Today working on propagating some indoor plants for this fall/winter
I found this little guy on the basil plant this morning. Surprisingly enough Isis hasn’t caught him yet. Maybe he’ll survive the day!
Isis has a new favorite spot to hang out. She also got a new collar so she’s not too impressed with me.
Since we don’t see winter here until December, possibly late November. I planted some pumpkins, and 2 different types of winter squash a bit later than I normally would have.
I got 2 bales of hay today and have spent most of the day working on that, and weeding around the raised beds.
It’s getting a little too hot out now to keep working, I’ll probably go back out later tonight after dinner maybe.
Our lone pumpkin plant. Out of a packet of seeds we only got one plant. Which has been the trend this year it seems. Our garden needs a lot of help this year, which was surprising because it had been a garden for years. But I think the previous owner used chemicals to treat their garden instead of using organics. I’m also hoping this will help keep some of the weeds at bay, and at the very least make them easier to pull up. I should have done this first thing this spring but we had just moved in so things were a bit chaotic. Hopefully next season will be better for crops.
Winter Squash
as you can see i need to put more hay down, which hopefully will be done tonight 
Next year I need to stagger planting my vegetables more so we are getting a constant harvest instead of all at once which is what it kind of turned out to be this year.
This weekend we’re continuing our work on the greenhouse and hopefully getting some hotboxes going with spinach and lettus in them.
That’s right! On etsy! It’ll be for dried herbs and spices, homemade teas, seasonings. All with no preservatives, no chemicals!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/gardenwitchskitchen
I’ll be launching this fall, I have herbs drying now. By late August early September the shop should be fully stocked! And I have the greenhouse so I’ll be able to continue to grow all winter long
I am currently drying Basil, Lavender, and Sage.
I also have Lemon Thyme, Rosemary and Chives growing.
I am gladly taking requests for herbs to grow please leave a comment here or message me on etsy with your request!!
So we seem to have run out of groceries this week, and my truck isn’t registered yet so I haven’t been able to go grocery shopping. Basically we’ve been living off pasta, chicken salad, and mac n cheese. Not very healthy and our garden is just now starting to produce more food. Since we’ve basically gone though all of our non perishables this is a great opportunity to start fresh. We’ve always been on again off again clean diets. We try to avoid anything with preservatives but unfortunately healthy food is much more expensive, not to mention more time consuming then fresh clean food. We’ll stick to the “clean diet” for about a week or more but then we fall off the wagon so to speak, but not this time. With the help of the garden i’m hoping it will actually be less expensive to eat clean. It’ll be a complete lifestyle change but one we’re willing to make. Since we’re an hour away from a grocery store we’ll also have to do a lot of planning ahead.
So being completely out of food I went to scavenge in the garden and happily found cucumbers, peas and a tomato!
Raw, Clean, and yummy!! Not exactly a balanced meal but it’ll be fine for a day.
I can’t wait to try some of these cool recipes I found that are completely clean! Like, Strawberry Cupcakes, Lettus Wraps, Homemade Granola, Homemade Vitamin Water. The biggest challenge I think will be packing healthy lunches for James. Thanks to pinterest I have a never ending supply of ideas
xxoo
And my project for this week is cleaning out and re-vamping the greenhouse! It’s July and i’m already thinking about fall and winter. Last year the first frost was in late November so we should have plenty of time to finish the Greenhouse and get some hotboxes built in the garden so we can have fresh veggies all winter.
So completely gut out the interior fix some boards here and there and replace some of the panels.
First order of business is to spray all the hornets nests .. fun fun fun
xxoo
This month is the definition of crazy busy. There is just not enough time in a day, or in a week or in a month. This weekend is my friends wedding, next weekend the fencing company is coming to install the privacy fence, weekend after that is our wedding, and the weekend after that is my first craft fair.
Okay i’m going to start with a garden update, simply because that’s what I have pictures of <3 Starting with the flower garden out front.
The wild flowers are starting to bloom.
And the morning glories are creeping
Lots of creeping morning glories
Lilies everywhere! (ignore the weeds)
The snap dragons are doing beautifully!
Pretty pretty snapdragons
Lamp post with vivica vine, and morning glories in the basket and morning glories around the bottom.
And moving to the back yard.
Finally weeded around the garden. We are planning on half the garden being the semi raised garden beds with stones or tiles of some kind as walk ways. And the other side of the garden will be just be open garden style for pumpkins, squash, and watermelon type vegetables.
There are a lot of weeds where the beds aren’t, which i’m working on, eventually we’ll be putting down some sort of stone pavers or something as walkways.
The 3 tomato plants are doing great I need to weed some more but the plants themselves are doing well. No fruit yet but it’s still early.
The biggest cucumber plant so far.
