Spring Garden

We have been busy as ever around here but I am finally making time to post something besides my monthly picture pot. And that something is my always exciting annual garden post! Lol! Eric put in three new herb beds (top right photo) for me this year at the edge of the yard where they will get the most sun, cooking with fresh herbs is such a pleasure don't you think?

Echo's garden (top left photo) is growing pole beans, squash and sunflowers this year.

We planted two small plum trees this year and they have two tiny plums on them. Hopefully we won't manage to kill them as we have ever other fruit tree we've tried so far :-(

Our blueberries are finally starting to be more productive this year and it's giving me great hopes for future blueberry crops.

 This isn't a great picture but you can kind of see the bean tepees we put in for the kids (which have sugar snap peas growing on them). I'm also growing tomatillos, ground cherries, cabbage, cilantro and tomatoes in my raised beds.

My trellis garden has sugar snap peas as well and we have been enjoying them in stir fries and eating them frsh.

The magnolia tree has been particularly lovely this year so I had to get a shot of that in here :-).

And of course no post is complete without some shots of the kids ;-P I love this because it is so indicative of their personalities, Echo in her bare feet and Clover in her boots (that girl loves boots!).

Annual Garden Photos

 Here is my little update on how my garden is panning out this year. As usually happens when I take garden pictures, the garden is actually much more lush now than when I snapped these photos. Oh well, I can't seem to keep up with these plants and the way they are shooting up like crazy :-)

Things have actually been growing really well in the garden over the past few weeks. After getting off to a slow start my plants have really been thriving on the combination of sunshine, heat and plentiful rain we have been having. So far my plan for growling low maintenance herbs and veggie has been coming along beautifully. In the top two photos we have my lemon grass on the left and cilantro (which is going to seed now that the weather is heating up) on the right

Here we have tomatillos on the left and cucumbers on the right.

And the ground cherry seeds that I saved from my plants last year actually sprouted and are doing well! I will have to try saving more seeds this year.

I'm growing a ton of poll beans this year. Previously I have just done bush beans but the poll beans are growing like crazy so maybe they are the way to go! Of course they haven't produced beans yet, just very large vines, so I will have to see how much they actually yield.

Echo's garden is actually doing the best of all! It is packed to the brim and producing lots of flowers, carrots, bush beans and catnip!

A Zinnia from Echo's garden, they are great for cutting and decorating our table.

The Rosemary that we planted by our mailbox a few years ago has exploded! We will never be short of Rosemary that's for sure.

A trellis box with poll beans and cucumbers, it is so much more overgrown now than when I took this photo just a week ago!

I also treated myself to a few new house plants this Spring (seriously, my house plant obsession is getting out of hand). I have a gorgeous Split Leaf Philodendron on the left and an African Violet on the right.

And last but not least a Gumby Jade Plant. I have been wanting one of these for a while.

My herbs didn't get pictured much but they are also coming along nicely and have been great for cooking with this Spring. It's fun to learn a little bit more about gardening and feel like I am being a bit more successful every year. I'm excited about the prospect of having larger yields this year (although it means having less variety). Hopefully I won't let everything die while I am recovering from surgery!

Our Most Disorganized Garden Year Yet!

I'm not the most organized gardener to begin with but let me tell you, gardening with an enthusiastic toddler is something else altogether! This year I gave Echo her very own raised bed and took her to Pikes to pick out seeds for it. In her garden she is growing catnip, nasturtiums, carrots and zinnias, I think she only picked the cat nip because it had a picture of a cat on the seed packet! In my garden I decided to focus on easy to grow herbs this year since I'm not sure how well I'll be feeling after my surgery and I don't know if I'll be up for much gardening work. I'm growing several types of basil, oregano, thyme, parsley, dill and lemon grass. I'm also trying tomatillos again since those did so well last year and some lima beans that came free with my seed  order.

I have pretty massive seed starting operation going and as usual I jumped the gun putting everything out side and now it's supposed to freeze again this weekend (oops). I have absolutely no idea what anything in any of these pots is. Planting seeds with Echo is chaos and everything got completely mixed around. I'm feeling very relaxed about the garden though, it's much more important to me that Echo participate in the gardening and have than that everything is neat and tidy. Besides, since I am mostly growing herbs this year it should be easy to tell what they are as soon as they get a little bigger. I hope that Echo with have fond memories of gardening with her mommy that will last her the rest of her life.

Salsa Verde

It's my due date and no sign of baby Clover making an appearance any time soon so it's more blogging to keep me occupied! Of course this could all turn on a dime so I'm still holding out hope that she will be on her way shortly :-)

The biggest and best surprise of my garden this year was the tomatillo plants! I haven't ever had any luck growing tomatoes and after this year I probably won't try them again. Tomatillos on the other hand turned out to have a number of benefits. First of all they are crazy easy to grow, a must for a lazy gardener like me. Secondly they produce abundant fruit, so you actually end up with enough ready at one time to make something with them. They are also really beautiful plants, the fruits look like little paper lanterns and last but not least they taste great!

