Our first year's garden.

I feel that I have learned a lot this year about gardening, mostly I've learned through failure and turning to google, but at least I've learned. I have high hopes for next year. I messed up my garden in more ways than one and we still got a ton of produce, so I'm calling it a successful year!

I wanted to document all of the things I want to remember for next year and I thought I'd just put it on my blog in case someone else can learn from my mistakes.

Here we go....

I did raised rows for the entire garden. This was a mistake for every plant except the broccoli which seemed to thrive. I did have to build up little walls (kind of like a little trough) to help keep the water in because all of them were drying out. It was too much work though. Next year I'm planting everything flat to see if there is a difference.

BROCCOLI: My broccoli went crazy and grew so well, BUT there was a major bug/worm problem. I was trying to be all organic this year so I didn't use any pesticides. I didn't realize how awesome they were going to produce or I would have just sprayed them, it would have been worth it. It was all too buggy to eat. Next year I will plant it nice and early (it's very cold hardy) and at the first sight of bug bites I'll spray with poison. Broccoli was the only plant that had a bug problem which was a pleasant surprise.

I planted 6 plants and 4 survived. Those four plants were more than enough broccoli to keep us busy and gassy. I think I'd still plant the same amount though and hopefully have enough to steam and freeze for soups and chicken pot pie throughout the year.

This picture is of the off-shoots that grew after the main head had been picked, there were tons of them.

TOMATOES

I planted 2 tomato plants that were two different varieties. One lived and one just produced rotted tomatoes (?????). That one plant was more than enough for all of our fresh tomato needs. Next year I'd like to plant four and have enough to can some salsa, ketchup, and spaghetti sauce.

Since I live in Idaho I definitely want to get the "early girls" variety. My tomatoes took at least 3 weeks longer to ripen than everyone who had the other variety. I will buy starts again next year and buy the wall-o-waters early on because the stores run out.

STRAWBERRIES

If I could do it again I would have planted these in a contained area like a garden box, apparently they spread like crazy...even into the grass. We're going to build a box next years and hopefully transplant them so they can spread all that they want. Mine didn't start doing well until later in the summer...I have no idea why.

PUMPKIN

These little babies were so much fun! We ended up getting 5 good sized pumpkins, BUT I did learn some on the way.

1. Make sure the pumpkins are getting pollinated, watch for the mini pumpkins to blossom and then tap one of the "male" flowers on it to share the pollen. We didn't get any pumpkins until we started doing this.

2. Rotate them so that they don't get nasty spots.

3. At the first sign of powdery mildew rip off the affected leaves. Our whole plant became diseased and we had to pick the pumpkins early. Note: they will ripen off the vine if they are still a little green.

Next year we are going to try to grow two plants, one for making a couple giant carving pumpkins and the other for pie pumpkins (smaller variety)
SWISS CHARD

We didn't realize the beauty of this stuff until halfway through the summer, what a bummer! Once we started using it in our smoothies we didn't have enough. This year I had four plants, next year I think I want 6 or 7. It is super hardy and grew despite my weaknesses, love this stuff! ( it is a little bitter, fyi, but the taste does grow on you after a bit).

Speaking of lettuce, I want to try growing romaine next year, but I want a real crunchy variety.
CARROTS

We loved our carrots, but they were all short and fat because our garden wasn't tilled deep enough. Next year we'll have to dig a lot deeper so that they have room to spread.

The purple variety we tried was gross, from now on we're sticking with orange!

I had a friend tell me that you can dig mini 1/4 in trenches for the seeds. First fill the trench with water, then put in the seeds and barely cover them up. The seedlings need to stay pretty wet to sprout. We're going to try this method next year.

Ours didn't keep real well so I don't think I care to make the spot any bigger next time around.
PEPPERS

No pictures, but next year I need to remember that the plants don't get that big so you can put them pretty close to one another. I think 2 bell pepper plants would be plenty, they produce a ton for such tiny plants! I also want to do a bunch of Jalapenos and can them for Zac to use as a sort of relish. I'd much rather a variety of peppers than 4 plants of green bell peppers, we ended up throwing away a ton of them.

I used a wall-a-water on one of the 4 and that plant definitely grew bigger faster, but the others weren't far behind and they caught up quick, I'd say that it's optional for peppers and mandatory for tomatoes.

SQUASH

We don't like squash. I don't want any next year. I might try growing spaghetti squash though, or maybe butternut, but crookneck just isn't our favorite (maybe the fact that we're SO sick of them is having something to do with our feelings though!).

Zucchini

One plant is plenty. I have probably 15 quart size bags of shredded zucchini for muffins (3-4 cups each) in the freezer. All from one plant. CRAZY. Those things are unstoppable. I do like zucchini muffins and we like to throw some zucchini in soups sometimes so I will grow one plant again next year.

PEAS

Be sure to presoak the seeds (I've heard that 12 hours will do the trick). We didn't do that this year and I think that was part of the reason that it took them FOREVER to get going. Half of ours died (I think they weren't getting enough water), next year I'll plant the same amount and hope that they stay alive better.

I only want the kind that you shell and eat as peas, not the sugar snap ones. We never ate those ones. Also, they need to have something to climb (a net or something) or else they lie on the ground and rot, or the lousy Idaho spring wind breaks them off and they die. Hopefully we can improve our crop this year, the few we got were delicious!

TOMATILLOS

Never again. I planted four plants and had HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of the little fruits. One would be more than enough. They didn't ever really thrive so they didn't taste that great either (very tart). I wonder what we did wrong....I guess I'll never know. lol

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Next year I want to try some onions, those are really yummy from the garden!

I'm glad I finally did this post before I forget everything! Wouldn't it be cool to keep a tally of how much each plant produced! I would love to have that to compare from year to year, too bad it'd be a ton of work, I think that is just not for me.

Thank you to everyone who helped make our garden possible this year! My dad, brothers and father-in-law all gave awesome advice that probably saved the garden!

We're having a girl!!!

We are so excited to be having a girl! Last week I had an ultrasound and they couldn't tell and today it was much more obvious. I'm already in love with her. I've been secretly hoping for a girl (although I would have been happy for a boy too) for the last week or so and I'm just so happy!

Teagan's reaction was "huh??? Ok" and then he just started acting weird because he didn't know what to do. hehe. :)

In the car home I was slightly scatterbrainedly thinking out loud:

Me: "We should stop and have something to eat to celebrate. Teagan are you excited that you're going to have a new baby sister?"

Teagan: "No mom!!!"

Me: "Why not?!?"

Teagan: "If I eat her it will make the baby cry and I don't want to make her to cry."

Made me tear up a little from laughter and from the fact that I know Teagan will be the sweetest older brother to our new baby girl. He is going to love and protect her and it just makes me so happy. (I'm sure they'll fight, but it's really hard for me to comprehend that aspect at this point).

Zac was able to be there and I think he was just relieved that we have a healthy strong little baby growing inside of me. He is going to be the sweetest Dad to a little girl, he's already talking about running off the boys when she gets older. Between Zac and Teagan this girl won't stand a chance!

Now it's time to start planning for all things girly. I have scheduled a bow making weekend with my older sister Julie and I can't wait to pick out colors for bedding and room decor, how fun to not be the only girl anymore!!!

Little funnies from my little man.

I wrote these down a month ago and apparently never posted them, whoops.

On a particularly dreary no-nap day I made the mistake of running a few errands with my delightful young child. It didn't take long to discover that this was a mistake. He was just having a hard time coping with life in general and was really clumsy and whiny, I was past the end of patience. I made it a quick trip and hurried back to the car to return home. As I'm unloading the shopping cart into my car, Teagan looks over at a couple ladies walking out of the store and yells "Hey YOU! Wanna fight?" They looked and then pretended they didn't hear and walked away. I displayed some wonderful parenting by doing nothing but say "Teagan!!!" in a shocked voice. What's a mom to do? I skipped his nap, I introduced him to the grouchy lady bug book that he learned that saying from, I took him shopping when he was so far beyond exhausted. sigh. lesson learned. Hopefully he isn't damaged too deeply by my lack of intervention at his terrible naughtiness.

At my sister's house we went to church and Teagan had a lot of fun in primary. During singing time he apparently was chosen for some rendition of a "name that song" game. Him and an older boy (I think they said he was 11) both went up and the leaders gave a line from the song. The boy said "I have no idea" and Teagan recognized it as his favorite song, "Praise to the Man," and belted it out for the whole primary. (I wasn't there for it but we were told by a few of the leaders so I think the details are murky, but I would have LOVED to have been there!)

Upon returning from my sister's house:

Teagan: "Am I going to be able to sleep in a sleeping bag at our home like at aunt Julie's house?"

Me: "No, why would you want to?"

Teagan: "Because it's so wonderful."

Family Photos

So about the time we were moving into our house we bought two 16X20 canvas prints off of groupon. We got a smokin' deal, but the problem was that we didn't have a plan. We knew we liked the look of a canvas and we knew we wanted to eventually decorate our house, but we didn't have any pictures taken yet...Well they expire in a week so we had to hurry and get family pictures done so we could order! Not the best timing. I'm in awkward pregnant stage where I just look chubby instead of pregnant and we're going to need to update in 5 1/2 months.

My cousin Andrea took our pictures and did a great job! Here is her photography blog if you want to check her out. She is VERY reasonably priced and gives you a CD with all of the images. I got it TWO days after she took the pictures. Thanks Andrea! I would totally recommend her!

Since the pictures are going to be so big we were steering away from closeups...but maybe not. I think we'll end up doing them in b & w or something similar once we actually choose a picture. We had about 200 to choose from...narrowing it down is going to be impossible!

Teagan had about a million great ones. The family ones we struggle with.


Between someone not looking, my belly, Zac's glare, and my lazy eye a lot got scrapped. But I think there were still some cute ones that would work.

There's the belly! blech, I like the picture otherwise so we might have to experiment in photoshop a little, haha!







We might end up doing one with just Teagan and the other with just Zac and I, then getting a canvas of baby done when he/she comes. That way we are all updated. (We'll find out the sex on Oct 11th, I'm so excited!)

Feel free to give opinions! Which is your fav?

1st day of school

Today was Teagan's first day of preschool, he was so excited to go and play there. I had a really hard time getting a good picture of him. He wasn't holding still (he never really does for pictures) and just wanted to get in the car and go. He was looking so sweet and handsome...amazing what clean clothes and a bath can do for a kid, haha!

This is a pretty cute video, pre- going to school.

We talked about how some of the kids would be afraid to leave their parents and that he could try to be their friend. He did so well! As soon as cousin Kai came he brought him over a Buzz Lightyear. They paled around quite a bit for the day, I was glad that he knew someone.

My favorite interchange of the day (I stayed to "help" the whole time) was:

Teagan was playing with a hammer/ball toy

Little boy: I want that, give it to me

Teagan: You have to ask first, and I might say yes and I might say no

Little boy: (confused) Can I have it?

Teagan: ummm, yes

hehehe, what a funny little kid, LOVE him!

These were from Sunday before church...as you can see it is a little difficult to get a "normal" picture of him. But his personality does show through quite a little bit in these ones. :)

We love our little boy so much, there isn't a day that goes by that he doesn't brighten! I'm not ready for him to grow up, hence the fact that I can't just leave him at school. I know he'd be fine (he even told me that I could go today, haha!) but I don't want to miss out on him growing up. Do you think they'll let me come to kindergarten? Am I one of THOSE parents, yes I believe so and I'm proud of it.

The 3 year old mind

I've been having a lot of fun with Teagan lately, he is so funny and he has the best explanations for things.

Story 1

Yesterday we were playing a game with hot wheels. We lined all 50 of them up so that at one end of the line there was the front of a car, and the other line there was the back of a car.

Like this: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

We took turns either picking a car from the front of the line or the back of the line and using the cars to create our own lines (it's a spin off of some dog game I saw at a convention).

Well, Teagan didn't like it because he had put his much-loved Lightening Mcqueen car right in the middle so he couldn't get it until near the end.

Once all the cars were taken the following conversation took place:

T: "Mom, I think I will make up the rules this time""

M: "Okay, what are they"

T: "We line the cars up like this" (So they were side by side, all facing us like this: | | | | | | | | ) "and you can pick whatever car you want, and when you pick it you make it go back very very slowly out of the line" (says this very slowly...then changes to a crazy fast voice) "and then it goes forward to the line and crashes as many cars as it can, and then you drive all over them and then they go get the bad guys"

He just cracks me up, he's such a creative little boy, the things he comes up with are treasures.

Story 2

Today I was watching my nephews (never a dull moment with 3 little boys!).

At dinner tonight Baby Jax started puking up his dinner and Teagan was right next to him. I was trying to catch it all in the bib (which I did! and trashed it!). Meanwhile...

Teagan: "This is SO gross, I can't watch this, I can't watch this, this is so gross! I have to leave the room or I am going to throw up my dinner. " (runs out of the room yelling "I can't watch this, I can't watch this")

Kai: continued silently eating his chicken noodle soup, completely unphased. (it was good, carrots, broccoli, squash, basil and peas all from the garden among other ingredients)

hehehe drama anyone? He must get that from me!

Story 3:

My nephew Kai is about Teagan's age and he excitedly ran into the kitchen with a quarter that he had found on the floor in my bedroom:

Kai (very excited): "Aunt Melissa look! I found money! I'm going to put it in my pocket and take it to the store and buy candy!" (puts it in his pocket)

Me: Is it your quarter? ( I almost let him keep it, but decided that it might be a good learning opportunity)

Kai: Yes, it's in my pocket

Me: Was it in your pocket when you left your house?

Kai: No, I just found it and it's in my pocket now

Enter Teagan....slightly more talkative of the two (he is his parents' child for sure!)

Teagan: no Kai, that is my quarter you can't have it

Kai: it's in my pocket

Me: Teagan, how do you know it's your quarter (this was all very amusing to me so I let it drag out a little, in hindsight this probably was a bad idea)

Teagan: hmmm, I think that it probably fell out of my pocket when I was in your room. No I think it was in my wallet, because I have quarters in there from my grandma and grandpa and I think that it opened and one came out and then Kai found it. I know it's mine because I have quarters and they always are in your room.

Kai: It's in my pocket

Me to both of them: Do you think it might belong to me, since it was in my room?

Teagan: No I don't think so, because I usually have quarters in my pocket and I was in your room today and I play in there all the time so it is my quarter

Kai: It's in my pocket

Kai remained perfectly calm the whole time because, of course, it was in his pocket, Teagan on the other hand was getting a little worked up. I had to leave to go get the little one, Jax, and when I reentered Teagan was on top of Kai trying to dig the quarter out of Kai's pocket. I don't know why it made me laugh, probably because I've never seen Teagan wrestle or tackle another kid ever and usually Kai is the one tormenting him.

Don't worry though, I hid the laughter, Teagan landed himself in time out and Kai handed the quarter over, no problem after a quick explanation and Teagan and I had a chat about loosing our tempers.

It is just another example of how different they are. Teagan comes up with these explanations about how it might have happened (the logic is impressive) and he gets emotionally involved, and Kai sticks to concrete facts and doesn't get too emotional. I love watching the pair of them interact together. For the most part they pal around all day without any fighting which is great. Their conversations are to die for, I'm going to tape a recorder to one of their backs one of these days so I can catch all the details and have instant replay.

Tomorrow they start preschool together with my Aunt Jeanne who I love. I can't stand the idea of leaving him so I'm going to go help in the class for the first while. I can't believe Teagan's getting so big!

Baby #2

Hi blogger friends, I figure that being great with child is a worthy blog post. :) I'm currently about 13 weeks pregnant and we are so excited at this house! We waited a long time for this baby to join the family (since February of LAST year) so we are more than ready to have another join the crowd. I figure that we patiently waited for about 16 months so the 9 months I'm actually carrying the baby should be a breeze!

I think Teagan is the most excited out of everyone (besides me and Zac). We were so excited when we found out that we told him right then...oops. He proceeded to make the announcement at his cousin Tay's birthday party when i was only 6 weeks pregnant....I was so sad!!! We wanted to wait as long as possible to tell everyone, at least until the morning sickness was over and the chances for miscarriage were decreased. Oh well, you live and you learn.

Then I started getting pleasantly plump in the belly region and realized that waiting too long was going to be impossible since it is blatantly obvious that my belly is getting bigger. So I decided that for the next baby I'll do lots of ab workouts before I get prego so that I can hide it a little better for a little longer (and we won't tell our children!)

Best parts of being pregnant-

*I'm going to be the mom of a sweet baby in only 6 months!!!!

*I'm not sick and I have tons of energy again, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the second trimester already!

*We are experiencing the miracle of working hand in hand with God (it's like with our garden on a much much bigger level)

*Hearing the heartbeat and seeing the little babe doing cartwheels on the ultrasound

*hearing the heart beat again, I can't get enough of the reassurance that things are okay

*I think I'm feeling the nesting vibe coming on and I actually WANT to decorate my house, finally

Not so best parts of being pregant-

*Morning sickness, what was up with the heartburn and puking this time??? Teagan was a breeze, I had no idea...but it's over!

*My wild hips that are starting to move around or something because my low back makes me nuts, luckily my fabulous spouse can fix that this time around, LOVING him these days except that he makes me do exercises to fix it...

*no meds for migraines...loving the spouse for that too-he works my neck over and they go away (seriously, how was I prego before without a full time PT at my side?)

*In-between stage where you just look chubby, please belly, round out a little. Thank you

Stories of Teagan:

I had to go in and have some blood work done when I was about 7 weeks pregnant (I had been spotting, but luckily everything turned out to be A-okay). I was a little nervous about getting the shot and I voiced this to Teagan (I know, he's probably too young, but I wanted him to distract me)

Teagan: It's okay mom, if you're really brave I will give you a sucker and a sticker

They took the blood and I passed out (It was a new girl and I was hungry and nauseous already and she stabbed me like 10 times, and I'm extremely weak when it comes to these things)

Teagan: Mom, why were you sleeping

Me: I just passed out because the shot made me sick

Teagan: Do you still get a sucker or should I have it?

He ate the sucker. :)

At the Dr's office again he was with me and I was telling him about what the ultrasound would be like. He REALLY wanted to get on the bed.

Me: Teagan that bed is only for people who have a baby in their tummy

Teagan: Oh, I do have a baby in my tummy (shakes his head and chuckles at me) Coney is in my tummy

Me: Oh really

Teagan: Yeah, he's just waiting in there to come out later, so I need to get on the bed and take a picture of my belly to see Coney.

Wow, this is a long post, sorry! hopefully you skipped the boring stuff. :)