Strawberries Everywhere!

When I first wrote this post we were in full Strawberry Season. The kids and I pretty much over did it on Strawberries!

There were 3 strawberry plants in pots when we moved into our rent house. We have had such a good time watching them grown and get strawberries.

Our harvest was around 20 strawberries in total and we enjoyed picking and eating every singe one!

Lily is a Strawberry Addict. 

U-Pick is really big here in Oregon. At the Farmers Market you can buy a box of Strawberries for $20. At the pick-your-own we paid around $8 for over 8lbs!  

Escaping into the Blueberry Fields. Don't worry, kids, we will come back to pick our own soon!

Lily ate so many Strawberries that we offered to pay some extra. The guy just laughed and said it's all part of the experience.

We Love Oregon!!

Spring Time!

It's that time again! Time to get outside and get dirty. Eli "loves" when I suggest working outside because he always ends up doing most of the work. I take care of the babies.

Ethan loves planting and playing in the dirt. 

Even though we didn't get one tomato last year we planted them again. We are only doing tomatoes and peppers. Got to love that Texas heat!

 

Eli loves to plant flowers in our flower bed even if they never survive and hardly ever make any more flowers. Ethan decided these flowers needed to be picked before they were planted. It's amazing how many flowers he pulled off before we caught him.

My herb "garden". I have mint, basil, cilantro, and yes, I am trying to grow rosemary again. I think this is my 5th time?

I love the spring!

Review #1 of Garden Tea and Giveaway!

Our container garden is not doing well. We have gotten several cucumbers, a few okra and 3 hot peppers. That's it. I thought it was time for an intervention or all our hard work was for nothing. I had heard about Authentic Haven Brand Natural Brew Soil Conditioner Tea on a gardening blog and really wanted to try it out. I think our main problem is that we grow our plants in containers, not in the ground. Even though we put manure in with the potting soil, we had not fertilized it at all this year. In past years we did a bit of fertilizing but with nasty chemicals. I really want to do it different this year. The Soil Conditioner Tea helps your plants roots to absorb more nutrients from the soil.

                                  

I contacted Annie at Authentic Haven and she sent me several samples of her "tea"! There are 3 different types of tea: Cow Manure, Horse Manure and Alfalfa. The first two, Cow and Horse, are used for all your plants and gardens. The third, Alfalfa, is for use on your Roses. Haven Livestock has only raised natural grass fed livestock. The livestock is free of antibiotics, growth hormones, and pesticides.

It is very easy to brew your tea. Fill a 5lb bucket with water, place one tea bag inside and cover. Leave it to sit for 1-3 days until it is a dark brown color. Then just water your plants! You can use the tea every time you water or at least 4 times during the growing season.

Please be careful when you have a bucket of water around children because they could fall into it and drown! Ours is kept covered and Ethan is always supervised when outside.

I can't wait till my tea is brewed and I can get to watering my plants! I will treat them with the tea at least once a week for the next 4 weeks and then post on the progress our garden has made.

Now for the best part! Annie sent me several samples of the different types of tea to review on my blog. Among them was a tea bag of the Alfalfa tea for Roses. Unfortunately I don't have any roses :( so I want to give it away to one of you!! Visit Authentic Haven Brand's Blog and tell me why you want to try out the Alfalfa tea on your roses. I'll pick a winner on Augs 17th.

On a side note- I have a new Toad!! Can you see the little guy?

He jumps away pretty fast so it's hard to get a good pic of him. I've seen him twice now near my herbs and "house" plants. I also saw a larger toad near the container garden this morning. They must have heard that our yard was a safe, happy place to live! I hope this little guy sticks around for awhile.

Vacation- Part 2

Once we got home from Aunt April's house (Vacation Part 1) and spent a few weeks sitting around on the couch having morning sickness all day, we pack our bags and headed to the farm! We flew to Virginia to visit Eli's side of the family, got to meet Grandmommy (his Mom's Mom) and spent a few days relaxing at his parents farm.

He loved the chickens!

Grandmommy, Eli and Ethan

The cow wasn't too interesting to him.

Ethan had lots of fun playing with his Aunt Mercy and Uncle Joshua!

He bounced on a trampoline for the first time.

He loved walking in the creek!

Naked is the Best!

Then he enjoyed watching Mercy blowing bubbles with his Grandpa Ed.

He took several rides around the farm in the red wagon, held onto by Mercy and pulled by Joshua.

Ed and Vicki have a garden they have been growing for 15 years!! I hope one day Eli and I can have a place just like it. They grow everything from tomatoes to lettuce to all kinds of berries.

Ethan enjoying fresh picked berries.

I couldn't get over the asparagus! I don't think I have ever seen asparagus growing. They have some plants that are 15 years old! It was one of the first vegetables that they started in their garden. We unfortunately missed the harvest but they continue to grow until the spring when they get mowed down and grow up into fresh asparagus.

Thank you to all of the family for opening your homes to us. We had such a great visit and can't wait to see you all again.

Growing Veggies

Our garden is growing more and more every day. We have gotten several cucumbers and a few okra and 1 pepper! The tomatoes are still growing and haven't produced yet. I think the rains we had a few weeks ago knocked off all the flowers.

I didn't know okra made such a pretty flower! The flowers don't stay very long before turning into a tiny okra.

These cuties are all over our okra leaves. I'm okay with them as long as they don't jump on me or start eating our plants.

We bought the cucumber seeds with the intent to make pickles! I'm not an experienced canner so I choose to go with refrigerator pickles. No canning involved! I used this recipe but halved it. I also added grape leaves from our "wild" grapes that grow on the neighbor's tree that happens to grow into our yard. They taste good but a bit on the bitter/sweet side. Eli suggested adding a 1/2 cup of water to the recipe next time.

On a sadder note, our Toad died. He had been living in our flower bed for about a year. He liked to hang out in my potted plants and I never knew when I would be watering and he would pop his head up out of the dirt!

I came home from Oklahoma last week to find him floating in Ethan's swimming pool (that was filled with rain water). He wasn't dead so I fished him out with one of Ethan toys (that Eli threw away later) and set him back in the flower bed. I thought maybe he had just had too much water, as he is a desert toad, and just needed to dry out a bit. The next day he was dead. I had Eli bury him in the flower bed next to the jasmine bush where he lived.

Don't worry, I cleaned out the swimming pool before I let Ethan back in it!