The purple potatoes are growing wonderfully, that bare patch in the middle is where the neighbors dogs decided to dig under 2 fences to get into my garden. Hopefully i’ll get some more planted that wont be destroyed.
The red onions seem to be doing well.
I forgot to put a marker in this bed so these are either peas or beans .. but i’m pretty sure they’re peas
Close up, of what i’m pretty sure are Peas
Spinach bed! Doing very well.
And i’m pretty sure these are the beans
The beans!
Sweet Peppers!
The semi raised beds so far
The blueberries are starting to get more blue!
And the apple trees are starting to produce fruit! We’re not sure how good the apples will be the trees really need to be pruned and need some love but there’s not much we can do until the trees go dormant.
And there used to be 2 big dead trees right there that we took down last weekend. The plan over here is to build the deck up some more and put the pool in over here.
So that’s the garden and yard update. Hopefully the pool will maybe be up before our wedding but I have no idea if that’s a possibility with everything else going on. First priority is the fence.
Prep for the craft fair is meh, i’m going to put my etsy shop on vacation and take all of my inventory with me. And i’m knitting like crazy I have less than 200 items to sell and it just doesn’t seem like enough.
Then there’s out wedding. I need to make a task list and just go from there because it’s just super overwhelming to think about haha. We aren’t doing anything big or anything but still. But instead of an engagement ring I got this:
The story goes, James proposed well over a year ago with a ring pop when we were first driving to TN, I said yes of course. But then I ate the ring pop. The second time he proposed was with this beautiful birthstone ring I’ve been wearing for years, then I took it off to cook, now I can’t find it. And that is exactly why I didn’t want a ring, because the minute something is important is disappears. Tattoos you can lose
xxoo
James discovered this nest in one of the apple trees last night, a mama and her 2 babies. Hopefully we can keep Isis away from them!
I went out onto the porch this morning and was delighted to see this beautiful Lily!
The snapdragons are now re-blooming! First time they bloomed this spring they were bright red, I didn’t know they would change colors when they re-bloomed but i’m glad they did I love the white!
And down to the vegetable garden we go …
Got my first glimpse of a baby bell pepper this morning! There are actually 2 already on this plant, none yet on the other plants.
I walked the gardens yesterday and I swear these weren’t here yesterday but they are all over the potato bed this morning! Lots and lots of Purple Potatoes!
I’m pleased to say the grape vine has exploded! There are lots and lots of bunches already and it’s still very early!
The blueberry tree has hundreds of blueberries on it and I can’t wait until they are ripe!
And since I was walking around the yard with my camera anyway so I snapped a few pictures of the back deck where all the herbs are
The painting in the living room is FINALLY DONE! I’m not sure how it took me that long, but it’s finished! Unfortunately there isn’t much light in the living room so getting a decent picture was more difficult than I thought it would be. I’ve also got the front porch looking kind of how I want it to, both flower beds have been mulched and planted though nothing is quite blooming yet, the Lilly’s should be blooming soon though! Plus we got 4 new fruit trees!! Yay. and the garden has been completely planted!
The living room
The front of the house, in the middle of painting the trim
oops the rug is crooked but you get the idea, and i think i’m going to paint the back porch door blue as well
Finished painting the rocking chair Terra Cotta Red, not a few hours later a bird pooped on it
I know i’ve posted pictures of the blue door before but I just couldn’t resist I love my front door!
The garden beds are all planted now! The far part of the garden is going to be pumpkins, squash and melons i just haven’t gotten that far yet
And finally some new dwarf fruit trees! There’s Lemon, Lime, Tangerine and Orange
This is what I did today, well I didn’t get all of this done, but a good chunk of it. I got Cucumbers, Peppers, Roma Tomatoes, Yellow Tomatoes, Spinach, Red Onions, and more Basil planted today. Along with more sunflowers and some more day lillies. Also got the flower garden weeded and cleaned up a bit.
My herbs so far
Lemon Thyme is in the clay pot, you can see the creeping rosemary in the green pot, and in the yellow is basil
Creeping Rosemary
Lots of new basil plants sprouting up, they’ll need new containers before long
The lavender, which smells amazing, and the ugly fence (the rose hedges should be coming in any time now)
Sage
There’s some Cilantro, Basil, Chives, Rosemary, Thyme, and basil.
The plants on the bottom steps are full of wild flowers, on the top step is a really pretty pink flowering thing I can’t remember the name of, in the red pot next to the door is a pot of Lily of the Valley, and the small pot on the railing has a pink spotted plant and of course the fern Isis calls a bed.
Weed free with lots of new stuff popping up!
and lastly tall day lily type flowers (don’t remember exactly) with morning glories in the front
Until next time
xoxo
