Progress!

We were SoOoOoO lucky to have nice warm weather all week, we made a lot of progress on our garden.  Here are some pictures of our deck boxes.  We have very limited sun in our back yard and our deck gets a good chunk of it.  We decided to stain these ones.  After a few "discussions" back and forth about the safety of using stain for vegetable boxes, we decided to stick with it, only the top inch of the insides are stained and the bottom of the lath strips are not stained.

After we finished those, we started working on the main boxes.  We decided to paint them white, hoping to extend the life of the wood, and to match the neighbor's garage.  They are not painted at all on the insides.

We've since filled them with soil/compost (look close and you can see the big pile of dirt!)  and will add the lath strips to the top as soon as I mix in peat moss and vermiculite.  Also, I've finished laying the brick around and have wood chips coming soon!  The area next to the garage that is not covered in weed cloth is where my raspberry bushes are, I just cut them down but they fill up that whole area.

And because I finally found the camera cord and have tons of pictures, here are my seedlings!  M and I transplanted them to cups this weekend and we were so happy that all but two of my seeds sprouted!

Now we're back!

You know how my last post was about us being sick and then getting better?  Well guess who was sick AGAIN!!!  K and I both had some nasty cold that lasted yet another week of our winter.  I think we are now finally better (looking for a piece of wood nearby to knock on.)  So I'm going to stop talking about it all together and hope that helps.  On to better things....gardening!!!

This year we are doing a square foot garden.  I learned a little about this method from a friend and took time to research it even further.  We have a nice, large yard but thanks to gigantic oak trees, it is mostly shaded.  So I have a small area that is maybe 20 feet long, and in it I have HUGE plans!  I suggest reading up on this method if you have any interest in starting or expanding your garden.  Basically you are planting in raises beds but each bed is divided into 1 foot sections.  You would really be surprised how much you can grow with this method.  This year my plans include the following: (the number represents how many of each plant)

16 Strawberries
3 broccoli
2 cauliflower
3 cabbage
16 green onion
16 radish
8 tomato
6 green pepper
3 red pepper
4 pole beans
4 peas
9 garlic
1 butternut squash
1 pumpkin
32 carrots
8 potatoes
8 celery
9 red onion
9 white onion

and just on the deck alone, I am growing:

1 oregano
1cilantro
8 basil
16 chives
4 parsley
24 lettuce
18 spinach
1 thyme
1 rosemary
2 dill
3 stevia

Sounds like a lot, doesn't it!  Well i'm not counting on ALL of it growing, since this is my first year doing more than a few things, so I thought I'd plant more and just be pleasantly surprised if they all take off!  I'm starting everything from seed, most of them I will start indoors.  I have a few indoors already and they are really doing well under my new plant light.  Take a look...although you will have to look pretty closely to see most of them!

We're Baaaaaaack!

Holy cow what a month it has been!  A little case of bronchitis turned into a weekend in the hospital!  Good news is that everyone is seemingly back to normal.  Bad news is ...... well I guess there really isn't any bad news.  I don't even remember February starting and here it is half way over.  We do have a big birthday coming up in our house though....M is turning 7 on the 26th!  It seems impossible, I don't feel like 7 years have passed since the day I gave birth to a ginormous baby girl.  But it has, and if her attitude is any indication of how the next several years will be then we are in for a fun ride!  Don't get me wrong, she is an amazing child; too smart for her own good, a fantastic big sister, and very loving....BUT she tells me day in and day out that she wants to be a teenager.  And that means she acts like one half of the time. 

K is doing well.  His hearing and speech evaluations both went fine.  He's not really showing any major signs of being behind developmentally, but we do  need to work on his vocabulary and we were given some great advice.  Jason and I both agree that God made him as freaking cute as he is for a reason.  Jason calls it his defense mechanism.  He can act like the biggest turd one minute, but the next minute he is doing something so cute that you forget about the bruise you have from having a toy car launched at your head.  Exhibit A: