Sunflowers

Ethan loves sunflowers, so for the last two years we've grown them in the backyard where our yard is still waiting for some landscaping.

This year they grew even taller then last year, but unfortunately they couldn't handle the strong winds where we live and many of them were knocked over or broken in half.

Here are some pics of Ethan and I showing just how tall they are.

* pics taken 9/6/13

Growing Garden

These are the raised garden boxes Matthew and I built last spring.

For more on these, click here.

This is some of what we have growing right now.

Beans

variety of lettuce

Lots and lots of spinach

Squash

Cantaloupe & watermelon

Lots of Roma tomatoes

Zucchini

Peas

Carrots

Jalapeno peppers

Sunflowers & pumpkins

Basil

We're so excited to have a growing garden this year.

Next spring, we're hoping to add another raised garden bed, just for strawberries.

*pics taken 7/15/12

Flowers In Bloom

I had a previous post about when we planted all these flowers, so I thought I'd show how much they've grown.

In case you don't think they look all that big, check out what they used to look like...

Here are some more flowers.

And their before picture...

This cute flower is one that Lexi planted from seed in a little cup at nursery one Sunday. It's so beautiful and it just keeps growing and growing. We can't wait until it's fully bloomed.

Who would have thought that a seed planted in nursery would turn out to be so beautiful!

These are some seeds that we just recently planted to see if we could grow some more flowers before the end of summer. We're watering them daily and crossing our fingers that the frost won't be too early this year!

*pics taken 08/06/2010

Reap What You Sow

We wish there was more variety to reap, but this is the garden this year.

We planted 10 different plants and only got 7 to grow & not all 7 grew so strongly :)

The first year we planted (5 years ago) we filled this entire garden. Each year the garden got smaller because we couldn't even eat what was in it.

This year, the garden takes up half of the original area. Manageable enough for me this year :)

Last year we didn't have any pumpkins when Halloween rolled around and we did not want to repeat that mistake again. I think we have 6 regular pumpkin plants growing and 2 white pumpkin plants.

This year we'll hopefully have LOTS of pumpkins!!! We love pumpkins at Halloween time!

In case you're wondering, spinach grows like CRAZY! I think I have 3 spinach plants and we can hardly keep up with eating them. I think I'm going to cook it and freeze it so it doesn't go to waste.

Here are our peas. One vegi that the kids love to eat fresh. Since we planted so late this year (thanks to the weather) we're still waiting for them to be ready to pick.

These are the raspberries that grow along our fence. I got some starters from a friend about 3 years ago and they also grow like CRAZY. It's nice to go pick fresh raspberries every day.

We've moved our strawberries a few times, but here is where they are currently, up against the house. My plan was to build raised garden beds this spring, but since it never happened the strawberries will have to stay here. As you can see, they've decided to grow around the corner too.

*pics taken 08/06/2010