Benjamin's 2nd Birthday!!!

Benjamin turned 2 years old this April 1st, and well, I just didn't have the time to get the photo's up on the blog then.  BUT, I do now!!!  So, here are some belated birthday pics of my little man's day!

This year I made Ben a MICKEY MOUSE cake!!  The little mickey on the side is just for him and the big one is to share!

I had to make something silly for April fools day, so I made deviled eggs out of cadberry eggs!!  Didn't think they could get any worse for ya did you! LOL  You can find that recipe HERE
if you dare........ :)

Super Man Takes Flight!!!  See, it was suppose to be a superman party, but couldn't find any cute plates etc... to go with that theme!  I made him the cape and everything, ( plus we have called him superman since he was born for the way he stretches with both arms strait up!) So we still let got him in his super clothes for the party!  To see some great pics of the cape I made plus a batman one I made his cousin ( who's in this pic above to the right), go HERE to my other blog called kelly's crafty creations!

Me and my little man!  I so dig this guy!

Thanks for lookin!  Blessings!

My urban container garden #3



Ok, so now it's time for some current pictures of our front yard farm! Here goes:

A picture of some of the beef steak tomato's on the first row on the right.

Some more beef steak

These are some of the cherry tomatoes on their row...

A look into the carrot jungle!

My oldest daughter Kayla holding a rather stubby looking carrot!

These are the two jalapeno plants, they are doing real well.

All the pepper plants are doing real well...

This is one of two yellow pears tomato plants I have.

This is an Ariel view of some of the Roma plants.  I have four Roma tomato plants and they are all doing so well this year compared to last.

Now this........ this is VEGGIES GONE WILD!!!! LOL  These are so way to close together it's not even funny!!!  There all so inter-tangled and huge that I can't even see half the stuff growing in there!

So here are a few pics of what I could find in there.  This is a really big cucumber!  There are SO MANY of these guys growing in all different stages... VERY hard to find in all that mess though!

This is a adorable cantaloupe!!!  It's so fuzzy and cute!  Can't wait for this one to finish up!  It will need a hammock to hold it up from breaking off soon!

This is one of the itty bitty watermelons growing right now.  So cute!!

this is inside the zucchini bush!  There are around 4 or five growing now.  They have such huge beautiful flowers!

These are around 7 or 8 pickling cucumber plants I am growing.  Also in here somewhere is one surviving pumpkin plant trying to make it's way in the world!!  I'm rooting for it, gotta root for the underdog!!! lol

Yellow onions that are actually growing up to look like real onions this year!  YEAH!

On the left is a bucket full of flowering cilantro, or better known as coriander!  The middle container is the stubs that are left from the second round of lettuce I tried to grow.  Rabbits have no manners!!!  To the right of that sad container is my flowering arugula.  It did real well this year, next year I will try to think about pinching off the tops before they flower.  Same with the lettuce, it did real well and then one hot day that I was out of town was all it needed to wilt and die :(

Red onions( really purple...seriously....there not red!! )  there doing real well to but harder to see them in this pictures.

Sole surviving lettuce!  With a few weeds on the side....

These are my strawberry plants.  We've only had maybe 5 total strawberries from them, but hoping the keep growing and adding for next year.

In the background is a long piece of gutter delivered by my friend Joe.  This will either be mounted to the top of that fence or on the side of the house and be filled with compost so that I can grow some spinach!!!

This is how much all that lemon balm has grown so far.  Getting really bushy!




So, there you have it.  I will keep updates here and there as things get ripe for the picking.  We have had one green pepper , two jalapenos, 5 strawberries, lettuce, arugula, garlic and onions so far.  Can't wait for some of those tomato's to finally turn red!!!
SO, what are you doing this year in the garden??? Please feel free to share!

My urban container garden #2

Ok, so now for a in between pictures! Then, maybe tomorrow I will be able to get out some pics of what they all currently look like. Ok, here goes:

Here are my perennial herbs. This is usually over-run with Mint, but this year the Lemon balm TOOK OVER!! Most of what you see there is Lemon Balm. There are a few small area's of mint, some oregano on the left and some garlic/onion grass in the middle.

Close up of our first strawberry!

This is a raised bed my hubby made for me years ago. I add some more strawberry plants and also planted garlic this year. My friend said they grow well together:) They do!

This was my lettuce growing in one of our old kitchen drawers! :) We had them stowed in the basement for a long time after a remodel, so I thought they would do nicely for shallow rooted lettuce:)

The drawer on the right is red onions and the slim green container next to it is newly planted lettuce ( that you'll find the rabbits ate most of!!)

On the right here are yellow onions and next to them on the left is a drawer full of arugula! More lettuce growing to the left of that.

So on the far left I planted four pumpkin seeds. I left them to grow for ever it seemed and nothing.... so later I planted pickling cucumbers and zucchini squash.... then of course one of them decided to come up! VERY CROWDED now:) Next to that on the right are a few watermelon plants, and next to that are a few cantaloupe plants.

