Garden Progress Memorial Day weekend

Today will be a quick post - My Salem, OR garden is growing, albeit very slowly. I showed you a few days ago all the tough starts in my garden - now here are the good starts.

Mid-May was dry and warm, but the past 10 days the temps have dropped to mid-50's (and 30's at night!) and rained on/off. It has kind of stunted the garden. However, considering I have most everything in the ground two weeks ahead of schedule tells me that everything is right where it should be had I planted this past weekend. I've been super lazy about covering my plants - I kind of have senioritis (we may be moving from our house this summer). I'm gardening for the stress relief and outside time, but I'm not doing it as seriously considering I may have to abandon my garden in a month or two.

On that note, let's see what is happening~ 

The 'sauce' tomato bed. I'm growing two 'cuore di bue' plants and one marzano. The two cuore di bues are getting bigger and bigger everyday, but the marzano seems to be dying. I may replace it with a third cuore di bue.

The raspberries bushes are huge and thriving and have set fruit!

The blueberry bushes have all set fruit and the berries are quite large. Last year was kind of bust - berry-wise - and this year looks very promising.

The sweet pepper bed. This bed is lined with walla walla onion on the perimeter and SEVEN sweet pepper plants.

The plants look tiny - and they are tiny - but I have hopes they will jump up!

I am continually amazed at how much my shade garden is filling in.

90% of these plants came from a large bag containing bare root shade plants from Costco. I planted all of the bare roots three years ago when we created this side border. The first year only 1-2 plants came up and I considered it a bust. Last year, 5-8 plants came up and I was happy. This year, the bed is bursting! I guess it takes a few years for bare root plants to get their footing and take off?

Normally, I plant 20-30 impatiens to fill in the shade border. This year I cold only sneak FIVE plants.That tells you how much this border has taken off.


Linking to Tuesday Garden Party

Inspiration - not only from the garden

Did you know that Jami from An Oregon Cottage visited me a few weeks ago? Well she did!

I had to entice her with free seedlings, but she took the bait and came on over. I got to meet her sweet husband and they are fantastic. Oh, how I wish we lived near because I would love to glean and share gardening tips with her.

And today she wrote a post about her fantastic weight loss eating ALL NATURAL, WHOLE FOODS diet. See for  yourself how great she looks. And see for yourself how much I need to lose my freakin' baby weight! I'm following Jami's tips!

Not a great start to 2012's gardening season

I was so not diligent about covering the hoop house (or in my case, a hoop box) and leaf miners were out in full forces this spring. They have literally obliterated my beet greens.

I've never grown beets at home before - judging by the poor condition of these plants, is there hope or should I just pull them and count it as a loss?

 My herb box is 2/3 good. The Italian parsley has been strongly producing and the cilantro just jumped up, but those stupid leaf miners attacked my spinach (at top of frame) plus they are bolting. Gah!

This is the FIRST year EVER EVER that I have not been able to successfully grow peas. It was because I rotated the crop to a raised bed that is notorious for black ants *remember how they kill my broccoli year after year? Well if you look closely at above pic, you can see I tried to ward off the ants by using ANT TRAPS (yes, poison in my yard,but I wanted to get serious) and yet, look at those poor pathetic pea plants. The brown crispy leaves give it away because that is exactly what my broccoli looks like before the ants kill it. Oh poor poor peas. I wish I could have eaten you this year!

 All is not lost, however, I tried a new variety of romaine lettuce called 'Little Gem' and it produced like a gem! They live in the EXACT SAME BED as the beets, under the cover, and those leaf miners didn't eat one drop of Little Gem. Go figure. Oh well, it's been delicious in our nightly salads.

 Plus my side bed is filling in like crazy and looks luscious, green, and beautiful so I guess a few crop loses are equalled out a bit, right?

Linked to Tuesday Garden Party at Oregon Cottage.

Mother's Day Reflection

Jackson and Lane, age 12 and 2 respectively

In our house, we don't really do holidays - especially hallmark holidays. For me, it's just too much pressure. And yesterday, oh yesterday, if there ever was a day for me to prove my motherhood, it was yesterday.

Jackson had the flu - fainted and spent the day on the couch sleeping and grumbling at all of us.
Blake has the chicken pox - itchy and sleeping in his bed most of the day.
Chase had the flu - high fever, hot and sweaty, and generally listless (which freaks any mother out)
Lane had the flu - high fever, whiny, and wanting to be held all day.
And the good man that gave me these children? He had to go to work at 3am for 12 hours so I was in it to win it by myself.

My mother's day. So instead of eating biscuits and scones and traveling to my brood to church to show off their pretty clothes, I was in the slums. Slugging it at home in a sweat stained shirt and calling my own mother for compassion and encouragement.

But here's the thing. I didnt' really feel THAT sorry for myself because if there ever was a true meaning to a mother's day, it was that my kids were here with me in my house depending on me. Does that make sense? I was MOM yesterday - giving medicine, pouring baking soda into a warm bath, fixing hot chocolates, soothing hot foreheads.

At the end of the day after I changed out of my sweaty clothes, I went into the family room to find my oldest child and youngest child snuggling on the couch. A boy, age 12 and a girl, age 2 - just hanging out. It is moments like that one that make it feel all worth it. That my kids love each other, depend on each other, and depend on me. That's what makes a family, you know? They say that you will sincerely will know a person when she is stressed or bad things are happening to her because that is when the true colors come out. I have to say that yesterday was kind of one of those days. And in the end, I pulled out okay and my kids showed me that I am doing a good job at being their mother.

A good solid "mother's day".

red vs. black

 Today was a VERY Important lesson for my toddler and my preschooler. As I was grumbling about the dreadful red clay dirt we have here in Salem, I asked them to repeat with me.

Me: Kids, red dirt is terrible for growing plants. So - we don't like it! Red clay bad

Kids (chanting): we don't like red dirt. We don't like clay!

Me: Kids, we like black dirt. We like compost!

Kids: Black dirt! Compost!

After several brainwashing repeats, they are now versed in the important language of gardeners.

We don't like clay!

We like compost!!

And we're off.........!

Monday met us with 80 degree temperatures here in Western Oregon. Hey, I'll take it. It finally feels like the garden season is finally here!

Dining al fresco - shirtless and with helmets.

First bed you see is the salad bed - we just harvested all the greens!

Compost finished. I'm shoveling into the good black stuff underneath. I do compost the slow way - veeerrry slow way. I add to one pile for one season and then I dont' touch it for a whole year, adding to another pile instead. I turn the pile and allow rainwater to keep it moist. the soil I got today was perfect - odorless, held together like a damp sponge, full of worms. Ahhhh pure heaven!

It's true what they say, you can tempt the most "picky" eater by allowing him to eat whatever he picks from the garden. Right now he is eating a spicy mustard green. He was proud that he ate something spicy like his dad.

Arugula harvested and washed

Arugula and salad greens in airlock containers and bags.

Here is my dilemma: what happened to my blueberry plant?

you can see that one side of the plant is full and healthy and the other side kind of ...died.

the blossoms and leaves turned brown and black and started falling off

Anybody have any idea what happened to my plant? I use only organic methods. I will add peat moss, coffee grounds, and fresh compost to each plant when they first leaf out. My other plants didn't do this. Help?

spring baseball 2012 - post 1

jackson as catcher

jackson as catcher

he is the best in the league (if I do say so myself!!)

rare shot of brothers together. jackson as SS and Blake at 2nd

little blake at the back of team meeting - just wait til he grows up!

jackson - chin down and line drive

blake - he is gonna hit it!

blake

Spring Baseball season 2012 - post 3



Blake got a hit! boo yah

jackson

jackson

jackson

look how small blake is compared to his 12 year old teammates. can't wait to see the difference in three years!

jackson

jackson

Spring Baseball season 2012 - post 2

We were lucky this year to have Jackson AND BLAKE both make the majors team this year (typically the 'majors' division is the 10-12 yr olds). Jackson is the oldest 12 year old on the team and Blake is the youngest player - he is only 9 years old but was the highest ranked AAA player so he was moved up to the majors division.

Jackson is playing catcher and pitcher this season. He is #34 and Blake is #13. As a mom, I love seeing my boys with their 'Deshazer' jerseys as they line up.

jackson

jackson

blake

blake

lineup - blake #13, jackson next to him

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jackson on mound

jackson on mound

jackson