Salad

One thing I love about Texas is the long growing season. Right now we have everything for salad right in out backyard.

Here are the cucumbers. We even have some peppers still growing. We also have onions and peas in this box.

Here we have different types of lettuce, some carrots, and radish. We also have some broccoli plants just starting.

These boxes have our 4 artichoke plants and our strawberries.

Our other two boxes have eggplant, more carrots, celery, and squash growing. I just love the garden. It is a great learning experience for the kids and it saves me so much money.

Gardening

With all my free time this past week I have gotten a lot done. My garden has been top on my list of to dos. So far I have planted squash, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, corn, beans, celery, and onions. I also already have broccoli, lettuce, strawberries, and carrots growing.
Yesterday I was overjoyed to find artichoke plants at Home Depot. I am so very excited because I love artichokes but I can never find them grown organically at the store. Although it has been my experience that artichokes take a couple of years to produce good fruit I can not wait. The only thing I have yet to plant that I would really like is asparagus.
We are also thinking of adding some berry plants to our yard. I would love to have blueberries, blackberries, or raspberries. I have to do some research and planing but hopefully I can get some going soon.
We also have a lemon, peach, and apricot tree in the backyard. It is so much fun to grow our own fruit and veggies. Andon loves to pull up carrots and pick peaches.

On a side note anyone interested in cilantro please let me know. I love to cook with it but it grows so quickly that most of it goes to waste. If you ever want any just let me know.

All is ready for Brylynn's arrival on Friday. I promise to have pictures up as soon as I can. I do not think Andon has any clue what is about to happen but I know he will be a great big brother. He is having a wonderful time in CA visiting all his family out there. He especially loves his Auntie Em I think he would leave me for her in a heartbeat. Oh well at least I know he is well loved and happy.

Garden

Our garden is growing well. I hope next year to have a better plan so we have vegetables ready to pick all the time. It all takes planning and this year I just planted stuff for fun with out much thought. I am finding though that I do not have enough room for all I want to grow and I am thinking I need more garden space. In fact I think I need a whole backyard makeover especially when it comes to our patio. I was hopping to get some work done in my yard while my sister was here but so far it has been very rainy.

Playing in the Grass

This afternoon Andon and I went outside to play in our backyard. It was a wonderful day in the shade but very hot in the sun. Andon played with his sand table, house, and swing set happily for over an hour and a half. I even had a chance to read a magazine and weed some of the garden!

While I was out there I was thinking about the yard and the grass we were sitting in. Stephen loves to have a very green yard and I do not blame him. For the last two years we had chem-lawn coming to the house to help keep the grass looking good. It was Stephen’s special extravagant thing. This year though with Andon old enough to play in the grass and my new ambitions of living natural I wanted to cancel chem-lawn but Stephen could not give up his beautiful lawn. I did not want Andon playing in grass sprayed with a ton of chemicals even if the company said it was “safe” (we all know better then to trust a company and its advertisements). Then at The Woodlands Earth Day Festival we found a solution, a company called Soils Alive. Soils Alive is an organic lawn care company they use liquid compost to build better soil. They spray not only our lawn but our trees, flower beds, and even our potted plants. Although it costs more then chem-lawn we are getting more then just our lawn taken care of and we are making our yard a safer place for playing.

www.soilsalive.com