Garden Update 2

Time for another update on the status of my garden! I know you have all been looking forward to seeing pictures of everything I have, and I'm excited to finally post them. I plan on posting new pictures each week as I give you the weekly Garden Updates.

First of all, you need to see what I have to work with. For those of you just joining us, my garden is 80 feet by 40 feet. Here is a picture from one corner across. I began planting directly in front of my feet, and you can see the fence in the distance:

Here is a picture looking straight down the garden, between two rows. The row on the right is my sunflower row, and the row on the left is my corn row. Not that you can tell them apart just yet:
As you can see, I have weeded down the rows around the veggies, but I haven't weeded the aisles between them. So it's a bit funny, but the brightest green in the overall views is actually the aisles of weeds! But that will only last until my veggies get bigger.

I know I have been listing the rows starting with the sunflowers, but for ease of organization I have to switch it around backwards. Starting with the upper left hand corner of the garden, let's go down the rows and see how the sprouts are progressing!

Row 1:
Cantelope:
Cucumber (I was a bit worried that these were killed after spraying for weeds, but other than some white spots on the leaves, they are still growing new leaves):
Watermelon:
Pumpkin (These are my pride and joy in the garden. The leaves are so big!):
Row 2:
Potato:
Carrots (The carrots still aren't weeded out yet, since they are still so small, I'm afraid I'll mistake them for grass and pull them out.):
Row 3:
Tomato (I still haven't weeded the tomatoes yet either, although this morning I did manage to thin the weeds around the few tomato plants I do have. I still need to plant new tomato seeds, but I just didn't have the energy this week.):
Row 4:
Onions:
Row 5:
Peppers (This one is a green bell pepper, but I have 7 different types already in the ground.):
Banana Peppers (These are the sprouts that I've been growing indoors. Once their leaves are bigger, they will be transitioned outdoors. I have them listed here because this is where they will eventually be.):
Row 6:
Squash:
Salad Bowl Mix Lettuce:
Caesar Mix Lettuce:
Eggplant (These are the sprouts that I've been growing indoors. Once their leaves are bigger, they will be transitioned outdoors. I have them listed here because this is where they will eventually be.):
Row 7:
Corn (Yesterday I planted a second row of corn directly beside my first row. Maybe next week they will begin popping up!):
Row 8:
Sunflowers:
Unfortunately for my poor sunflowers, it's grasshopper season. Almost a full third of my sunflowers look like this:
I'm still working on finding a veggie-safe way to get rid of the grasshoppers. I know my chickens and guineas will eat them, if only they would stay in my garden! They just sort of pass through once or twice a day, and they dont spend enough time on the end row where the sunflowers are. Even if they did, there is a whole field of grasshoppers just beyond the fence, and a little bit of wire isn't going to keep them out. But my sunflowers are fighting back! You can see the new leaves in the center... but grasshoppers eat so much, and there are so many... it's only a matter of time before they devour the last of my sunflowers. Hope my sunflowers can survive another week or so, until I can get out there and save them!

Now let's head on over to the Vineyard. Just beside the rows for the grapes, I have my blueberry bushes:
And look! I already have loads of blueberries all over them!
I was very surprised that they would be blooming and producing so soon, but I think I'm only shocked because the rest of my garden is growing from tiny sprouts and these were bought as grown bushes from Walmart. I have to say, seeing the blueberries gives me hope for the rest of the garden. Like, a little taste of what's to come :)

And now over to the grapes:
I've been growing these from sticks. Here's a view of one where you can see a lot more of the stick, to give you an idea of how it looked when we got them:
Just picture that without the leaves on the top. It was depressing. We tried to grow them from sticks last year too, but they never grew. I have a lot of hope for them this year, especially since they are actually growing. And a lot of gardening from year to year is through trial and error, and I've learned that grapes are very fragile things. They can't miss a day of water, and almost every living creature out there seems to think the leaves are delicious. We fenced off the vineyard to keep out the cows and wrapped each plant in a wire cage to keep the rabbits away. I found one of them with a few leaves eaten down this morning though, and I have NO clue what could have done it. I'll have to keep a closer watch.

Last year I also planted a lemon tree. It was only about 3 feet tall, and too young to produce any lemons. I was expecting to see it bud back to life this year, but so far it hasn't. I'm not sure if it's going to be a late bloomer, or if for some reason it died, but I water it every day anyways just in case. Of course, it might not bud out at all. Especially since I weeded out the grass around the base of the tree and discovered this:
So my lemon tree is growing, but not where I wanted it to grow from. It has new sprouts all around the base, and they are getting taller each week. I want to cut them off in an effort to direct the tree to work at growing back the original branches, but I'm afraid that if I do it will just die. So I will allow the sprouts to continue, and I guess I'll just have to wait an extra year or so and just grow the tree from the smaller sprout.

