Our garden

Here are our tomatoe plants in the house. They are really sprouting up.
Our greenhouse is now in the center of the yard and will get lots of sun
You can see how much they've grown in just a short time. Here are our beans and squash.

Broccoli, Cauliflower, chives, cucumbers and a variety of flowers.
Squash and some morning glories
This is how we have it set up inside the greenhouse.

Here is our herb garden. So far only the chives are big. I had planted the rest as seeds later. The chives I started with the first batch of starts. They are all starting to sprout thru though. Can't wait!

I took all these photos on Saturday, you can see how much it's all grown. Now if it will quit freezing out I can get them planted in the ground.

Well another day of gardening behind us!

In my search to identify a plant for someone, I found a few good links I thought I would share. I am far from a good gardener. I'm still learning so I'm always in search of some good helps. I've still not found what this plant is, but is sure is pretty. Here's a picture, if you know what it is, please share the info so I can pass it on.

Identify diseases and a cure for your vegetables

http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/cropindex.htm

Tons of information on lots of different gardening and flowering subjects. Even a search by characteristics for unknowns.

http://davesgarden.com/

Top 10 Gardening Websites for Your Online Tool Shed

http://gardening.about.com/od/toolschool/tp/Web_Diagnostics.htm

I'll let you know if I find the name. So far I can only think it's in the Rhododenren family.

Gardening

Oh what a beautiful day yesterday. We got some gardening done and a walk too! A few weeks back we got our seeds started inside. I'd planned on posting these photos before, but go figure, I got to busy!!!



What I did was used egg cartons. I found out that egg shells work great for fertilizer and you can use the halves to plant the seeds in, than the transplanting is easier into a pot. A few things I would change is not plant so many seeds in each one, it kinda defeats the purpose if you have to break the shell open to separate the seedlings. You can also crush the egg shells into the dirt to get the same nutrient effect.

Well now it's all sprouted and time to transplant, so today we transplanted into large pots. I have more seedlings than I know what to do with of course, but we'll give some away.

Today we hope to get some more transplanted and the greenhouse in order. Hubby moved it into a sunny spot last weekend, so I can fill it up this year. We stopped at the library during our walk yesterday and got some books on greehouse gardening. I've never had a greenhouse before, so this is a new bit of fun for us. I'm very excited to have the possibility (since I'm not sure if it will work yet) to have some vegi's year round in there. I've got some space around the outside to plant some squash, tomatoes, melons and berries too. I'll keep you posted as we progress. Yesterday all I did was covered the floor with newspapers to kill the grass. It works great as a weedbarrier so I figure it should work to kill the grass for me too.

Well gotta run. We are off to town for a bit.

Chicago, IL

Sorry I've been MIA lately, but I have good reason, really!

Here is some of what we've been up to. We took a "mini vacation" as the kids called it to Chicago, IL. Having never been to a "BIG" city before it was quite the experience for us. The sky scrapers were so tall, and there were so many people. I know it gets busier there than when were there. The SIDEWALKS have speed limit signs on them. I'm not kidding, they said, "when congestion is heavy, walking pace only" or something along those lines. The crosswalks were fuller than the road, there were more taxi cabs than cars, and more taxi companies than types of cars lol. It was alot of fun. I'll fill in more later, but here are some pictures. If you ever get to go, take a camera, we didn't stop in the downtown area, just drove thru.



The Sears Tower

The Donald Trump tower.

Broccoli & Cheese soup

I was hungry for some good home made broccoli soup so I made some up the other day. I've never made it before, only had it many times as family. So I called up my MIL and got the recipe. Here it is, it was delicious.

I used my 8 qt pot for it.

aprox 1/2 lb of bacon, cut and crisped in the pot
6-8 peeled and cubed potatoes (not to small, but not to big)
Add broth and/or water to cover that pot. ( I added a 49 oz can of chicken broth I had)
1 chopped onion

Boil until the potatoes are almost done.

Add 1 bunch of broccoli, washed and cut (or a 16oz bad of frozen)

Simmer until the broccoli and potatoes are cooked.

Add 1 lb of cubed Velveeta cheese (and/or any other small nubbins of cheese you have left over in the fridge.)

cook until the cheese is melted, you can put this in the oven on 350 for an hour or so if you don't want to worry about it burning.

After the cheese is melted, add some cream of mushroom soup to thicken it. If you prefer you can use cornstarch and water, or flour. You can also use instant potatoes.

Simmer or put it back in the oven until it's all nice and creamy and enjoy!

Oh I almost forgot to add that this is a great way to get rid of some extra ham from Easter dinner too. Just cube it and add it with the potatoes. I've even heard of some ppl using leftover turkey. It's a very versatile soup.

It's almost Spring YAY!

This adorable outfit was made by my mom for Abigail. I think it is just the cutest. It has a matching diaper cover (the underware type things).

It fit her perfectly, with a little room to grow.

Well I'm finally posting some more photos, it's been kinda busy around here.

Abigail turned 5 weeks old on Thursday and has been very busy growing. I weighed her yesterday and had to do it twice because I was afraid I read the scale wrong lol. She weighs 13 lbs 2 oz. At her doc appt on the 11th she was 11 lbs 8 oz. So over 2 lbs in 3 days, WOW! And she's been eating LOTS, so that makes me busier. I'm good at multi tasking, but carrying a baby around with one arm, gets tough lol.

We are planning our gardening as well. I finally get to plant flowers around the house. I'm sooo excited. This is the first year I've actually been able to use my flower beds for real flowers. Now I had some stuff in them, but didn't plant much in there, cause we had to do the siding, and windows, and roof and eaves. It didn't make much sense to me to plant flowers that I KNEW would get trampled, soo I waited and planted very little. BUT this year, we can fix up our beds and over flow them. We also have the greenhouse which we will be using. I will get some seeds started and have a potted garden this year. We don't have a garden dug, so I will be saving pots to plant in. I've never used a greenhouse before, so this is new, and exciting. If you have any suggestions, send them my way. We have a heater in there, a thermometer and a sun roof to open for air. So now we just get to have fun! I love gardening, so I am very excited, so are the kids. Amberlin is already planning her little garden, I'm not sure where it will be yet, but she's planning in none the less. I know we will have some tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, some various melons and squash. I'm also starting various flower seeds. Our goal is to have a year round garden in our green house. Rather than plant a huge garden and can a ton, we'll plant less and have fresh year round.



I remember having a garden while growing up and eating the fresh green beans off the vines. Mark was raised with huge gardens and his mom taught me how to can and make jams and such. We just don't have the huge garden here. I can't wait to get my flowers and vegis planted.



Well she is starting to squeak, so I gotta run. Enjoy the photos.

One month old!

4 weeks old

Well Abigail is one month old today. I weighed her and she is 11 lbs exactly today. Here are a few pictures. She's doing great, the kids are adjusting to her and life is back to normal (what's normal). I tried to get this posted yesterday, but didn't make it. But here it is today. I will try to post a few more pictures I took of her, I have to try to crop and edit them first.

I kept trying to get a picture of David kissing her, but he was just to fast. So this is the best one of them all LOL.