHH!!!  I just can't get rid of those things.

Tuesday Garden Party #5

15 Days away from home with my garden in the hands of my husband proved to be not quite as disastrous as I had feared.  DH did make sure everything was watered and he even pulled a few weeds, but pest control was just more than he could handle.  However, while I lost a few things, most of my garden is looking good.  I am looking forward to big harvests in the next 3 -4 weeks.

I had to replant my zucchini as grub worms had decided to make their home in the stalks.  I am the only person on the planet that cannot grow zucchini!   I planted my cucumbers very late, can't wait for them to start producing! See those little tomato plants?  They are volunteers from last year.  They are growing between my raised bed and garden box.  I am going to leave them there and see what happens....

My red, white and sweet potatoes seem happy enough.  There is however an ant colony in this bed that I have been unsuccessful at getting of.  I hope they are not wreching havoc on my lovely potatoes....

My broccoli fell victim to caterpillars while I was gone.  I am going to try again in the fall.  My Roma tomoatoes are doing very well.  They are a bit on the small side, but there are alot of them.  Four of them are just starting to turn, so I expect a homegrown tomato on my menu this week. 

To see more fantastic gardens, stop by and see Jamie at An Oregon Cottage.