The June Lower Garden -- the before & after baby edition

 So right before Little M and I left to head to Grammy's to await the baby's arrival, we took some pictures of the gardens in their current 'good as I could get them' state. A couple days ago I went down to the garden again and was shocked at the growth down there in the weeks since we left... Mostly shocked at the weed growth, although the garden plants are actually growing quite well down there too.

Since getting back, we have been eating plenty of greens from the garden, and the occasional strawberry, and just last night we tasted the first of the sugar snap peas from the side garden too! I noticed a couple of garlic scapes have come up too, so pesto will be just around the corner! Exciting to be eating fresh food from the garden again!

Here are the before and afters:

The garden looking in from the gate. Herbs, strawberries, garlic, greens, raspberries on the right, tomatoes, carrots, onions, potatoes, rhubarb, raspberries on the left.

 The herb area, with different flowers blooming before and after. Funny how most are a purplish color (Little M's favorite!).

 The carrots on the left, onions on the right.

The potatoes, freshly mounded before, with the paths between dug down deeper than the rest of the garden so as to mound as much as possible on the plants.

 The zucchini area with seeds just planted before, with some greens around to be used before the zucchini take over. strawberries, garlic, and seed onions around them.

 The far end of the garden, this year planted in corn on the right in the before picture, squash in the near left, and green beans in the far left. This area was most recently hoed since it was planted last, so it isn't too bad in the after shots.

Now the trick is to be patient enough for my body to heal before heading back down to start weeding things back out to a bearable level... might be another week or so, we shall see! Luckily the weeds haven't yet overtaken the onions, which is likely the worst area right now for weed competition, both in terms of onions doing poorly with weed competition, and those weeds being the largest in comparison to the nearby plants...

I'll share pictures of the side garden later this week or next. It is looking much better since we have mulched the paths with old hay, and since it is a much smaller space anyway.

She's here!

Baby E has arrived and all are happy, home, and doing quite well :) We couldn't be more thrilled with her!

2013 Garden in my absence

Near the end of last week, Little M and I made the trek home and back to Grammy's in one day, to pick up my husband (and the 2 dogs not already with me at Grammy's), so that we wouldn't end up with 2 cars with us after the baby makes her appearance. It was a bit of a long day, but so nice to see the garden and relax at home for a couple hours before making the trek back to stay at Grammy's for the long haul, however long that may be! He of course only stayed briefly, according to his days off work, but it was nice to spend a bit of time with him before he headed back home to work and keep a handle on the property, gardens, and animals.

When we were briefly at home, the garden had been without me for only 3-4 days, but it was amazing how much had changed - the green beans had come up, the newly transplanted tomatoes, peppers, greens, and marigolds had settled in nicely, and most of the squash, cucumbers, and zucchini sprouted seeds that we planted just before we left had emerged from the soil with their seed leaves.

In the time since then, my husband reports that the corn is all coming up, the green beans are filling in, and all the animals are doing well. Apparently there were even frogs of some sort calling from the pool of water in the pig's pen! I'm hoping they are still calling when I get back so we can ID them - he isn't much of a frog ID guy. What would be even more exciting (although quite unlikely with the disturbance the pigs make in that pool!) would be to end up with tadpoles in the pool. Likely won't happen, but makes me hopeful that in future years, once we have a little garden pond that isn't disturbed by pigs daily, we might have all that sort of wetland-y goodness for Little M to explore right by the house!

Ok, back to waiting on this baby to arrive and knitting a baby blanket for one of Little M's little friends whose mother recently had a baby boy...

Daily life while waiting on Baby #2...

Not much to report on lately, just hanging out at my mother in law's place on the lake while waiting for baby to decide she is ready to emerge. We've been here 4 nights, and if I consider 2 weeks late as being the last possible night, we may be here 3 more weeks. gulp. That is a heck of a lot of time for weeds to take over my gardens! A heck of a lot of chicken eggs to build up in the fridge! And a heck of a lot of time to be away from home!

My husband is staying at home, working, until I go into labor, so its lonely for him there missing the little miss and I, and lonely for us here missing him and the gardens and all. We've been keeping busy though, as we've got 2 of the dogs with us, and the lack of a real yard, fenced or not, means multiple walks a day. Whew. At least walking is healthy for the baby!

I'm not sure I'll be posting regularly until we get home after the baby is born, since really I don't have much to share from over here, since mostly all I'm doing on a daily basis is lots of dog walking, food making, and playing outside with the little miss. But I'm sure once we get home I'll have lots of weed photos to share of my overtaken garden spaces! (sigh!) Oh, and surely some baby photos too :)