Backyard gardening... photos...

Finally photos of the garden...

I love this photo, you really get an idea of how very LONG the garden is now and then at the end is the Kupcake on her swing.

Squash plants (crook neck and zucchini)

Kale that is ready to harvest and tomato plants

corn and sunflowers (soooo need to weed)

Ripe strawberries

brussels sprouts, lettuce, swiss chard, and in the back near the fence thing, bush beans

Our shade garden: Cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli

What's not photographed is: watermelon, cantelope, bot choy, celery, carrots, garlic, and our tabletop lettuce container garden.

Today I had the most fantastic salad with lettuce and bot choy from the garden.  The flavors were amazing!  Hopefully tonight I can finally spray the plants with a homemade pesticide (made up of garlic, onion and dishsoap).

Have you started up your garden yet?

 

Fun filled weekend in the backyard

I had the most perfect weekend any dirt loving girl could have.  On Saturday morning, thanks to forgetting what Pilates class I signed up for I was early and got a chance to go buy plants.  I spend the afternoon repotting and seeding, and planting lots of different things like: cabbage, purple king beans, broccoli, corn, squash, zucchini, strawberries, cantaloupe, and watermelon.  I cleaned and tilled and got dirt all over myself and it was just pure bliss.  on Sunday, we took advantage of OSH's no tax sale and bought more dirt, solar lights, irrigation kit, grass seed, and other fun goodies.  It was PARADISE!  Nothing is better than the smell of fresh dirt!  After lunch, my friend and I spend the afternoon putting in the irrigation system, planting lots of sunflowers, garlic, and cauliflower.  Everything is sprouting and blossoming I really need to take some photos to share.  It is just so nice that we have that extra hour now of light.  Now if only I can get the Kupcake's schedule back to normal!  :)

  Now onto this week's dinner menu:

• Sunday: Take out-didn't feeling like cooking
• Monday:  Chicken Pot Pie (with crockpot chicken*) -- Happy ╥ Day!
• Tuesday:  Leftover chicken & garlic lemon pasta
• Wedensday:  Cuban Sandwiches & spring salad
• Thursday: Shepard's Pie* -- Happy St. Patty's day!!
• Friday:  Grilled Salmon & veggies
• Saturday:  eat out...

    *falls into my new meal and slow cooker meal of the week

Looking forward to this week's meals.  What is on the weekly to do list?

• Run!  RUN LOTS!  12 days away till my next 5k race. 
• Start working on Kupcake's first birthday decorations... will talk more about it later.
• Clean up the website
• Finish cleaning our room (seriously, you'd think that I'd want to keep my own private space nice and clean.)
• Get everything ready for a garage sale this weekend
• Finish irrigation system
• lay rock border for shade garden

Yup, that's about it.  This week should be a good one.  I still have to get used to the new time change.  The alarm went off just a little too early for me today!  Need to acclimate myself!

How is your week shaping up?  Doing anything fun?

The backyard... the evolution of our suburban homestead.

I always loved to garden since I was little girl.  During spring break in junior high and high school, my parents would buy me 6 packs of flowers to plant in the front yard.  I never thought about planting anything else.  That is what my mom did.  When I moved on my own, I never thought about it again.  It wasn't until we moved to our home did I toy with the idea of growing a vegetable garden.  Our backyard has been revolving since the year we moved in.  First it was just simple as adding some flowers.  Then we took the leap and with a good friend who knew a lot about all this stuff, he helped us add a retaining wall to start a small garden back in 2009. 

Then I got bored and needed to expand. I talked my friend into helping again and we added onto that:

Two years past (didn't do much last year since I was growing a baby instead!) and I decided that I wanted to do more and we added yet again...

In total now, the garden is about 30 feet long and two tiers to grow whatever we like.  Thank you Southern California for a good grow zone!!!

Then while we were borrowing a friend's chainsaw, we decided to cut down a tree (the one on the far right on this photo):

Planted a concord grapes, hung a swing for the Kupcake, laid pepples over the dirt (nothing grew here because of the tree roots) and turned the remaining area into our grilling area. (Note our mini compost bin to the right of the covered grill.  I asked for a heavy duty one for mother's day! ☺)

With all that, we done, we still have a container garden.  We decided to keep all the herbs together (except for basil since that is going to scattered all over the garden) near the door.

It's come such a long way sometimes I forget how little we started.  Right now, in the garden we have quite a few things growing:

• Brussels Sprouts
• Artichokes
• 4 kinds of Tomatoes (heirloom - 2 types, cherry, and grape)
• Celery
• Sweet Onions
• Lettuce
• Spinach
• Kale
• Swiss Chard
• Strawberries
• Bok Choy
• Carrots
• Garlic
• Cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• 2 types of Grapes (Concord and Thompson)
• Apple Tree
• Orange Tree
• Plum Tree

 This weekend we are going to add a few more blueberry bushes and perhaps toy with planting the corn too.  I want to make one more run to Home Depot to see if I can find a date tree.  I'm just in love with dates now.  We are also going to start a shade garden for the Cabbage family plants and hopefully I can get that up and running too.    

