My happy place!!!!

 Here's my happy place!!!!  I didn't know till a few years after we were married that I like to garden!  Watching seeds and plants grow is fun for me.  I usually say that I should work at a greenhouse!  Mike did such a good job and worked really hard this past spring to give this space an uplift!  The backyard garden was created a few years after we got married.  We started with a few raised beds made from railroad ties.  Mike filled them with dirt and I planted seeds.  When I look back at our first years of gardening, things really improved over the years!

We remodeled our home eight years ago and we had some brick leftover from the house.  We hired landscapers to come lay them around the garden beds and added a few more raised beds!  The garden is on a slight slant and this spring, Mike lifted all the railroad ties one by one to level the beds and then added another layer of ties to make them deeper garden beds.  Good mushroom topsoil was poured into each bed to level them off and I was ready to plant seeds!!!!!!

I LOVE this space so much!  I walk to it almost every single day!  We learned that this is a hobby for Ashlyn too!  She loves to go out there with me and plant seeds, grow all the vegetables and right now she goes out to the garden and picks a hand full of green beans and eats them on the spot!  That's what I love to see the most!  I love seeing the kids out there gleaning fresh produce with no chemicals and seeing how foods grow!  The other night, we had the kids go from plant to plant and try them!  Right from the garden!  Matthew did not like the carrots!  :). They tried peppers, jalapeños and tomatoes.  They chewed on some fennel greens and those that don't love the taste of black licorice, spit it out.  Kale is bitter but so good for you!  Cucumbers and green beans are a family favorite!  

I planted some fall vegetables!  Romaine lettuce and two different kinds of butter crunch lettuce.  Celery is growing.  Radishes are shooting through the dirt.  Cabbage.

 

And here's the benifits!!!  My cucumber plants have never lasted this long!  They just keep giving us fresh cucumbers!  I blanched and froze bags of green beans that we will enjoy all year long!  All the tomatoes come into the big farmhouse sink and get washed and thrown into big ziplock bags.  I freeze them and I hope to cook and juice them one of these days!  Ill can the juice and use it in soups!!!!

I love these kind of radishes and found them 1/2 price at Royers!

I planted three different kinds of tomatoes.  Early Girl, Big Boy and a Pea Size tomato.  However, we had a few plants come up in the watermelon garden box and I just them grow.  Roma's are filling that area now.  We love to make BLT sandwiches with fresh tomatoes and these basil, cheese and tomato slices are so yummy!

I planted sunflowers behind the garden and they are in bloom!

Two rows of carrots are ready to harvest.  I should learn to plant them much farther apart because they are all twisted and look funny from growing too close.  

The sink looks like this with fresh veggies twice a week!

I've been keeping my eyes out for these little creatures and last night we counted 54 of them!!!!  That a lot of caterpillars on our tender fennel leaves!!!!  We hope to watch these grow big and then turn into butterflies!!!!!

They are so beautiful!!!!!

I know that gardening is not for everyone but it sure speaks to me!!!!

I planted a row of zinnias and just love them right now!  I was also delighted to see the huge sunflower in the farmers field finally turn into a huge bloom!!!

I can feel the change of seasons in the air and that will have us pulling the pumpkins off the vines and gathering all the produce before frost hits it.  Until then, I'm really enjoying all the greens, colors and foods it is blessing us with!  Thank you, Jesus!!!!