It’s that time of year again.
I really enjoyed all of our hobby gardening last year, and the kids loved it. The process of watching tiny seedlings come to full bloom is quite fascinating, and I absolutely loved watching the kids learn.
Plus, working in the garden helps support our lifestyle with the kids…live slowly and fully alongside them. Which…let me clarify…sometimes I stink at that. But when we’re all outside watering and weeding and pruning and plucking…it nurtures that life we crave, and for a minute, we’ve got it right.
So far on the docket this summer…summer squash, strawberries, asparagus, zucchini, red & green bell peppers, tomatoes (cherry, roma, & big boy), garlic chives, basil, parsley, mint, oregano, cilantro, rosemary, and for the life of me, other things I can’t remember.
Matt made me three simple raised beds last year, and they worked perfectly. I’m hoping to convince him we need a couple more. We grew sweet potatoes last year, but they took over an entire bed. We did grow about 30 potatoes from two plants, and it was a ton of fun watching the kids dig them all up.
The girls worked on a cute tutorial for the PI Newsletter this last week, and surprised me by leaving the cute garden markers in my beds…it’s amazing what a happy dose of color will do for your mood!
We’re growing a variety of flowers, too, and again, the color in my yard makes me so happy. I’ll have to photograph our front porch at about 8:03 p.m. since the blazing sun never leaves it until it sets.
We’ve also crossed our fingers and brought home a Mandarin orange tree…I’ve always wanted to grow some citrus, so we’ll see how picky it is.
We’ve also been slowly sprucing up the back porch the last year (see: unpainted planked ceiling)…
And we finally added those adorable outdoor string lights from Target I’ve been crushing on.
More updates soon, I hope, on that painted ceiling! If you have a fave for summer gardening, let me know in the comments. May be time to try new things now that I have my feet wet green.
Good luck with the orange tree! I’m in California, and they are pretty easy to grow here. They will take the blazing heat here (over 100 degrees in summer). The biggest threat for us–and maybe you–is the frost. We don’t have much of it, certainly not ground freezes or snow. Can you move it into a garage in the winter (if it is potted)? Or at least cover it?
I love all the outdoor lights Target has to offer. Their outdoor products are adorning my backyard too. Out spring projects have consisted of turning our outdoor shed into a little cottage. We put in cottage which features such as paned windows, window boxes for colorful flowers with cottage style plantings around the front. It’s feeling like a little oasis in our own back yard. Your deck looks like an inviting oasis also. Enjoy spring! 🙂