Eric's "little" project

Eric was really feeling the need for more gardening space and so he decided to transform our side yard into his gardening haven. Here is the beginning of his labor of love. After he cleared everything away we had to have the sprinkling system in that area changed a little bit and then Eric got to work on the garden boxes. After lots of research and price comparisons of different options, and a few trips to Home Depot he got to work.

Step 1: Finish building the garden boxes (Nov. 7th)

After all the boxes were built and lined up (if you click on the picture you can see the string he used to make sure everything was straight), he spread bark in between the boxes.

Step 2: Spread bark in between the boxes (Nov. 8th)

Step 3: Have a dumptruck deliver a load of top soil (Nov. 8th)

Step 4: Move Soil from driveway to boxes (Nov. 8th...it was a long day)

It was fun to watch the pile of dirt shrink, but it took all day and I was getting worried that they wouldn't finish. We were also expecting rain which would have washed the soil away.

Step 5: Plant bulbs, rake dirt to smooth it out (Nov. 8th..a very long day)

This was Gabe's Job mostly and he did GREAT! He worked so hard and was Eric's right-hand man until the job was done. They were out there until 9:00 at night and all the other kids were in bed...except poor Gabe he was such a trooper!

Here is Gabe still plugging away the sun has gone down but not our Gabe. He told Eric toward the end of the day that he was feeling "flat", Eric thought that was a very good description. Later on he said that his legs felt wobbly. Poor kid...maybe there were some child labor laws violated here??

Step 6: Add some "fertilizer"

Eric thought this would be a good way to get rid of the pumpkins on our porch from Halloween...who knows maybe we will end up with a accidental pumpkin patch.

So here is the pile slowly shrinking away. The last load was definately worth documenting!

The Final Wheelbarrel

Good job Guys. What a day. Eric started out the day by asking Gabe if he wanted to earn $6. But it was such a long day and Gabe did such an awesome job that Eric gave him $20.

These guys never took a break...I brought out lunch and dinner, and lots of gatorade.

Looks good!!!

Before----------Mid-project-----------After

Before------------------------------After

Before----------Mid-project------------After

Mid-project------------------------After

Eric was finally finished but even with all this done he still felt we were missing something so just over a week later he decided to add...

Step 7: Make a compost bin (Nov. 16th)

Fall Gardening

Eric has been working really hard on our yard. He really wants a bigger garden next year and was spurred into action when Vera, one of Eric's employees, gave him two raspberry bushes. He has been planning and plotting and I think he has finally come up with a design he is happy with. It is going to be alot of work, but I am excited to see how it will turn out. He is going to build some planter boxes and use this entire space by the side or our house. The first step was to clear out our garden from last year and move the lilac and rose bushes that we had there.

BEFORE

AFTER

He decided to kill the grass and put that black papery stuff down and then build the boxes on top of that so we don't have to worry about weeds. He is anxious to get at least one box done so he can plant the raspberry bushes this fall.

Along with getting rid of all the old garden growth...he also dug up the bulbs for our dalias and gladiolas and planted a whole bunch of tulips for me...I love tulips!

The kids helped out a lot too!

Fall Harvest

We harvested all the food from our garden in preparation for the colder weather and this is what we ended up with. Not too shabby.

10/7/08

If anyone has a hankerin' for speghetti squash come on over, we have about a dozen in our garage.

The next project was to prepare the sunflower seed for eatin'.

The kids put them all in bowl for us then we boiled them in salt water and let them dry out over night, then dried them out even more in the oven. We had 3 cookie sheets full, I accidentally left one sheet in a little too long and those seeds got a little toasted. But they are surprisingly tasty!

It has been so fun, Eric has really been enjoying himself. In fact all he can think about these days is how to get a bigger garden next year.

Flowers from our Garden

On Sunday we made a few arrangments from the flowers in our garden. The kids had a great time picking the flowers and really wanted a picture. Emma Likes the dalias that are white and have dark purple. You can't really see one in this photo. Isaac's favorite was the red flower in the middle of the third vase from the left. It has narrow petals so it looks a little crazy.

We watched conference and I tried to learn how to french braid. Emma is sporting my 5th attempt.

Home Grown

WE HAVE A GARDEN!!

taken 7/22

this picture was taken the first time we harvested anything from our garden

taken 8/9

this picture was taken the day after we got back from McCall...always fun to come home after a week long trip to see how much progress the garden has made

This summer has been fun watching our garden grow and eating our very first Garden Veggies!

Right now I am convinced that few things in life are as gratifying as eating food from my own garden. Maybe the novelty will wear off once we are old hat at this...but this is the first time in my adult life that I have had a garden and it is so fun! We planted corn, sunflowers, peas, beans, yellow squash, zucchini, pumpkins, spaghetti squash, peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, cucumbers and watermelon. I think that is all. I thought it was quite ambitious since we haven't really been into gardening.

Our First Harvest

7/22/2008

I sent the kids out for a cucumber for a salad and they came back with a zucchini, (Like I said, we are new at this)

Here are the kids and our neighbor, Holly, showing off the first harvest. I included the flowers in the picture because, you guessed it, they are from our back yard as well.

We recently had a ward activity that I found out about last minute and I had to bring a side. We had 2 big zucchinis in the garden so I cut them up and put olive oil, Parmesan cheese and seasoning on and put it in the oven for 15-20 min. I kind of wished there was a way to show off that the zucchini was from my garden. I almost made a little note card...just kidding. Martha Stewart eat your heart out.

We brought a bunch of cucumbers to McCall with us along with some spaghetti squash. We have one plant of cucumbers and it is producing like crazy. We brought 6 cucumbers with us to McCall and we got home a week later there are at least 7 more ready to pick.