The only down side is that it can be hard to find tomatillo seeds in stores but this is an easy fix thanks to the internet. I ordered mine from and heirloom seed company on etsy and they turned out beautifully. Personally I am in love with tomatillo salsa so I used my last harvest to make this simple and delicious recipe.

Ingredients
1 lb fresh tomatillos
3 tbs diced onion
1 jalapeno, diced (I seeded and deveined mine to cut back on the spicy but if you want it hotter you could leave the seeds)
Juice of one lime
1 Tbs chopped cilantro
cumin and salt to taste

Peel and rinse your tomatillos (hint, peeling tomatillos is a great job for a toddler, Echo loved helping with this!) and place in a saucepan of boiling water. Simmer tomatillos until soft but not mushy, they turn a duller shade of green when they are cooked. Transfer to a bowl and combine with other ingredients. Blend with an emersion blender until smooth (or you could do this in a food processor). Enjoy! That's really all there is to it and it is so fresh and delicious tasting.

I bet this would be a great recipe for canning as well but I didn't have the energy this year. Next year I will definitely be growing tomatillos again and I may try to can a few jars then. If you are in to gardening I really recommend trying to grow these little guys, I was so pleasantly surprised by them and have been enjoying them all Summer :-)

Absence Makes the Garden Grow Larger

The garden area looking lush.

Last week I went on a little five day mini vacation to visit my brother in DC and while I was gone my garden shot up like crazy! Ok, so I realize posts about my garden are not interesting to anyone but me. However it's my blog so I'll do what I want ;-P Seriously though, I like to be able to look back and compare things year to year so I find it helpful to record this kind of thing here.

Let me tell you, my garden is a great big hot mess this year! That being said it's also shaping up to be my most successful gardening year to date. There is a lot going on here that I am excited about and a lot that could be done waayyy better in the future but it's all pretty fun and exciting to watch.

My first problem is that I totally mixed up all my seeds when I was starting them inside and now I have no idea what things are (blame my pregnancy brain). For example the photo on the above left could be of zucchini or of acorn squash, I really don't know which. If it is zucchini it could be one of several varieties. The above right photo could be ground cherries or tomatillos, apparently the plants look similar and I can't figure out what it is by looking online (at least not in a the amount of time I'm willing to spend on it which is not much).

My other biggest problem is that I have things planted much too closely together. I know not to do this but I always end up doing it every year. I get way too excited and try to squeeze in as much as possible without allowing enough room for plants to spread. *Sigh* maybe someday I'll learn :-)

Bush beans flowering

 One the plus side things are growing splendidly out in the gardens and everything is just beginning to bloom which is very exciting. I've also been able to grow some things that I have never had success with in the past such as carrots (seriously, these are supposed to be so easy!) and cilantro (I was about to give up on this but gave it one more try) and they are turning out great this time around!

Cilantro

Moving the gardens to a sunnier location has really paid off and we have been lucky enough to have a nice rainy spring which has made taking care of the garden really easy.

Lettuce and carrots

Now if I can only figure out what everything I've planted actually is then I will be in business! I have high hopes for successful crops of some kind or another as the Summer progresses though!

The Best Garden Year Ever

Garden area with new beds. It's looking a little messy right now because I have lots of pots of seedlings going but once I transplant them I can clean things up a bit. 

Or so I hope! I am always highly optimistic at the beginning of the gardening year though so we'll see ;-) Last year I had to abandon my raised beds at the top of our lawn because it was just too shady to get anything to grow properly there. There isn't a ton of sunny space in our yard but we are trying to do the best with what we have and Eric put in 3 new raised beds up by our mailbox which is generally the area that gets the most sun for us. He had to take out two more of our holly bushes which is sad but they were ailing anyway and hopefully the results will be worth it.

Radishes, kale and garlic

 Eric used cedar to make the beds this time to try to keep the bugs out of the wood and they turned out really pretty. Unfortunately I got a little mixed up when i was starting my seeds inside and now I totally don't know what some of the things I planted are, oops... Hopefully it will become clear as they get bigger. To further complicate my gardening Echo loves to "help" me when I work out there. This means that a lot of things get pulled up and scattered around but seeing her enjoy the outside and starting a tradition of gardening with her at a young age is totally worth it! I don't take my gardening too seriously so it's no big deal, plus I usually have way more seeds than I have room to plant things so whenever she pulls something up I can always replace it.