Last of all, we come to my strawberry baskets. I have 2 coconut fiber-lined hanging baskets on the back porch that I planted strawberry seeds in. It has taken them over a week, but I finally have sprouts!
Hard to see, aren't they? I had to look pretty closely to see them when they first popped up. Here's a close up:
I am so proud of my garden! Even throughout the hardships, it continues to grow each day. I know I'm expecting to have a baby any day now, but my garden is like a whole nursery of babies. They need my love and attention too, and I will not neglect them. I look forward to next week, with the next Garden Update. From this post onward I will be sure to include pictures to document our garden growing experience, and show our progress. Stay tuned! :)

Expecting the Baby

It's been nine long months, and I'm ready to have the baby. These last few weeks have been hard on me, knowing that the due date is so close. I have tried everything to keep my mind off the upcoming delivery, from settling in front of the TV with back to back shows and movies, to spending sun up to sun down in the garden, planting and weeding and observing. I'm running out of things to keep myself occupied as the garden work comes to a slow steady pace and the pile of dishes diminishes. Now that there is nothing to distract me completely, the anxiety sets in.

Almost any woman, whether or not she has ever had a child, can describe for you this exact anxious feeling. It's the same feeling you get when that time of month comes around, and you can just FEEL it approaching. It's the feeling where you know something is coming, and you just can't shake it. When every time you go to the bathroom you have to close your eyes for a second and pray there wont be any blood yet... and the sigh of relief when you find nothing there. And then seconds later, that inevitable anxiety comes back when you realize that it might not be there yet, but that just means that there is still more waiting and wondering and fearing. And when you finally look down and see that there is in fact blood, although you are relieved that the wondering and waiting is over, you now are angry and exasperated, and not a little exhausted at just KNOWING what that means. It means being uncomfortable; it means mood swings; it means feeling like you just want to take a shower until you're done with it all. It's the exact same thing when you are expecting a baby.

I was doing really well the last few weeks. I knew the baby was due soon, and each day that went by brought me closer and closer to the big day, but I also knew that my body would tell me when it was ready. With my first son I woke up one morning to find a spot of blood, I began dilating that afternoon, and that evening my contractions set in (hard and painful) and I knew I was having the baby. I was hoping to expect something much the same this time around, but now I know it will be different. I haven't felt anything strange or different--other than being more and more anxious--but my last doctors appointment was Tuesday, and I was told that I am already dilated to 1-2 centimeters. That's early labor!!! Once I hit 3 centimeters, everything after that is ACTUAL labor, and that's when I'll need to go to the hospital. The fact that I'm already this far really hits it home... that the baby is getting ready whether or not I am!

My biggest problem now is that every move I make, I'm wondering if I'm going to have the baby. Every time I go to the bathroom, I'm checking to see if there is any blood (a good sign it's going to happen in the next day or so!). Every time the baby kicks, I'm wondering if he's dropping down for his big entrance. Every time I feel a contraction, I compare it to the one before to see if it feels more painful, and when it's over I wait a few minutes to see if another one is right behind it (and so far, they are still random and far apart). My next doctors appointment isn't until Tuesday. I keep having this dream where I go to the doctor and I'm told that instead of going home, I might as well just go one building over to the Labor and Delivery area and check in. I dont think that scenario would really bother me too much... it actually sounds very simple and easy. Which anyone who has had a kid knows it's never that easy!

I just want to have the baby already. All this waiting and wondering and fearing is really bugging me. And the bit of pain I am getting with my contractions, along with the knowledge that I'm dilating, just keeps me in a constant state of awareness of the baby and upcoming labor. With my luck, I wont have the baby for another two weeks. Come on baby, just get it over with!!! I pride myself on the patience I am known for having when other people have trouble being patient, but this is getting ridiculous. I can't stand waiting any longer!!!

Garden Update 1

I know it hasnt even been a full week yet, but it's time for an update on the status of my garden.

I last mentioned that I was only waiting on sprouts from the potatoes, carrots, and strawberries. Well, they have begun sprouting! I have a few potatoes sprouting up (though at first I wasnt even sure they were potato sprouts until my husband confirmed it), I have a whole bunch of tiny little carrot sprouts (which were hard to see since carrot sprouts are so tiny at first), and I have 2 hanging strawberry baskets, one of which has a tiny strawberry sprout right in the center of it. And if I didnt mention before, both of my big blueberry bushes (bought at Walmart) are planted by the vineyard and are doing fantastic (with hints of blueberries already!). Hubby also bought me 3 more grape vines, which are planted and complete the spaces I had in my vineyard. Now I just have to hope they all grow well!!!

