Avery's Garden

We've got vegetables

2010-05-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

These were taken from the deck because it was raining...but look!! We've got growth!!

Lettuces are "poofing" (as Chris said)

Grow Garden Grow!!

Time for the 2010 Garden!

2010-04-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

Yay garden season!

I have to share a funny story about my "farming" obsession. The number one thing I have wanted in my backyard is a chicken coop. Full of chickens of course. I'm not talking a thousand chickens or anything. Like five or six. Cute ones. A normal "white" chicken, a few black ones, one of those really ugly uber feathery ones. Ya know, a bunch of different ones!! Anywho, this whole gardening thing was my big idea. I wanted a garden. I had been begging Jenn's parents for years for one! So...I asked (begged, pleaded, got Avery attached to the idea) Lyz and Chris if they thought they could spare a few feet of their backyard (now a 20x25 foot section) to plant a garden. And, I got my wish!

So this year, I thought I would try for the chickens. I mean really...getting the garden was easy, what could be so hard about chickens? The CLAD backyard is ginormous! Who would notice a few chickens back by the tool shed, not in the middle of the horseshoe pit of course. So a few weeks ago, I asked Lyz. Lyz's reaction? Hysterical laughter. I let the subject drop for a bit. On Saturday I graphed out the 2010 garden plans. Actually, two plans. Ya know, just in case Chris wasn't impressed with the first one. Chris had come with Jenn to pick me up for work and I showed him the plans. (He picked plan two just in case you were curious.) On the car ride home, I decided to ask Chris about the chickens.

Heidi: Hey Chris. The garden was so much fun last year, and we're doing it this year...what if we improved on it a bit?
Chris: What do you have in mind?
H: Well, I was watching Martha (insert and eyeroll from both Chris and Jenn) the other day. We can get a whole started kit for just over $100.
C (in a very leary voice): Starter kit for what?
H: Well, chickens!
C: Dead silence. Um. No.
H: But it would be so fun!
C: They smell. They are a pain in the butt.
H: But they lay fresh eggs! And then we could have bbq!*
C: If I was going to add any animals to the backyard farming project I would do rabbits.
H: Ok, fine then. Can we build a grape trellis and grow grapes?
C: Fine me some good plans for a grape trellis and we will grow grapes.

In all reality this conversation went much longer than the above. But it was fun! When we got to CLAD's, we walked in and heard Chris saying to Lyz "She wants CHICKENS! I compromised and we are doing grapes instead." Lyz's response? "Maybe she tricked you. Maybe all she wanted was a grape trellis, so she thought she would start with something more complicated so that the grape trellis would seem simple and doable." Lyz is so smart. So next year I am going to beg for a cow. Maybe chickens won't seem so complicated then!

So....Here is Garden 2010. We will also be using http://www.thinkingmiraclegrow.blogspot.com/ blog this year, so feel free to bookmark it too!

This year we planted:
Cucumbers (from seeds)
Watermelon (from seeds)
Big Pumpkins (from seeds-not planted yet, we want to wait a bit. Last years pumpkins rotted way before Halloween)
Little Pumpkins (from seeds-not planted yet, we want to wait a bit. Last years pumpkins rotted way before Halloween)
Snow Peas (from seeds)
Lettuce (from seeds-2 rows)
Broccoli (from seeds)
Brussel Sprouts (from seeds)
Radishes (from seeds)
Potatoes (from seed potatoes)
Strawberries (from seedlings)
Tomatoes (from seedlings)
Corn (from seeds-4 rows)

We are so excited!! I cannot wait to see things starting to grow. We are going to have a Summer full of yummy salads and stir fries! And of course, I have some pictures to share!!!
Planting potatoes (the other little girl is a friend of Avery's from Preschool):

Tomatoes and the Snow Pea fence:

Planting Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts and Radishes:

Planting Corn:

Watering/Playing in mud:

Garden Check 7/27/09--and Yummy Food!!

2009-07-28T06:28:00.000-07:00

Check out our garden!

Our pumpkins have started to really grow!

The cantaloupes finally look like cantaloupes:

The carrots have grown to ginormous proportions, and while I did not get a picture of an actual carrot, here is Jenn, Chris and Avery looking at them:

For dinner we had a bounty of food from the garden. Corn on the cob, green beans, cucumbers, and carrots (with butter and brown sugar of course). It was so yummy and everything tasted extra wonderful because we grew it all ourselves!!

Yummy!

