How does our garden grow?

Before I get into blathering about our garden, I want to give a shout-out to Product Body's fantastic Giveaway! Head over to The Soap Bar blog to find out how to enter; Joanna's products are incredible! You can thank me later.  ;)

Thinking about the nursery rhyme leads me to suspect that Mary wasn't the one being contrary; it was probably the garden pests who were contrary!  (Unless, of course, you take it as the political allegory that it is and from the view point of Elizabeth I, Mary was rather contrary; but I hate talking politics.)

All sorts of things conspire to make your garden a failure: rabbits, voles, aphids, caterpillars, chipmunks, and, yes, even birds.  They blithely nibble on your plants and berries, snipping off and killing young shoots before they have a chance to realize their dreams of becoming a full-blown plant.  The garden is a sad, rough place to raise a seedling.

Still, we persist, year after year.  Or hubby persists, and the kids and I help to nurse his eternal optimism.

So to answer "how does our garden grow", I thought I'd show some photos of the progress.  I think I took these photos Tuesday morning (June 7th).  These are by no means all of our garden beds.  Some are still empty (well, maybe just one or two are), and some I just didn't take close-ups of (example, cucumbers, squash, grapes).

A sweeping view of the south garden, outside of the main fenced garden. Our dilapidated chicken tractor is at the left-hand side. Hubby fixed it now though, so I'll have to show a photo of his handiwork some other time.

Looking inside our main fenced garden...it's hard to take in all 27 beds in there at once:

The bib lettuce, co-existing with the frisee:

The lettuce, nearly bolting, with some beets in the foreground, not quite big enough yet. Interspersed are dill that keep self-seeding in our garden.

Speaking of self-seeding, here's a volunteer lamb's quarters:

The cabbages are doing beautifully...

In fact, dh used one for cole slaw:

...but the broccoli is just getting started:

One day soon, we'll get some peas:

More frisee, cohabiting with the celery this time:

The asparagus are still going strong, amazingly:

as are our garlic, which won't be ready for harvest for another month:

Our strawberries are pretty much done:

But other things are just getting started, such as eggplants:

and sweet potatoes:

Regular potatoes:

Lima beans:

Peppers:

Tomatoes:

And green onions - front - (this is the half bed inside the main garden, and not the six beds outside the fenced area) and basil - back:

Dh made some yummy meals again. This was a faux gyros with brown rice instead of pita, and our tomato sauce instead of chopped tomatoes (since our tomatoes haven't ripen yet).  Complete with my homemade Greek yogurt and homegrown asparagus:

This was just using up some left over dilly new potatoes.  Dh made a homefries sort of concoction, topping it with one of our eggs.

We're actually low on eggs right now.  The heat shut most of the chickens down, and one hen went broody so she's not laying.  *&^% freeloaders.  We might have to dispatch with this current group and get a bunch of new ones.  Unfortunately, ds#1 is rather attached to one of the hens, Licorice...actually most of the hens except for Four of Five...so we may have to keep them for longer.  I never knew he was quite so sentimental. 

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Giveaways Galore, and another award!

When it rains, it...is better than pennies from heaven, I'm tellin' ya! So here are a couple more giveaways I've found, as well as my own.

Over at Soapaholics Anonymous, Heidi is giving away a 16 oz bottle of calendula and comfrey infused oil! Go enter and read about how you can use this wonderful product.

Then, to celebrate her 100th post, Michelle at Chocolate and Marmalade Tea is giving away the sweetest Valentine set! You'll have to get yourself over there to see all the wonderful things included in it and to enter.

As for my giveaway, I'll bore you with the background story first (well, you have to suffer some to win, you know!). Dh wandered into my art/sewing/soaping/crafting room a couple of days ago when I was in there, and he remarks how it gives him the heebie-jeebies because it's so cluttered (thanks, dear). Then he peeked into the closet and groused about all the books in there that I had bought when I used to be the Scholastic Book Club coordinator for my homeschool group, and asked that I please get rid of them, and soon.

So, the first part of my giveaway is a set of kids' books, fun facts for kids of all ages, but probably especially perfect for homeschoolers. If you can't see the titles from my photo (because you all know what wonderful photos I take...NOT), they are the Usborne Encyclopedia of Planet Earth, a Scholastic Science Supergiants volume on the Wright Brothers, and an Ocean Origami book (with origami paper and stickers to complete your creations).

The second part of my giveaway is a 2 oz bag (3 if I can sneak some more out without dh noticing...heh heh) of our very own dried tomatoes - both cherry and grape tomatoes - grown with love in our garden and without pesticides or other harmful chemicals. I'd tell you how we pick the tomato hornworms off by hand, but I'd probably gross you out. Here it is in a jar, but I'll be mailing it in a baggie. Sorry, this second part is only available to those in the U.S. as I'm not sure what the mailing protocol for veggies is to other countries.These dried tomatoes are perfect for making sundried tomato paste, and kicks the tom kha soup up another notch with their tangy sweetness.

Please leave me a comment to be entered for the drawing; make sure it has your contact info somewhere, either a link to your blog/website or your email addy (your username on the comment usually has a link to your blog or email). Tell me which part, books or tomatoes or either, you'd like to be entered for.

I'm not trying to drum up traffic to my site, but if you do post about this contest please put that in your comment and you'll have a second entry. Or if you tell a friend about it and the friend drops by to enter, tell this friend to let me know you sent them, and that's another entry for you.

Finally, more blog love! This time, it's from The Blonde Duck, whose "A Duck in Her Pond" blog is one of the most creative ones I've ever read . She bestowed the following on me:Muchas gracias, Duckie!

This just in (added at 3:35pm), Cynthia at The Good Enough Witch (how can you not read a blog with that name??) also bestowed the above on me.

And, flaky me, I just realized that I was supposed to list 10 honest/interesting things about myself with this award. I'm not sure I know what that means...I've always been honest with my readers, unless I'm making some sarcastic joke, of course. If I'm to tell you things about myself, why would I make it up? My sister will just show up here and tell me off if I lied.

So, here goes nuthin':

1) My cell phone's ring tone is the call of a Wood Thrush. It throws me because when I hear a real wood thrush, I want to answer my phone.

2) I have to clean my toilets/bathrooms every weekend or I go nuts. Wait, I am nuts. I'd go more nuts, then.

3) I know I'm gonna get an earful from a lot of folks, but watching baseball or football puts me right to sleep.

4) I still have an unrequited love for astrophysics.

5) I used to dislike cilantro, but now I can't get enough of it.

6) I was once asked to be a Miss Hong Kong contestant.

7) I used to get strep throat at least 3 times a year when I lived in Hong Kong.

8) I don't have an addictive personality, and can break away from just about anything in a New York minute (although you wouldn't know it the way I'm glued to the computer).

9) I fear crowds. I blame it on being short and fearing being trampled, but I think I just fear the mob mentality that can stem from a crowd.

10) I don't know how to program the downstairs VCR; we've had it for about 5 years now.

I don't know if those are interesting or not, but that's all I've got for the day. I'm supposed to pass it along to 7 other bloggers, but....well, those of you who show up often enough will know that I shirk that duty as a duty. ;)

And happy Sunday, everyone!

"He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home." ~ Johann von Goethe

Yummy dried tomatoes

[caption id="attachment_35" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Dried cherry and grape tomatoes"][/caption]

They're here!

1 oz. - $1.25

Offerings for you!

As the flurries swirl around us in mid February, we dream of all our wonderful produce of summer. But, we still have a few things available currently that might tickle your spring fancies:

* mini (3"x4") nature photo notecards, hand-made paper, packet of 6, wrapped with raffia ribbon - $4
* 4"x5" dried flowers notecard, varies with season - $2; discount for more than 1
* dried tomatoes - $2 for 2oz.
* dried bell peppers - $2 for 3oz.
* hot sauce - $3 for 2 oz.
* eggs - $3 per dozen

For the notecards, you can see sample photos at Teresa's website.