My Garden Today

Sorry for so many posts today. I'm trying to play catch-up with so many things, now that the R.S. progressive dinner is past us. I've been catching up on laundry and primary stuff today as well.


This is part of my garden. Those huge leaves are part of the pumpkin plant that is growing way out of the garden... in fact, taking over the garden! I don't know if there will ever be a real pumpkin coming out of it. We have seen a bunch of little ones starting all over the place, under the yellow flowers, but they get to a certain point and then seem to shrivel up.

Here is the view from our grass. In that box, there is a row of walla walla sweet onions, a row of green onions, a row of carrots, a row of cauliflower, and two rows of zucchini. I have learned, for next time, to not grow that many thing in one 4x4 box and also to not grow the zucchini rows so close to each other and other plants. The poor carrots and cauliflower can't see the sun.

Yummy yellow squash. This one's just about ready. We've probably picked about 10 of these in the last couple of weeks. It looks like there are many more to come!

Here we have Roma tomatoes, cilantro and pumpkins. You can barely see cilantro in there. I think half the row is gone now. We used some in our salad dressing yesterday. I need, so desperately, to put some tomato cages around those tomato plants. My wonderful husband bought some for me a few days ago, but they are so huge, I have to find a way to cut the bottom stakes down a bunch to make them fit my garden better. I've got to find my tin snips and try them first.

This may be my favorite vegetable to eat fresh from a garden! I am so disappointed in how these have grown (or not grown). We planted two rows. But more than half of them didn't make it and most of the other half is not growing well. This is a picture of our tallest pea plant (stalk?). I haven't picked any of them yet. Can't you just taste it from looking at it??

Ahh, zucchini! We've made a few batches of zucchini bread, even some with chocolate. We've been harvesting even more zucchini than yellow squash. My 7 year-old daughter goes out every day after school and waters the garden and checks for new veggies to harvest. She also keeps the weeds under control. What a gal!

Some type of lettuce. I haven't been wanting to try this because early on we had some critters stealing a bunch of it. It's been growing back a bit. I don't know much about how to grow this stuff. I need to research it so I'll know what to expect.

Carrots with zucchini leaves in the background.

This is to show how much I messed up, but will learn for next time. Here you can see three veggies growing way too close to each other. There's zucchini, cauliflower, and carrots.

Walla walla sweet onions. I have NO idea how to grow onions. I really need to do some homework here. I guess I could pull one out to see how big the bulb is getting under the dirt.... These are much bigger than my green onions. I was really looking forward to using fresh onions from the garden. I wonder if I'm doing something wrong.

Cafe Rio Spicy Ranch Dressing

Here's another recipe from last night's progressive dinner. {I have one more I really want to post, but I have to get it first. It was the wassail. Ohhhh, YUM!}

I don't have a picture for this one. But, it tasted really good. Confession: I didn't really try it with salad (I tried a spoonful when I was done making it). I heard from others that it was good.


Cafe Rio Spicy Ranch Dressing

• 3 Tomatillos
• juice from 1/2 a Lime
• 1/2 C. Buttermilk
• 1/2 C. Mayo
• 1/2 C. Sour Cream
• 1 pkg. Dry Ranch
• 1 C. Fresh Cilantro (I used some straight from my garden for the R.S. dinner) :-)
• 5 Green Onions
• 2 Garlic Cloves
• 1/2 tsp. Salt
• 1/4 tsp. Cayenne Pepper
• 4 tsp. Sugar

Blend until smooth. (Start with pulsing a few times. Then blend well.)


The salad we had was Romaine lettuce mixed with spinach. We had many toppings to choose from including black beans, corn, tomatoes, red peppers, olives, avocados, fritos chips, red onions, and cheese.

(Wish I had been at the "salad" house to try some...)

Goals Report

Were you wondering how I did with my "goals" last week?? Probably not. I just figured I'd report anyway.

There were eight. I think I did better than if I had not made those goals and posted them, but I still didn't accomplish everything. I felt pretty good about how I was doing until I looked at my list again. :-P

1. The first one was eating healthy. Um, I tried. Sorta. Okay... I didn't give it a 100% honest effort. Bummer!
2. Make new schedule and stick to it. Grr... I really wanted to do that. But, I had a hard time because I was trying so hard to stick to #5. I always ran out of time to do things when my kids got in bed and before I needed to go to bed and coming up with a schedule was one of those things.
3. Be a nice mommy. Hmmm.... well, I really tried. My kids would beg to differ. Let's just say, there's still room for improvement and above all I need to learn patience and meekness. (Some answers for disciplining would help too.)
4. Start the Christmas Quilt. Yay! This one I can honestly say yes! I have cut almost all of the squares for it and now I just have to figure out some further measurements before I can start sewing the front. I hope to do some of that this week. Woo hoo!
5. Get a good night's sleep every night. I did alright with this one. (As long as you think going to bed by 10pm and getting up @ 4:30am is a good night's sleep.) I didn't get other things done though because for some reason we had things going on in the evenings as a family and my kids were always going to bed late (9:30pm - shudder)! Then I would crawl into bed shortly after.
6. Get my laundry all the way done. Those of you who know me well, know that was a huge deal and I was in for it when I made that goal. I hate when I do that to myself. I make a goal that seems possible, but is not realistic. Okay. I guess it could be realistic. And, I did get A WHOLE LOT of it done. I actually stayed on top of folding it when it came out of the dryer too! That is a major accomplishment in and of itself. It usually just piles up for a few days until someone in our family (or all of us together) gets around to folding it. I actually gave my 8-year-old a job of folding a load of laundry each day and getting paid for it. It worked. That was helpful. I was happy with how much progress I made, but I have to be honest. I still had a few loads to do by the end of the week. Then I was too tired and sore on Saturday to finish those up.
7. Have for self-control and discipline. Well reading the results from my goals, you wouldn't think I had practiced more self-control and discipline.... But I really felt like I had stepped it up from the "normal" for me. I think even if you don't completely accomplish the goals you set, if you try you're still using more discipline than normal. Right?? {please say yes}
8. Exercise everyday. I did do this. Some days it was a pretty lame effort and no one else in the world would count it as exercise, but I did at least some situps (crunches) or some squats everyday that I wasn't running (but not nearly the amount I was doing over the summer when I was doing the 100 pushups, 200 squats, and 200 situps challenges). I should start those again. Hmmm... Anyone with me??

