what Marty has been up to

I think this year has been our best potato year...  look at these beauties! 

I'm so proud of my husband who I teasingly nickname "Marty Stewart"... he's amazing.  This week he also juiced and canned crab apple juice concentrate, and he cooked, chopped, and canned like a million pounds of chicken for our family.  Hooray for me, no more cooking chicken.  Just open the can and pop it into whatever dish I'm making.  And we're saving a bunch of money too... This makes like so much easier for this mama.

After I took this photo, he and the kids harvested all the rest of the carrots, they were big and amazing this year too.  I appreciate the garden so much more now, than when he started it 6 or so years ago.  He gets better every year.

mid-summer harvest

This is the scene I came upon as I was

walking out the door to book club the other night...

isn't this a great view??!! 

I love my family. 

Jeremy and the 4 bigger kids were deep in the strawberry patch

picking our yummy berries!

Doesn't Annika look just like

a little strawberry shortcake? 

Cuuuutie!

Some garden treats Jeremy harvested yesterday:

strawberries, cucumber, swiss chard, veronica cauliflower, eight ball squash, and rhubarb.

Here's a better picture of a Veronica type cauliflower.. I read that it is an Italian version.  The lime green color is so perfect, and they are sweet and in my humble opinion, yummier than traditional white cauliflower.  We grow both, but these are new to our garden this year ~ YUM! 

Jeremy picked and brought in the first rose of this year for me off our rose bushes... beautiful!

I can't believe we're past the mid-way point of summer (boo hoo..) but the best of our garden is yet to

come, and that is much consolation! 

Still to come?
raspberries
apples
carrots
green beans
yellow squash
zucchini
eight ball squash
broccoli
cabbages
cauliflower
onions
cucumbers
pumpkins
tomatoes
yellow peppers
herbs
potatoes
more veronica cauliflower
more swiss chard
more rhubarb
more strawberries
more spinach
more buttercrunch lettuce

goin' green in the basement

Jeremy is in full swing gardening mode.  He began planting downstairs in March, one month earlier than last year so maybe we'll have red tomatoes this year!  We have garlic, onions, herbs, tomatoes, broccoli, brussel sprouts, different squashes, cabbage, peppers, cucumbers, and more growing downstairs!  A few of the plants like lettuces, spinach, carrots, and potatoes he'll plant directly in the ground in about a month or so. 

parsley, brussel sprouts, and basil he just planted!

little cabbages

I'll post again when our rack is overflowing with plants ready to go outside and in the greenhouse!

forced bulbs

This year, we decided to try our hand at forcing

tulip and hyacinth bulbs inside!  Jeremy bought me some fun bowls

that match our kitchen and living room area and we stuck a few

bulbs in the dirt to see what happens...

Well, a few weeks later (with the aid of grow lights that are starting our tomatoes and peppers) we have plants!!!  I don't remember what I put in what, so it'll be a surprise as to which ones are

tulips and which hyacinth.  But it's fun to have new growth in the house

when it's still brown and mushy outside. 

Give it a try!  And you really don't need grow lights, but it helped!

A couple days after we planted the bulbs...

and now!  hooray!

Harvest Fun

A couple weeks ago, we invited some friends from church over for some fall fun! We all piled into our house for a potluck dinner, because it was rainy out and camp chairs on the lawn like we planned were not realistic that day. Then we headed outside for some apple picking and carrot pulling! It was so fun to see these kiddos digging into our carrot patch!!! Happy Fall!!!

big girl & garden goodies

Our baby is 18 months old! I still call her the "baby" even though now she is officially a toddler... her new words/phrases that are popping up each day:

There you go!

thank you

please

all done

uh oh

more

bye bye

Da (Dad)

Mama

cracker

good girl (she claps when she says this, cuz we always do!)

She definitely is our earliest talker! She has a fun, playful personality with a touch of spunk if you know what I mean. :) Happy 18 month birthday sweet girl!

Annika is our outside girl. She bolts for the door anytime it opens and LOVES being outside in the garden with Daddy. Here, she is modeling one of our huge carrots!

Sugar snap peas... yummmmmy!

Ginormous green beans!

A rose from one of our Big Brothers Bushy Buckets plants!

We love the color of this one.

An evening's harvest recently.

The green beans are amazing. In one night, Jeremy picked a pile that was 2 ft. long and about 1 ft. wide. We tried canning them last summer... and they were kinda yucky in my opinion. (Fresh is best!) So this year, he blanched them and froze them so we can pop them out of the freezer all winter.


Our first run at tomatoes...

veggie mania

I have to say that I'm married to the man with the greenest thumb I've even known! When we moved into our house just over 5 years ago, his dream was to have a garden and grow a few things for us to enjoy all summer. His two raised beds turned into an amazing garden with multiple beds and rows, plus a new greenhouse the he spent last summer building!

I love that he spends his time outside on his hobby, plus he's right here at home! I am taking more pride in it each year and now love taking people on a garden tour and know what each plant is and tidbits of info about them. He is experimenting in the greenhouse this year and is yielding great plants and soon fruits and veggies! Right now we have tiny cucumbers growing, little pumpkin curly-ques entangling, and tomato flowers popping up like crazy! It's SO cool!

This week he has been harvesting rhubarb, strawberries, zucchini, herbs, 8 ball squash, spinach & salad greens, and green onions!

I do a little gardening myself, except I'm in the flower business. I love making our front walk look colorful and welcoming with bright annuals and am enjoying filling up my perennial beds with columbine, tiger lilies, forget me knots, ferns, delphiniums, and daisies. They are multiplying each year and I love all the color combinations.

Our huge green bean patch. We love 'em steamed up best.

Our first go at tomato plants, pumpkins, cucumbers, peppers, corn, and fresh herbs.

We have dill, cilantro, basil, and oregano. I am loving cooking with them. Ooh, they are SO yummy! I am learning to get more creative with them as I go.

Our corn and green pepper experiments...

I took this pic at 5:30 am this morning because I happened to wake up and the sun was reddish/fuchsia and it was truly an amazing sight.. the picture didn't capture any of it! But I thought it was a good view of the garden as well.

The back row is broccoli, cabbage, swiss chard, and carrots. To the far right, there is also a full bed of carrots you can't see.)

Then we have two rows of salad fixin's: mustard greens, spinach, butter crunch lettuce, and collards. Jeremy planted the one at the bottom of the pic most recently so we have lettuces later in the summer too.

potatoes, sugar snap peas, chives, squashes, green beans....


Some flower photos...

Summer is a beautiful thing

A few nights recently, we've been enjoying frozen berries from last summer's harvest in smoothies! Annika was enjoying it and kept stealing my straw...

We have an ant hill in the middle of our driveway and the kiddos were checking it out.

ba ba time

my big sweetie girl

bountiful harvest

My super-gardener husband grows an incredible garden, if I do say so myself! I can't take any credit, I just pick it, cook with it, and eat it. I have grown to appreciate it SO much.

This year we grew cabbage (green & red), carrots, zucchini, 8 ball squash, green beans, apples, raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, green onions, sugar snap peas, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, celery, spinach, swill chard, and butter crunch lettuce! Some he starts from seeds, and for some buys starts.

He has been working extra hard this summer to build a greenhouse for next year. I call it the Taj Ma-greenhouse, it's huge! But I'm dreaming of growing tomatoes, peppers, watermelon and pumpkin in it! Who knows if the last two will work... but it's worth a try! I tell him he should start a garden consulting business, he's amazing! Here are some pictures of some of the wonderful things we've grown this year: