Friday, May 25, 2012

My mother's day present :)

Let's go back a couple weeks...to Mother's Day.

Since it was just my birthday a couple of weeks before, I decided that instead of my family getting me something that I may or may not use in my everyday life, I would ask for something a little more practical.  Something that would bring me joy, but still could be used to help the whole family.

Since we moved into our house in September of 2009, I've grown my own cucumbers in our backyard in our clay soil.  I'm not exactly sure how it survived, but it did more than survive, it flourished in our clay soil.  I had so many cucumbers I had to give away a lot of them!  The tomatoes and green peppers I tried planting last year didn't like the soil as much as the cucumbers.  It also didn't help that we have a family of bunnies that live underneath our deck. :/  After being able to grow my cucumbers, my black thumb I thought I had, has finally turned green.  I've really started to enjoy growing things.  It's actually quite relaxing!

So this year I wanted to do it right and create a raised vegetable garden in our backyard.  My neighbor had made one in her backyard, and I was quite jealous last year when she was getting all kinds of veggies out of her garden and all I had were cucumbers coming out my ears!  I wanted an abundance of everything too!! :)  So that's what I asked for for Mother's Day...a garden.  And my hubby sure did deliver!!

Here's my marvelous raised vegetable garden!


We put it about a foot off the ground, but it's also sunken in the ground about 6 inches or so.  We filled it with soil and some extras that the cows helped us out with. :)  The chicken wire is some extra protection from the bunnies. :)  It's made out of composite decking material, so it'll probably outlive the house!  

After reading a book called Square Foot Gardening, I learned about how many plants you can put in a square foot so that you maximize how much food you can produce from a four foot by four foot square garden.  If you are looking to start a garden, read that book.  Even if you are just going to put plants into pots, it has so much information about what plants like and how much water to give them and it even shows you how to prune tomatoes so that you get mostly producing stems and not ones that are just extra fluff.  It's a very informative book and I got so much information from it!  I'm so excited that we're going to have so many things for the kids to pick out of the garden.  


There are peas...


Green Beans...


Radishes...


Cucumbers...


Tomatoes

And I also have carrots, green onions, spinach, and swiss chard (which the book said was similar to spinach).  Those are just little bitty things, so I didn't take their pictures. :)  I can't wait till everything starts producing!!    

On another note, my sweet little Landon made me a mother's day card at school.  I think it's the best card he has ever made for me because I know he did it all by himself! 

On the outside it says "Happy Mother's Day" all in his handwriting.  This is what is on the inside...


When I played dumb and asked him who this was, he cheerfully pointed at each person and said, "that's Landon, and that's Mom!"  He's so cute!  It made me cry because I know he drew this and he did such an amazing job!  I'll probably save it forever...maybe I'll laminate it...okay, maybe that's a bit much. ;)


His class also planted seeds since they were learning about plants in school.  Mine will eventually be two sunflowers which I need to get into the backyard!  They are growing quickly and I love watching them reach for the sunlight.  When I turn them around, a couple hours later I'll come back and they are facing the sun.  I just love how nature works.  It's a pretty amazing thing!

So, I think my mother's day was a pretty awesome one!  Thank you dear, for all the hard work you put into my box!  You're the best! XOXO

1 comment:

Jean said...

Love this!!! :)