What are you growing anything this year?

Nothing but Blue Skies....

We had a big downpour on Friday but on Saturday, the storm that was suppose to dump snow in our backyard decided to head north and instead we got beautiful blue skies. We were completely bummed but what can you do, I guess we'll just have to make a trip up to the mountains to see snow this year.  Aside from that, the weekend was just simply wonderful.  We got more plants (a few more tomato plants and two blueberry bushes).  I am thinking of trying to find a fig or date tree this week too, yummmmmm!  I've started to get better about working out again which is nice.  I'm finally not all talk, I'm also action.  I can still feel my abs from my morning of pilates on Saturday.  Sunday I fixed that nagging feeling and did some reorganization in the kitchen.  I think I will finish up cleaning out the pantry tonight and I can breathe again.  :) 

Now, what's for dinner this week?

• Sunday: Chicken Satay in peanut sauce and Garlic Sesame Broccoli
• Monday: Blood Orange Tofu* (inspired by Iowa Girl Eats) with stir fry Bok Choy & Carrots
• Tuesday: Trader Joe's Pizza and backyard Salad (Hooray we have Lettuce!!!)
• Wednesday: Taco Salad
• Thursday:  Chicken and Rice Casserole (crockpot style)*
• Friday: Mahi Mahi Tacos
• Saturday:  Pulled Pork Nachos

 *is part of the new recipe and crockpot meal item on the yearly to-do list

So excited for this week's meals.  I think we will officially start doing one vegetarian meal a week now this way we won't get tired of the same proteins since there are only 3 types (bird, fish, pork) we eat.  I'm also excited to finally start a little harvesting, granted it's only just lettuce but still. This week is a busy one, filled with gym trips and pilates classes.  Let's see what's in store:

• Go to the gym 3 times
• Go to Pilates twice
• Finish organizing pantry
• plant blueberry plants
• Create a new waffle recipe... will blog more about it this week
• Really post about the garden
• Get side garden set up for cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage.
• Find a fig or date tree and buy it 

  What an exciting week coming up and to top it off, it's March tomorrow!  What are you looking forward to this week?  

Coffee on a Monday Morning...

There isn't anything better, wouldn't you agree?  After the weekend, I totally felt like coming to work was going to be my vacation since we were so busy but I am S W A M P E D.  Not only did we terrorize the backyard by adding onto the garden and chopping down a tree (when I say we, I mean the hubby and our good friend, I was supervising from the inside with the kupcake). We also cleaned to high heaven (still need to do a little more, yuck).  I am happy to report though we did a lot with the 48 hours we had.  Even food prepping tired me out, I chopped, sauteed, boiled, and packaged quite a few things for this week's dinners.  So what are we eating this week?

• Sunday:  Chicken Pot Pie
• Monday:  leftovers (i'm on my own)
• Tuesday:  Chicken and Broccoli Pie with Orzo & Swiss Chard
• Wednesday: French Dip Sandwiches with Quinoa & Kale, Turnip Fries
• Thursday: N'awlins Stuffed Bell Peppers with Collard Greens
• Friday:  Chicken Tortilla Soup*
• Saturday:  Eat out!

*completes the yearly to do list (crock pot and new recipe)

I'm so excited to try a bunch of new recipes and new foods.  Almost everything we are eating comes from new recipes.  The only things I need to do this week is the au jus for the French Dip Sandwiches and Thursday's dinner.  This entire menu was inspired by the box of produce we got.

On to list of things to do this week:

• Finish building extention on the garden
• Work and Finalize plans for Trellis 
• Complete BBQ ground area (will go into this later)
• Plant more
• Clean bathrooms (Lame)
• Repot two planters
• bake 
• Run during my lunch breaks
• Hang Swing

I think the backyard is going to keep us busy for the next week and am excited to show you everything we've done so far (it entails a chainsaws!).

  How was your weekend? 

Square foot gardening.

A few friends of mine asked me where to start if you've never really grew anything before.  I always love to tell them about square foot gardening.  I think it's a great stepping stone to growing without going big or broke.

Square Foot Gardening is the practice of planning small but intensively planted gardens.
The original square-foot-gardening method used an open-bottomed box to contain a finite amount of soil, which was divided with a grid into sections. To encourage variety of different crops over time, each square would be planted with a different kind of plant, the number of plants per square depending on an individual plant's size. A single tomato plant might take a full square, as might herbs such as oregano, basil or mint, while most strawberry plants could be planted four per square, with up to sixteen radishes per square. Tall or climbing plants such as maize or pole beans might be planted in a northern row (south in the southern hemisphere) so as not to shade other plants, and supported with lattice or netting.
The logic behind using smaller beds is that they are easily adapted, and the gardener can easily reach the entire area, without stepping on and compacting the soil. 

