Kitchen Helpers

Now what do you suppose these two are up to today?

 

Last Day of First Grade

I'm sorry, is the title of this post even correct?  How on earth do we have a second grader?!?  Time flies by too fast....as you can tell by looking at how much Lily has grown.

 

 

 And CJ wanted us to know that she had bloomers on....

The 2014 Garden

For the first time over the last two years I have a summer to work on the garden that doesn't involve moving to or from Winston-Salem.  Of course, the constraints of that situation led to some pretty creative garden designs that were a lot of fun....in particular the festival of popcorn from 2012.  This year there is no popcorn, but I have implemented a lot of other fun ideas!  The trellises are back and on the back row of the garden.  They will support tomato plants and have various peppers, basil, yellow squash and nasturtium interplanted with them.

 

The rosemary bush that had lived and grown into almost a full blown shrub was killed by the extremely cold winter, so I tilled that next row completely and took advantage of the road construction next door to do a decorative border on that bed.  It has a lot of flowers in it....I've tried to consciously incorporate more color this year.  It helps that I got a pack from Johnny's that is a collection of edible flowers!

 Here is the bounty of kale...it is interplanted with broccoli and cauliflower.  These are actually the best looking plants in this group I've ever grown....probably attributable to using the row cover while they were young.

 Here are the squash mounds (you knew they'd be in there)....this year's fall squash selections include acorn, butternut and pumpkins.  I actually started them at a reasonable time....no more pumpkins in July!

 This is a scarlet runner bean....it is growing up one of the stick trellises in the rock lined bed.  The beans and flowers on this plant are edible.

 I planted radishes as a trap crop for some of the other vegetables that I actually like....they did their job and grew anyway.  Anybody interested in some radishes?

 SWEET POTATOS!  This is a first for me....I hope they turn out!

 The decorative bed....most of the plants in this bed are either herbs or flowers.

 The four plants in the background here are Calendulas....another edible flower.

 And of course I've got some gourds started and set to grow up the fence!

De-Browning the House - Phase II

So if you've ever been in our house, you'd know that is it like being in the womb of mother nature....everything is an earth tone, and most of them are various shades of brown.  We have been trying to gradually roll back the general brownness of the house by adding color to different rooms.  We began last summer by turning the dining room with deep burgundy walls into a playroom for the girls with a light gray color (Moonshine by Benjamin Moore).

 

Now we are moving on to some other rooms in the house....first up was the laundry room that went from....wait for it....its going to be a total surprise....brown! to a fun turquoise color (Biscay by Sherwin Williams).  We went with a semigloss finish to get the added clean-ability.  It was long before I was reminded how difficult it is to use semigloss paint and get a nice looking finish.  In the end (with the help of a few YouTube videos on how to paint correctly) it turned out just fine.

 

The only person who was really put out by the process was poor Bubba....messing with his food dish is like messing with his emotions.

 

Early Krop

The garden has started yielding early this year thanks to a row cover and some wonderful kale plants.  I've got two varieties going....3 red kale plants that have flatter leaves and 4 of the "curly" kale plants.  This is our third harvest from the plants.....kale chips are delicious!

Porch Pots

I put together the front porch flower pots today....went with an Emily theme.  The plant in the foreground is a sweet potato whose vine will grow down the front of the pot.  The plant in the back left is sweet thai basil, and the back right is just one that adds some leaf and flower color.

 

In one pot we've got Emily's favorite vegetable and herb, right on the front porch!

The Vertically Integrated Bonfire

The girls and I spent a sunny Sunday afternoon out at Bob and Ann's house/farm recently.  We planted corn, visited the goats, and had a bonfire.  Unfortunately the bonfire got a bit out of control when the heat from it ignited an adjacent tree on fire....20 feet in the air!  The last few pics are of Bob in his Kubota trying to knock the tree over.