The short one of the right has cucumber plants growing in it.

We put up this continuous lattice for the plants.... it was a nice idea, but they are SO FULL right now that we can't hardly see what's what!! next year they will each get there own:)

This row here has mostly all different kinds of sweet pepper. Also it has two jalapeno buckets and one bucket full of cilantro!

Lots of tomatoes....

Lots more tomatoes!

My next blog will show you how all the plants are doing currently. I separated the bucket plants out to four rows so I could actually see each plant. They were getting really bushy all squished together like that!  I will try to get some pics and maybe even a video out soon!
Thanks for looking!
Blessings

My urban container garden #1

Well, now that I'm back to blogging, I thought it would be good to share my gardening experiment with y'all! This is the first year I started seeds inside. I started them in late February and was totally surprised at how well they did. Note: Do NOT use sharpie's to label the Popsicle sticks unless your gonna wrap tape over them before you spray water your garden!! lol:) Here are some pics of my seedlings:)( Wish I had taken more at all the different stages, but like I said, not much blogging going on at the time...)

These are almost all tomatoes. There are a few green pepper plants and then the three that you see sprouted are some seriously leggy cucumber plants:)

This is Kayla's garden...

And this is Samantha's...


Later, I transferred them all to milk cartons ( which were kinda a pain later to transfer to buckets so don't know that I would recommend that, but they work in a pinch..) then many of them went to the 5 gallon buckets I had on hand and the cucumbers to a larger plastic tub. Here is a pick of that.

I put them on the porch at first to "harden them off". They really struggled with the switch from milk carton to bucket. I think I would start them in a bit larger peat moss pots next time and then when they have real good established roots, switch them strait to the buckets. By the time I switched them from milk cartons to buckets, they were SO TALL they were leaning all over each other.... SO, think I started them a little early! :)
SO out of 21 tomato plants, about 4 died from shock. There was one rouge night that got in the thirties and it killed 4 tomato plants and all three of my cucumbers were no match for that temperature..... so sad.... I really didn't anticipate caring so much about these plants!! LOL I tell you what though, they're like my babies!!! So much time and care went in to growing them and keeping them healthy, that I really wanted them to do well, and was totally sad when the few died:( BUT, the next post will show y'all how the survivors are doing now!!! Be back soon!

Persecution anyone?

About two or three weeks ago I was playing with this video concept and recorded this one here. It's kinda just some thoughts on persecution and passion. Even if my kids are the only ones who ever care about these videos, I thought it would be a cool idea to tape my thoughts about different things as they come to mind.  I know for me, if my mom had some stash of videos from back when she was young, I would be watching them over and over again.  So, here's hoping at the least these will be cool for my kids.  At most..... God knows!

Blessings

p.s. turn up the volume, I'll figure out this mic thing yet!

Trying out the video thing!!

How to make YOGURT!

So, I know it's been a long time without a post, SO SORRY ABOUT THAT!!! This last school year was the most challenging of my life and all my energy HAD to go to my kids with no exceptions last year. SO, it's summer now, things are a lot more relaxed and finally I have a little more time to get back to blogging a bit!! YEAH!!

So to start out a new season of blogging, I wanted to share with y'all just how EASY it is to make YOGURT!!!
I have been blessed to get my milk from two different places. I get a gallon of fresh raw goats milk ( I'm telling you, it taste just the same done right!!!) from a local goat farm and I get a gallon of raw cow's milk from another friends farm!! SCORE!!! I especially am thankful for the cow's milk because cow's milk separates so I can take all that wonderful cream on top and make butter and buttermilk and then have skim milk left, which is what I drink anyways! SO cool....

Ok, so, yogurt! What I do is take a half gallon of skim milk, and I add a small yogurt container in the milk and mix, ( you can actually add a bit of milk to the yogurt first to break it up, then dump it in the whole 1/2 gallon. This yogurt should be plain, and HAS to have LIVE CULTURES in it! And guess what, THAT's IT!!! Leave it out on the counter for 12-24 hours. ( This depends on how fresh the yogurt is, I used a fresh Greek yogurt with no weird additives, it worked great, but was a little loose, so next time I will try a little more yogurt or one with more live culture). Just experiment around till you get the consistency you like. It's so worth it!! Then you will have your own fresh yogurt!! HERE is another web sight with a slightly different way of making it, i will try this next time just to see how it works!

Now comes the add-ins! Our families favorite yogurt is lemon, so I went searching this morning and found this web sight HERE. This web sight rocks because it goes over how much to put in for so many different flavors. I tried the lemon this morning with the yogurt I made and it tastes SO GREAT!! I used a splenda type sweetener because of my diabetes and it still tastes wonderful! It did make my yogurt even looser and so became one of those expensive yogurt drinks you can buy, but still, so awesome!

I hope you try some of this out. I so enjoy knowing I can make my own foods and being less dependant on "the man":)

Blessings!!!