Look What's Popping Up

Our veggie garden is coming along nicely this year. Due to my pregnancy sickness, we haven't gone as gung-ho this year but in February we did manage to plant carrots, lettuce, peas, strawberries, and lemon cucumbers. We are starting to see things popping up in the dirt! The boys think this is pretty interesting, especially our youngest. He loves to give me garden reports. We will be planting tomatoes and some summer squash this weekend. It is a fun family activity and we definitely enjoy the fruits of our labors come harvest time!

C-man and his friend Princess M. (:-) helping make things grow!

Carrots - they actually are much taller now (this picture was taken a few weeks ago)

We are excited to see so many flowers on the strawberry plants. Last year we didn't have a single flower, which meant no strawberries!

Sweet peas! We actually have about 20 pea pods now and more flowers!!!

Lettuce

Lemon Cucumbers

Anybody have tips to help my sweat peas grow more profusely? I have seen some other gardens where they just have a very dense growth of peas growing. They just look so sad.

Happy Planting to you,

Things Are Blooming

Carson and I investigated our garden today and our observations lead us to the conclusion that things are growing in our garden and we are thrilled! 

Passion Fruit Vine

Meyer Lemon

Can you see the little tiny broccoli flower in the center of the plant?

Sweet 100 tomatoes - YUM

The Armenian and Lemon Cucumbers, as well as the Zuchinni, have lovely yellow flowers!

Little bell peppers are starting to appear

Garden Update

Even though our spring-break has been filled with rain, we still have managed to get our garden planted. It has been a fun process and I have to give huge props to my amazing husband! We have all pitched in but by far he has done most of the work.

• Ryan built the raised bed frames (with some help with some very willing little boys)
  
• We lined them with weed barrier and Ryan made sure they had drip systems
• We all helped mix the steer manure and other compost items to make our wonderful soil (well Carson didn't really care for the smell of the "cow poop" - he kept plugging his nose)
• Ryan and Dallin transfered the dirt into the boxes 
• We then mapped out our square foot garden and planted our veggies and fruits.

We planted: Bell Peppers, Anaheim Peppers, 2 varieties of tomatoes, corn, broccoli, Spinach, Watermelon, Strawberries, Lemon Cucumbers, Armenian Cucumbers, Zuchinni, Peas, and Corn. We will be planting several varieties of lettuce soon.

I can't wait to start enjoying fresh food from our garden!

Be Prepared

(To find out how this picture relates to our upcoming stake pioneer handcart trek please read the long post below. This is what is on mind... it's lengthy and deep, but still what is happening in my life)

Since August of 2008, I have been serving on our stake's Trek Executive Committee as the Executive Secretary. I have enjoyed being involved in planning the upcoming Pioneer Handcart Trek and am so thrilled with how things are rolling along and seeing the hand of the Lord in the work that is being done. As an executive committee we prayerfully came up with 3 goals for our stake and 6 challenges to help us all be prepared!

Objectives of Trek
1. Unify individual families  

2. The journey should provide for a spritual experience for everyone 

3. Unify stake and ward family

Personal Worthiness Goals (Spiritual Preparation)
1. Daily personal and family prayer  

2. Daily personal and family scripture study 

3. Active preparation for and participation in weekly church meetings and Family Home Evenings (FHE) 

4. Keep a regular journal 

5. Pay full and honest tithes and fast offerings 

6. Regular temple attendance

(As a stake we will also be preparing ourselves physically and mentally to add to our spiritual preparation.)So for the past 6 months these things have been on my mind. 

As the new year approached I kept having this feeling like something wasn't clicking, like something was lacking. Now I do the 6 things that are listed as our trek spiritual goals - don't get me wrong, I could be better and more diligent at a few of them but I still do them! 

So I kept hearing the words that a prophet of God had spoken - "And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." Mosiah 2:17 and decided to make this my goal this year - to improve my HAPPY service to my family, friends, etc... To do it because I want to help others. So far it has been a nice attitude adjustment for me, but there was still something that I felt I was suppose to be doing that I wasn't focusing on!

It finally occured to me while I was studying about Noah and the warnings he gave the people that a great flood was coming. I read about the way people mocked him and even sought his live! He didn't back down he kept preparing and when all things were prepared the rains came and came and came until all the earth was covered with water. I was thinking - now latter day prophets have been warning us to be prepared spiritually, physically, mentally and financially for decades am I heeding their warnings? 

The answer - not as well as I should be. So I have for the past month and a half refocused my new year's resolution on preparing myself and my family:

spiritually (being sure that we continue to pray together and read our scriptures together and have Family Home Evenings together);

physically (Dallin's school is working on the President's Fitness Program and we are going to follow along at home and we will also increase our food storage);

mentally (we will seek learning from the best books, take time to have fun together, etc...);

and financially (we will continue to live within our means and follow our monthly budget). 

The thing that has been of upmost concern to me is our food storage - we have been counseled by latter-day prophets to be prepared by storing about 3 months food supply for each family member. I am so grateful for a Family Preparedness Specialist in our ward who keeps talking about it! Thank you Sherry! I am also grateful for the examples of those around me who are using their food storage in their everyday cooking - your bread is awesome Melissa! Thank you Becka for being my cannery buddy! I hope I can get to the point where it is an everyday occurance almost like a reflex to rotate and use my food storage! 

Oh yeah-the picture above is of the two cases of food I canned last month at the church's cannery (1 case of wheat and 1 case of sugar). You can also see part of our 72 hour kits on the bottom shelf; to the right of the cases. Progress is being made and to think it all came about because of my involvement in the upcoming trek!

If ye are prepared ye shall not fear! (Doctrine and Covenants 38:30)

Here are a few websites that have caught my eye as I have been preparing the last few months:

http://www.providentliving.org/

http://moprepared.blogspot.com/

http://www.trackmyfoodstorage.com/

http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/ (one of my favorites)

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

Playing in the dirt

I have always loved playing in the dirt! I was a tomboy in a huge way and spent many hours outdoors as a child. I also love to garden! Now I haven't had much success with my landscaping but each year my vegetable garden does well. Some years I only plant a few things and other years we do more. Well this year we have some big plans for our side yard.

We will be moving the playset to the other side of the yard

Ryan has been adding stone to our decomposed granite pathway and he is making fine progress, despite the rain. This will be a nice addition to the stone that is currently in our back yard. 

Surveying his work! Nice job indeed!

Dallin has been a great help - pulling weeds, digging, getting water, etc. We are so lucky to have such a willing helper! 

Carson has tried to be helpful too! He has helped by picking rocks out of the ground and pulling weeds! Mostly he threw dirt and wanted to swing. He sure is cute!

We will soon be getting the large tree stump ground up (you can just barely see it over Ryan's shoulder - look for the stop sign and then look directly down to the grass) so the playset can move there.

In doing all of this we will open up quiet a bit of space for an expanded garden. We hope to try out square foot gardening and have plans to plant about 68 sq. ft of vegetables and to rotate our crops so that we can get veggies almost year round! The boys are excited to pick out the seeds for the veggies they want to plant and well, Ryan and I are trying to get to the point of planting. We will be getting seeds soon - I'm soooo excited!

My question for you is: What is your favorite vegetable to grow and/or eat?