Okay now, that was a bit much for a goal report. Sorry. I actually meant to post something else and just have my report at the top (as a little blurb). Ha ha! I am quite a rambler, aren't I?

Oh, and I have a blog (the Lazy Organizer) that I totally love. I found it awhile ago (her link is in my side bar as well), but haven't had as much time to read her past posts until more recently. I adore this woman. I think I'd like to be her, a few years in my future. I think in her past, she was like I am now. Did that make any sense?? Well, check out her blog if you'd like. She's really interesting and well, you may not agree or want to be like her, or put her on a pedestal the way I do, but you may still find her life intriguing and at least interesting. Hopefully.

Oh, and I made two different batches of zucchini bread last week. One was regular and one was chocolate zucchini bread (with chocolate chips as well), and my kids still don't know that it had zucchini in it. I had a few zucchini from my garden that I was able to harvest (the first! Yipee!), and I hope to post about that soon. My garden is going crazy and I want to show you! It's so fun!

For now, I'd better get back to being a mom.

Have a great Monday (evening... now).

Two Posts: Sprouts and Peaches

This morning I went out to the garden to finish planting the seeds (thanks to my wonderful husband who watched my little helpers - inside - while I was in the garden. Thanks, Hun!) When I pulled off the burlap covering the garden boxes, this is what I found!!! Wow! I only planted the seeds five days ago! I really wasn't expecting sprouts yet! Maybe I wasn't even expecting them at all! I was so freakin' stoked! I ran inside to tell my husband. I was almost as giddy as I was when I first learned to stipple a quilt.

My yellow squash sprouts. Woohoo! The peas still haven't made an appearance, but that's okay. I have enough excitement for one day! (Oh, wait... I also have peaches!! That's pretty darn exciting, too!)

Here's one more. It's blurry. Sorry. I mean, you get the idea, right?! K- enough about my sprouting squash!

Peaches: Ah... mmmm... Utah Peaches!

My sister-in-law ordered these through her mom. My husband picked them up last night. We have approximately 60lbs (well, now maybe only 58lbs) of peaches in our possession. Yikes! I better get busy!

They smell so wonderful. So does my house. These peaches are so soft, juicy and sweet, with the right amount of tartness. Yummm! I've already had three... or four today. So I don't really know what I'm going to do with all of them, but I need to decide soon, before they go bad. I'm thinking: blanch, slice and freeze some, fruit leather, dried peached, can (if I can find someone who can help me), peach pie filling(?), peach syrup, and of course eat a bunch. {Cobbler, peaches 'n' cream, peaches on cereal, in oatmeal, etc.} Are the possibilities endless? I guess. But whatever I do, I need to get creative and BUSY!

Getting the Fall Garden Ready

Our dirt is ready! We have to buy dirt for our garden, because here in the desert our dirt is like clay. We used a mixture of mulch, garden soil from Home Depot, manure, fertilizer (which makes my stomach queezy to use - so we probably will go organic next time), vermiculite, and peat moss. I really don't know if we got all of the amounts right for the mixture. But we're gonna try it anyway! I'll post pictures when we actually start seeing some sprouts.

Here's our lovely dirt in our lovely 4'x4' box that my dear husband made.



Here are our three boxes in our slightly elevated garden spot. Next to the tree my dear husband planted a few months ago... to add some shade to our backyard! (Woohoo for shade in AZ!)


We covered the boxes with burlap to protect those poor little seeds from the harsh sun, keep the soil more moist (it drys out soo fast here), and keep the birds away.

Now, if I could only have a way to keep THIS One away! She loves to help me. She loves the dirt. We go out there to water the garden and she gets SOO dirty! She scoops up the dirt with her hands and shovels it out of the garden box. It was quite difficult to get the seeds all planted on Saturday (wih my husband gone for the day). She kept getting into the dirt and stirring up the seeds. A few times she even took out the labels...err... stakes... telling me where the row of what vegetable was. I gave up after planting two different veggies. I planted two rows of peas, and two rows of yellow squash. I need to get out there and plant the rest of them when my husband is home. ...{Maybe tonight... Hopefully tonight!}

I have a bit of leftover burlap I didn't know what to do with. There wasn't enough to put over any gardens or plants. I thought I might use it in some Fall crafts or a Halloween costume, etc. And today as I was looking through my favorite blogs, the answer came to me! I found a post at The Nesting Place who posted a link to Fabulous K who made this adorable and easy fall burlap banner! So that's what I'll do!