Time to Sow

I am wide awake at 3 am, so I am getting caught up on the blog. I'm sure this will hit me in 4-5 hours or so when it is time to get up and get ready for church! Ah, but there is always nap time after lunch! :-)

In between the parade and our game on Saturday we ran over to Lowe's and picked up some seeds and plants for the garden and some mulch and flowers for the flower beds. The plan was to pick a few weeds, put down the mulch, lay out the garden and plant some fruits and veggies. I laid Finn down for his nap and the 4 of us went out back and got to work. Usually after 5 minutes we lose Jase and Ally and they are inside watching TV, but today was different. They helped pull weeds, fill holes and dig up rocks for quite a while. It was really nice working as a family outside together.

The plan was simple, but you know how it goes, once you get started on something you have to finish it. We have these rocks {about the size of my fist} surrounding our big flower beds out back. They hide our french drain system in the back and side of the flower bed, and are decorative in the front. I wish I had a before picture, but over time of being stepped on {by us and mainly the dogs} they have sunk down quite a bit. And I'm talking several inches, making most of them under the dirt and unnoticeable at all. Queue the shovel and rake! This is what we spent most of our time on all afternoon. After it was all said and done it looks so much better. All of the weeds are out of the rocks and the dirt is now under the rocks instead of visa versa. Major props to the hubbster for using his muscles! :-)

Here is one of the sides to our finished product. I know it just looks like rocks, but it was pretty rough beforehand.

This is our orange tree we've had for 3-4 years. The first year it did not produce, then it produced fruit one year and the last year or two it has not produced and it looked like a fungus or something had gotten a hold of it because a lot of the leaves were very withered looking. We now have little white balls all over the tree, which will turn into blooms and then into fruit. Excited to harvest some once they are ready. And Shawn also planted broccoli in the front of this flower bed. I hope they take well in this flower bed and the dogs leave them alone! Oh and you can see some more of the rocks we worked on just below the broccoli. Those were mainly hidden by dirt and weeds.

We did not plant a ton this year, but we are super excited about what we did plant. The carrots and asparagus are leftover from last season. The carrots are not ready, but the asparagus have gone while lately! I love it! And I don't know if you remember, but the first year we planted, I had no idea what I was doing and planted a whole pouch of seeds in a row and we had an abundance {and overwhelming amount} of crops. You would think this would be a great thing, but it wasn't. The garden was very crowded and I read that when you have that many plants in one space that they are all pulling nutrients out of the ground and it basically waters down {or takes away} the nutrients going to all the plants. And then last year Shawn and I did not communicate and he did the same exact thing when he planted. Hopefully we will have better success with round 3!

This is our 3rd season for our peach tree and it finally has fruit growing on it. I do not eat peaches {I will be trying them and experimenting with different recipes}, but Shawn and the kids like them, so I am super excited to see how they turn out. I have enjoyed our garden these past few seasons and love eating what we harvest from it. And I really enjoy learning new things, so this has been great from that aspect as well. Plus the kids love watching them grow and the crops are a great patience teacher!