Garden Check 7-12-2009

2009-07-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

Dude. Avery's Garden ROCKS!!!
Some more pickings of carrots, and a few radishes from the new crop:

Radishes still growing strong:

A jungle of Carrots:

Soon we won't be able to see Avery at all through the corn!:

Green beans (they need to thicken up a little bit...but they sure taste good!):

Lopes:

Future Pumpkins:

Check out the size of the pumpkin leaves!!:

Oh My Gosh My Goodness!!!!!

2009-07-10T10:52:00.001-07:00

Do you see what I see?????? Cantaloupes!!! Chris found them! They haven't been eaten alive by the cucumber plants as we once believed!!! Yummy!!

Garden Check 7/3

2009-07-04T05:15:00.000-07:00

Seriously. It has only been 2 weeks since our last check and I swear the garden has more than doubled!!! We've eaten radishes, sweet peas, cucumbers, and a few carrots!!

Jenn, Lyz and Avery harvesting some of the carrots:

Lyz lost in a jungle of carrots:

Avery showing off a carrot:

Radishes 2.0 growth:

Baby green beans:

The cucumbers have taken over the garden...they have grown through the green beans and moved into the spot where we took out the sweet pea plants.

We learned two lessons in this. First, next year we will have to put some chicken wire or something up for the sweet peas to climb. Apparently they don't do a very good job of growing if you just lay them on the soil. Second...we need to give the cucumbers more space next year. I don't remember them taking over the garden we had growing up like this. But then in my head the garden we had growing up was like three acres big, which would be impossible since my parents don't have that much land.
The flower of a pumpkin to be:

We plan on growing the biggest, prettiest pumpkin we can and having Avery enter it in the local 4H competition. She planted the seeds and waters the pumpkins specifically so that she is in full participation of the pumpkin growing.
And oh my word the corn. Can you spot the 3 1/2 year old in this picture??

It even has cute little baby corns growing!:

We are so proud of our garden! Lyz and I were eating a bit of cucumber last night and it tasted even better because we knew we grew it! It is so amazing what a garden can give you. Now yes, we only got one harvest of sweet peas before those plants gave up, and we have no idea what happened to the cantaloupe. They could be somewhere under the monster cucumber plant, but we can't find it!! But everything else is beautiful and plentiful!! Yippeee for our garden!!

Garden Check 6/21

2009-06-21T08:08:00.000-07:00

Oh My Goodness!! This garden is growing like a weed!!!!!

The radishes were harvested last week. So Chris replanted...and look! They are already so big!!

We have sweet peas!!!!

The carrots are getting so tall!

And check out the corn!!!

Look!!! A cucumber!!

The whole garden:

A Visit to the Garden

2009-05-23T16:59:00.000-07:00

We just visited the garden two days ago. It absolutley blows my mind how much has changed in just two days. Avery and family went out of town for the holiday weekend so Jenn and I stopped by to water it today...

and guess what?!?!?!?

We have GREEN BEAN PLANTS!! Finally!

An update on the rest of the plants:
The Cucumbers have flowers!:

Corn:

Radishes:

Carrots:

SweetPeas:

Lopes:

Pumpkins...kinda worried about them:

And cause I thought they looked very good today...Marigolds:

Grow Garden Grow!!!

Oh, and our robins...they left the nest. We missed it. :( But some Googling showed us that robins lay more than one set of eggs each season...so we will wait for the next set.

Weeding and Replanting

2009-05-16T19:39:00.001-07:00

Those radishes are some easy things to grow. Or maybe Chris just used his Mennonite heritage when he planted them. Over the last few days the one row of corn that Avery and I planted have really grown. And the carrots!! Two rows of them are really taking shape!! Go Lyz!

Over the last week we have spent some time here and there weeding. Or degrassing would probably be the better description. Lyz is turning 30 on June 6th and we are planning a big party at their house to celebrate. We want the garden to look very good when people come visit it. We want to be impressive. As of right now, only those radishes are impressive!!

So Jenn and I went over today to finish degrassing and to replant the things that aren't growing. We filled in the two rows of corn that just don't seem to be sprouting. We planted two new rows of green beans since they didn't come up at all. We had 6 sweet pea plants that grew, so we filled in there. And we filled in the carrot rows where there were big gaps.

I must say that the garden looks quite beautiful!! See:

You can see the plentiful radishes on the left...next the carrots, and a few of the pea plants. In the back is the corn.

More pictures:

Oh...and have I shown you the triplets?

HATCHED

2009-05-07T19:41:00.000-07:00

This afternoon my phone rang and when I said hello the person on the other end of the phone was talking so fast, so high pitched, so excited that I could barely understand a word of it.

After listening twice I realized that Avery was telling me that two of her eggs hatched!!!

The two sweet little birdies are kinda ugly to be quite honest.

Lyz said that when they walked out to get the mail Avery asked to see into the nest. Lyz said okay and then realized as she looked up that there was a little tiny beak peeking over the edge of the nest. She ran into the house to get a chair to stand on so that her and Avery could both look in together. The two hatched birdies streched their little necks up trying begging to be fed. After realizing that they weren't getting fed they put their heads back down all tired and exhausted looking. Lyz also said there is a hole in the third egg, so we think that it will be hatching soon!

Stayed tuned for some more gardening. Lyz weeded quite a bit today. Thank you Lyz!!

What a difference a few days makes!

2009-04-28T18:09:00.000-07:00

Lyz and I had decided that if there were no new sprouts by tonight, we would replant after the softball game.

Our phone rang at 4:30. It was a very excited Avery! She called to let us know that there were pumpkin sprouts and pea shoots and corn stalks growing!! She also made us promise that we would come over tonight and see all the new stuff!!

Of course we would come over and see the new growth!!

Look how much the radishes have grown in five days:

Avery showing off one batch of pumpkins:

And the giant pumpkins:

Corn is growing too:

Hmm...somehow I forgot to get a picture of the peas!!

So now we are only missing cucumbers, cantaloupes, carrots and green beans. I think I see some carrots growing...but it is hard to tell because we missed a little bit of the grass when we were taking it out of the ground.

Farmer Chris is enjoying inspecting the work:

In other growth news...our eggs have multiplied!

Look!! Radish sprouts!!

2009-04-23T18:55:00.000-07:00

See those cute little sprouts? Yeah!! We have radish sprouts!! Avery was so very excited to show us!

Nothing else is growing. We are going to give it a few more days and if nothing else has shown up, we will replant. We may have done the planting a bit on the early side because we have had quite a few nights where it has gotten close to freezing, so we will just wait and see.

There is even more growth going on at Avery's house. On the front porch there is a fake ficus tree. In the fake ficus tree a happy robin couple has built a nest. Now there are two beautiful eggs in the nest. We are all excited to keep an eye on the nest and watch the eggs "grow up"!

We have sprouting!!

2009-04-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

We received a very excited phone call this afternoon from Avery.

The radishes are sprouting!!!

We shall go visit them tomorrow and come back with pictures of our happy little sprouts!!!

The rain held off...SO WE PLANTED!!!

2009-04-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

After I got off work we all decided that the rain was holding off, so we could just plant today and get our little seeds all started! So exciting.

We had no sooner got in the car then Avery called Jenn to tell her just how excited she was and that all the seed packets were ready and waiting!

The first seed to go in was corn. Avery and I planted one row and Jenn and Lyz each planted a row, while Chris planted radishes:

We also planted snap peas, carrots, cantaloupes, cucumbers, pumpkins and GIANT pumpkins.

Putting in the GIANT pumpkin seeds:

Once everything was planted we gave the garden a really good watering:

After we were finished working on the garden, Jenn and Chris decided to pull some huge bushes out of the front of the house, Joni wasn't thrilled:

Chris's truck did most of the work:

And then they were gone:

An hour after all the planting was done Avery already wanted to go outside and check and see if anything had grown yet. It will be one to two weeks before we start seeing sprouts, and if all goes well, within 45 days we should be harvesting our first radishes!!

The "Manly" work

2009-04-10T08:18:00.000-07:00

Today the garden is officially under way. Jenn met Chris over at the house at 7:30am so they could go rent the rototiller and get started on making the ground ready for planting. There was a heavy forecast of rain...but it held off for them to finish their job.

Learning how to use it:

Loading it into the car:

Garden Before:

(please note the paint line so that we wouldn't go outside of our prescribed measurements)

Avery looking on while daddy tills:

Jenn's turn:

Look Jenn, I found a worm!:

Avery raking out the rocks:

Ready for planting:

If it wasn't for the fact that it is supposed to rain alllll day long, we would so plant this afternoon. But, we need to wait for the rain to hold off for a bit and then planting will begin!!!

How does your garden grow?

2009-04-10T08:15:00.000-07:00

A few months back Lyz and I were talking on the phone and somehow we got on the subject of gardens. Lyz mentioned that Avery wanted to plant one, and I answered back that I have wanted to plant one for years!

Thus began the planning of Avery's Garden.

Me, being oh so organized in everything but my home, started a file:

Then a few weeks ago Chris and I went outside into their backyard and measured off the area he was willing to sacrifice to the gardening effort.

Once I had that information, and the list of what we want to plant, I drew up a plan:

Can't wait to get started!!