Foto Friday: Week 37

 I have wanted a Macro lens for sooooo long, so I borrowed my sister's Macro lens attachment- pretty confusing and hard to use :( So I just snapped on my 50 mm and got as close as I possibly could to my veggies I harvested this morning from our garden! Photographing the veggies might be my favorite part about gardening (um, after the eating ;)

Visit the other girls of Foto Friday:

Meg

Hilary

Kristyn

Christine

What's happening in the garden

Everything is going great! We even have a little baby tomato popping up out of the yellow flowers on the Lemon Boy tomatoes we've planted. The arugula is coming in crazy, and the spinach is finally taking off. We have more veggies and herbs to plant in the cucumber box, and we've just started breaking ground on the corn patch. More progress to come! 

More Garden Work

Sunday was Gardening Day again over at my parents' house. We grabbed a couple of bags of compost on Saturday from Singh Farms, then my mom dragged them home and dumped them in our newest bed since now that I'm pregnant she won't let me lift anything. Those things are like 100 pounds, so I guess that's understandable. Anyway, we started on Box 3, which is our designated "cucumbers box"

This box is much smaller than the other boxes, so getting it all staked and strung in rows went by super fast {which is nice since I have to do it crouched}. We got the dill and the kale in the ground, but have to take a trip to the nursery for the rest. Also, I really want to build little teepee trellises for the cucumbers to climb on- I've found a couple really good ideas on Pinterest. 

1// teepee 2// edged trellis 3// cross trellis 4// chicken wire trellis

Yesterday was Salsa Garden Day

At my mom's we had another huge garden bed to fill, this time with all the best things that go into my favorite food- salsa. Here's our layout:

The only thing we didn't plant yesterday was the garlic {we're waiting until October for that} and the tomatillos, because we didn't see any at A & P. I'm hoping they'll get some in soon, otherwise I may have to get crazy and buy a tomatillo at the Farmer's Market and try planting the seeds. We planted some geraniums on the edges of the peppers because they are beautiful and are supposed to be beneficial to pepper plants. I am going to be in heaven in a few months when we can make fresh salsa from all our harvested veggies!

As for my small scale garden, the lettuces are still going strong, as are my arugula {I had one bolt on me this weekend, but the rest seem be content in this mild weather}. 

But what I am MOST excited about is my cauliflower! I peeked in on them today after I noticed they had grown quite a bit and behold! little baby cauliflowers

It's kind of hard to see because the lighting is so bright, but I love these little cauliflower heads. They took a while to show up, but they'll be worth the wait. 

Another productive day in the garden

After much research and pinterest investigating, I was ready to plant the next piece of my parents' garden. Today was potato day! I filled a large round planter with a tree in it with potatoes, peas, and petunias-next I will put in dill as a border and add alyssum flowers in with the petunias.

My layout was roughly like this {I didn't do any string this time and just eyeballed it!}

I can't wait until we start seeing little sproutlets in the ground. Until then, I have a lot more digging in the dirt to do- I think I am going to try planting a potato plant in a laundry basket like this idea I spied on Pinterest:

Source: vegetablegardener.com via Rosemary on Pinterest

More January Gardening

It's crazy to think how fast to have to prep everything for gardening here in AZ. Like Kelly told us at hello there! house in October- you can literally plant and harvest something every single day here. I've finished up the plan for the rest of my mom's garden bed, and we planted most of the seeds that can be planted now. As you can see- everything but the tomatoes can start going in the ground. I found this awesome planting calendar at the Urban Farm site, and I make reference to it anytime I think about planting anything. 

Have you ever eaten Heirloom tomatoes? They are fascinating to me- I'm sure they're not easy to grow, so I'll have to take extra special care with some of them- but they look so gorgeous! 

Source: store.tomatofest.com via Rosemary on Pinterest

Source: store.tomatofest.com via Rosemary on Pinterest

Source: store.tomatofest.com via Rosemary on Pinterest

Source: store.tomatofest.com via Rosemary on Pinterest

Source: store.tomatofest.com via Rosemary on Pinterest

Source: store.tomatofest.com via Rosemary on Pinterest

Oh my aching back

Being so out of shape is a huge handicap when you are throwing around a pick axe and breaking up the Arizona clay that hasn't been touched in over a decade.

My parents have a gorgeous backyard that has had designated garden space since they moved in 15 years ago, but hasn't had a garden since ever. Since I have been bit by the garden bug and have to wait to build my own garden boxes at home until we finish the chicken coop, I suggested to my mother that we should start a garden at her house, since the boxes have been there vacant waiting for me to discover my gardening obsession. So, today we took a trip to A & P Nursery, came home, and got to work. 

Her garden boxes are REALLY long, so this is just the first half of ONE of her boxes in the garden. I researched a TON of different things, especially companion planting {what to plant with things to put nutrients in the soil, protect your vegetables, etc} and came up with the above Garden Plan. I'll share the layout for the other half tomorrow. Then we move on to another bed that is half this size {I'm thinking cucumbers}, then the FOUR other long beds to be filled with watermelons, pumpkins, zuchinnis, and their planting companions. I can hardly contain my excitement!