Another view of the new gardens

The pictures I'm posting here are a little old and most of the radishes have been harvested already. In the new beds I have a healthy crop of bush beans, cucumbers, zucchini, watermelon and carrots coming up (also a mystery plant that I have no memory of what it is, maybe time will tell?). It's always so exciting to grow things from seed and see the little spots of green start to poke up. It's even more exciting to make a meal with ingredients grown from your own garden!

Salmon cakes and salad, this was ridiculously tasty!

For the above recipe I got to use kale and radishes from my garden in the salad garlic chives in the sauce (which also used Eric's home made yogurt as a base). Although I don't yet provide a substantial portion of what we eat from my garden there is nothing quite as satisfying as growing your own food. Hopefully by moving to a sunnier location and planting things that are easy to grow I can have the best year ever in my garden.

Late Summer Gardening

This year should have been great for my gardening with all the rain we've been having. Unfortunately I've determined that the place where we put my raised bed gardens is just too shady and nothing really turned out well. The Spring crops did pretty well (before the leaves really came in on the trees) but everything this Summer has been a great big flop. 

Forever an optimist, I got Eric to build me some new raised beds in a sunnier location and am planting some late Summer crops. Hopefully there will be enough sunshine for these to give me a good harvest this Fall.

On the positive side, the things I planted on the back deck in pots actually did pretty well for the most part. I have a bunch of bush beans out that there that have been producing really well and the herb garden has absolutely exploded! I went out to check the herbs the other day and was excited to find two caterpillars which will one day become swallowtail butterflies! They were munching away on my parsley and I was happy to let them have some since it doesn't kill the plant and it will be worth it to have some lovely butterflies around :-)

Our other big gardening success was our blueberry bushes which produced really well this year for their size, if all goes well they should continue to get bigger and produce even more berries next year.

So wish me luck on my new gardening endeavors. I've never been much good at this stuff but I swear I will figure it out some day!

Garden Updates

It's been a while since I posted updated photos of my garden. Every now and then I like to put on my macro lens and take some close ups of the things I have growing, I always think they are so pretty!It's been another learning year with some successes and some failures. With the way our trees have grown in I just don't have enough sun to grow some things with the garden in it's current location. I may look in to changing this next year or I might just stick to growing things that can tolerate some shade. Anyway, here's what I have going on in the garden this month.

Peas

Cherry tomatoes 

Wax beans

Swiss chard

Cayenne peppers

Cucumber

Blueberries

Raspberries

Bush beans

I have a lot of things in the works but not a lot ready to harvest yet. I did get a decent sized radish crop and I've already harvested most of my beautiful lettuce for salads. Looking forward to trying some of my veggies that will be ready latter in the season!

Gibbs Gardens

Entryway to the gardens

This week I had the pleasure of exploring Gibbs Gardens with my family on a beautiful Spring day! I don't usually write travel posts on this blog because the focus of it is the home but for attractions around the Atlanta Area I make an exception. Gibbs Gardens are located in Ball Ground, GA near Big Canoe and it took us about an hour to get there from Marietta.

The gardens have the largest fernery in the nation as well as 24 ponds, 32 bridge crossings and 19 waterfalls

The gardens only opened last year and include 220 acres of public gardens. The property is owned by Jim Gibbs and his home is on the grounds, he also has an additional 72 acres which he plans to develop in the future. We actually ran in to Mr. Gibbs during our visit and he was lovely, he invited us to sit on the rockers on his front porch and take in the sites. We also got to visit with his amazingly friendly cat who hopped right up in our laps much to Echo's delight.

Echo enjoying her visit to the gardens

 The grounds include a fernery, rose gardens, waterlily gardens, daylily gardens as well as gardens dedicated to crape myrtle, daffodil, hydrangea, rhododendron, azalea and a sculpture garden depicting Mr.s Gibbs' grandchildren at play.

Japanese maples 

One of the many garden statues

The Manor House, the Gibbs family lives here on the property

 One of the things I thought was really cool about This place is that you can actually walk around the owner's home and in our case we even got to meet him. All they ask is that you don't peak in the windows but you are welcome to enjoy their rocking chairs or sit by their pool. The walk to the manor house is lovely and winds gently up hill but you can also take a tram up there if you aren't up for the incline.

Another view of the house

Gibbs Gardens are also home to the largest Japanese gardens in the country. They've mixed in Japanese plants with Georgia native plants so the overall effect was less Japanese than I was expecting but they have a number of interesting statues and beautiful water features.

Japanese gardens 

Exit from the Japanese gardens

A replica of Monet's bridge. I'm told it's more impressive when the waterlilies are in bloom

Overall the gardens were enchanting and such a pleasant day trip. We sped through them in about 2 and half hours but I could have taken a lot longer if I had lingered more. This is definitely a worth while day trip for anyone in the Atlanta area.