                                    --Thank you Wikipiedia



Photo Source


  Basically all you need is a spot to grow (can be in the ground or raised with wood or cinder blocks for the sides), soil, string (to make your squares), nails/screws (to hold down the string) seeds and a means to water the garden.  It really is that easy.  The more it grows, the more you will learn, like how to get rid of bugs that eat your plants (tip: Plant Marigolds all throughout the garden, it helps keep the bugs away).

Next up, container gardening...

2011 Garden start up...

This year we are doing this right, we are going to be remembering dates, remembering how to water, remembering to pick our veggies and just remembering to garden and not let it turn to weed.  In order to get motivated I drew up a mockup of what our main section of our garden will look like. 

We are going to try corn once again and crossing our fingers we can get our artichoke plant to grow.  It hasn't grown in two years, and it's only 8 inches tall.  Last weekend we started planting and hopefully this weekend we can finish it all off so we can have the bottom section completely ready to go once the seedlings are ready for the outside.

We will also be working on some type of watering system for the entire hill but we'll talk about that later.  For now, dreaming of a summer filled with abundant veggies.

Just another manic monday....

  You know you hear about those people who have just the crummiest of the crummy days and it falls on a Monday? Well, I'm living it right now.  It really started just after midnight.  Our little kupcake is teething and woke up in sheer pain.  She didn't want anything else other than for me to hold her.  Cute, but not when you are extremely exhausted.  That was from 330-430.  Moving on, woke up and low and behold, I broke out... eh.  Then, I lost my wallet.  No CLUE where it is.  Didn't fix lunch so had to grab a frozen meal from the fridge. Next, the shoes I wore, I totally forgot how UN-FREAKING-COMFORTABLE they are. Moving on to getting to work.  I was walking from the parking structure with my groceries for the week (multigrain cheerios, oranges, apples, bananas, almond milk) and my bag breaks.  The ONE time I use a brown bag instead of the reusable bags.  Of course.  Then, when I finally arrive at my office, my computer is showing the blue screen of death.  Seriously, this was all before 815.  Luckily my computer rebooted fine but still.  Oh, and it's suppose to be 84 today.  It looks so beautiful outside and I will be stuck all day inside.  Nice. YEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLPPPP!

Enough about today, how was everyone's weekend?  Our was just glorious!  The sun was shining and the birds were chirping.  We were busy but we also had time to relax.  It was wonderful. I finally got some gardening down and am just super excited about that.  YEA! 

Now, let's plan our meals shall we?

• Sunday:  Sushi Night
• Monday:  Turkey Burgers (didn't have them last week) -- on the Grill outside, can you hello 80+ weather
• Tuesday:  Fish Tacos
• Wednesday:  Cuban Sandwiches
• Thursday:  Artichoke Lemon & Chicken  Pasta *
• Friday:  BBQ turkey Meatballs (slow cooker)*
• Saturday: Eat out / Order in

Sides will be consisting of Sweet Potato Fries, Roasted Brussels Spouts, Caesar salad, Corn, veggie slaw, and black beans.  YUMM
Desserts will be apples with Peanut Butter... (i so love this combo), Frozen Yogurt, Fruit Smoothies. 

The little kupcake is eating lentil and chickpeas and whatever she grabs off our plates.  :)

The weekly to-do list:

• Work out
• Work on garden
• Repot flowers for the front porch
• Put away little girl clothes
• Catch up on reading
• Reorganize recipes into new binder
• Clean the floors
• Baby proof...someone is crawling.  

Did you ever have a morning where you wish you could just start over again?

Learning to sow...again.

2009 was an awesome year learning how to garden.  2010 we stalled because I was growing a little kupcake of my very own and didn't have time to garden.  2011, we are back and we are going to do it bigger and better.

Here is what we have in store for Little Miss Planner's Garden:

• Building a cold frame
• Extending the garden
• Building a real trellis for the grapes  (fingers crossed we get some grapes this year)
• Adding two more dwarf fruit trees
• Build a better watering system

As far as what we are planting and hope to produce:

• Onions
• Carrots
• Leeks
• Artichokes
• Cucumbers
• Squash crock neck and Pattypan
• Brussels Sprouts
• Beans
• Butter Lettuce 
• Cabbage
• Bok Choi
• Beets
• Chilis
• Oranges (already producing)
• Plums (new)
• Grapes
• Apricots
• Raspberries (already producing but hard to get to)
• Sunflowers (multiple varieties)
• Corn
• Eggplant
• Cherry and Grape Tomatoes
• Big Tomatoes
• Chives
• Garlic

We start the big renovation of the garden next weekend so I'll get some photos up before then.  

If you had a garden, what would you grow?

Wednesday Ramblings...

• I didn't blog yesterday... well, more like I didn't publish anything yesterday.  I wrote two posts but they didn't make sense so I didn't post anything.  Oh well, at least I attempted it so to me that isn't breaking this streak I'm on.  :)
• I have two more thank you cards to write from last weekend's shower.  Why is it the last few are the hardest to get the motivation to write?
• So we finally made a HUGE dent on the garage.  After the last few boxes go up in the rafters I can park my car in it.  HOORAY!  It feels so good to have it organized (aside from that set of shelves with random nuts and bolts on it).  
• We got all of KLM's stuff washed.  All her newborn clothes, all her diapers and wipes.  If she came tmw, she have stuff to wear!  HOORAY!
• Don't tell anyone but I have this new fascination with getting coffee in the morning at 7-11 now.  It's decaf so don't be all "you shouldn't have coffee."  It's so tasty.  Maybe it's cause I drink it out of a straw?! 
• Another Wednesday another appt.  This one should be interesting.  Have lots of questions and from what I read, everything is going fine.  Just need to make doc aware of it all.  Not to worry, nothing scary or yucky... just home stretch pg stuff.  Oh the joy.
• Speaking of home stretch... how CRAZY is it that I'll be full term in 30 days?  WHOA!
• We're as menacing as Muppet Babies... LOL... love Glee more than words!!!
• I need to garden... Lettuce is ready to start harvesting.  My tomato bush never grew... boo!
• May was suppose filled with slow weekends... nope, every weekend is COMPLETELY FILLED AGAIN!  Uggh... Hopefully June will have at least one quiet weekend.  Fingers crossed!

Wednesday Ramblings... just a day late

• The time change really kicked my butt. I'm trying my best to go to bed and wake up early but at the moment I'm not winning the battle.


• I finally finished my portion of touch ups in KLM's room and the hallway. Now all that's left is the ceiling. I have a feeling I might be doing that part too.


• I want to learn how to make a swaddle blanket. I found a site online to buy organic fabric for it. Now it's a matter of getting a hold of a pattern. Hopefully my mom can fix my sewing machine (AGAIN) so I can attempt making it.


• I already raised my share for the Ronald McDonald Walk I signed up for. Thank you Apryl, Robyn and Frank for donating! I'm still accepting donations! :)


• At the moment, I'm really enjoying work. I know all I do is play with data and it's utterly geeky but for some reason it's so much fun! Shhh, don't tell my boss I'm having fun at work!


• We finally put in the garden. I have the sun burn to prove it. Now all I have to do is write about it on Learning to Sow.


• We have the sofa people coming out to clean our new sofa. Apparently one of the puppies had an accident on it. Well, we tried to clean it but didn't work. Now it's time for the professionals to do it. Fingers crossed they do a good job and get rid of the problem.


• I went to my first prenatal yoga class this week. Can you say killer? It was soo good that I even felt sore after! YEA!!!


• I need to start walking more.


• I can't wait to BBQ this weekend. I keep going back and forth what the first meal will be outside. Must be a big one since we have family coming over. Off to surf the nets for ideas!

New Posts on LMP Farm

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New Posts on LMP Farm

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New Posts on LMP Farm

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New Post on LMP Farm

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New Post on LMP Farm

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Fruits of our Labor

Today we're going up to the Ventura to spend the day with my brother's family and my parents. With all the little radishes getting big I decided to harvest some and make a little veggie basket for him.



In the basket are baby carrots, onions, radishes, thyme, rosemary, basil, mint and lemon balm.

New Posts on LMP Farm

Here's the link!

New Post on LMP Farm

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Feeding the addiction...

Three ways I did so...

1. Our toilet is not being nice, it's slowing running and wasting water. Once we figured out what was the issue, I talked the hubby to venturing out to Home Depot. Once there, I quickly grabbed the basket and made a bee-line to the garden center for more dirt. Three big bags to be exact. I don't what happened but two more herbs (oregano and rosemary) and a jalapeno pepper plant found it's way into my basket too. When the hubby found me, all crazed and a little high off the smell of dirt, he just rolled his eyes and took the basket away and paid.

2. I found the most amazing books on gardening. As much as I'd like to tote my laptop out to the garden, I don't think the hubby would allow it because of my klutzy nature. So in my search for knowledge, I acquired these bad boys on overstock!




3. My garden/cycling/all-around friend Bob is going to come over and is bringing me a HUGE gift.. a truck load of mulch. I know I know you are all jealous of my well connected friends who can get me tons of mulch and railroad ties for free. We'll finally cover the hill with it to keep the weeds at bay and it'll look a lot prettier than how it looks now too! I'm also going to use him as cheap labor and help move some dirt so we can start building the last tier. If he works fast, I might buy him dinner! :)

How do you feed your addictions?