However, there is still work to be done. I guess I'm watering it pretty well, since the weeds have come out in full force. We skipped watering yesterday so that my husband could go in between each row with some special weed killer. However he had to be very careful and make sure to ONLY go in between the rows, because this killer will zap any living plant. (Just a note: we have some garden weed killer, that will leave the veggies unharmed, but my sprouts are so young and not every one has come up yet, so we are waiting on that stuff just to be sure the sprouts all pop up first.) So now that I know my aisles that I walk down will be cleared, the rows of sprouts and about 8 inches to either side of them need to be weeded. Now I get to really get my hands dirty... I need to pull these weeds by hand, so I know the sprouts themselves will be safe. It will take a while since, if you remember, each row is 80 feet long. Not to mention, being 8 months pregnant kind of makes it hard to get a comfortable position while weeding.

A few days ago, while meandering through the rows, I stopped to admire my squash sprouts (the first real sprouts I had) and ended up weeding them out. That row still has the lettuce in it, and a space at the end for my eggplants, but all I did was the squash (at that time, the lettuce was still too small for me to weed comfortably without fear of pulling the lettuce). Today, I weeded out the sunflower row, a small section of garlic bulbs at the end of my carrot and potato row, and the pepper row. Of course, there is a small 10 foot section at the end of the pepper rows that will be for my banana peppers, but they are being grown indoors with the eggplant until they are bigger. That's 2 full rows down, and the squash. I wanted so badly to do the onion row today, but it just got way too hot and the garden really needed to be watered. So I plan on weeding out the onion row tomorrow, and quite possibly the lettuce as well. That will complete 2 rows tomorrow, giving me a total of 4 completed rows-- half of the garden!

Just in case you are confused at this point, here is what I have:
Row 1: Sunflowers (weeded)
Row 2: Corn
Row 3: Squash (weeded), lettuce, space for eggplant (being grown indoors at the moment)
Row 4: Peppers (weeded), space for banana peppers (being grown indoors at the moment)
Row 5: Onions
Row 6: Tomatoes
Row 7: Potatoes, carrots, garlic (weeded)
Row 8: Cantelope, cucumbers, watermelon, pumpkin

Hopefully I can be patient enough to wait at least another week before posting the next garden update. By then, I expect the rest of the sprouts to have all come up. I expect what's already up to have grown their first (or second) set of true leaves, and I expect to have the rest of the garden all weeded out so that I can plant the tomato seeds. I also expect to see my eggplant and banana peppers get a bit bigger (though I dont think they will go outside for a few more weeks at least).

I am so impatient to have these things grow! I can already imagine looking out over the garden and seeing all the plants, filled up and out, producing veggies left and right. I can just see myself walking down the aisles between the rows, collecting my veggies. I can't wait for my first watermelon! That's the one I'm most looking forward to. Until then, we will just have to settle for our weekly updates and watch them grow. Maybe I'll even be able to get some pictures of the sprouts up by next week! :)

Too Much Bread, Not Enough Butter

Do you ever have one of those moments, when you're moving nonstop trying to get everything in the world done in one day, and you just have to take a second to breathe when you realize that maybe you're trying to do too much? I've been having a lot of those lately.

Ever since January, I've been moving at a nice steady pace. Clean the house in the morning; take care of the animals; clean the yard and animal areas in the evenings; come in when the sun goes down and cook dinner; then settle in for my evening shows just in time with a plate of food. It was going pretty well.

But as the weeks went by, and little things here and there upset my normal routine, it starts to get rushed. Clean the house in the morning; take care of the animals and make sure the new chicks have fresh feed and water; tend to the garden (whether that means planting or weeding); water the garden, the vineyard, and the new trees we've planted this year; make some attempt at cleaning the animal areas in the evenings; come in just before the sun goes down and cook dinner; then watch the first half of my evening shows while finishing dinner so it's ready by the time my husband comes in when the sun goes down and I can sit with a plate of food for the last half of my shows.

As the last month of my pregnancy closes in, my due date getting dangerously close and the work piling up, I start to think of all the things that still need to get done and how difficult they will be to do once there is a newborn in the house. There are just two problems: (1) I'm getting so tired after expending the smallest amount of energy, and (2) the days are getting long and hot, and it's harder and harder to move fast enough to get things done before getting too hot and needing a break. Now I have to start regulating things to do for different days, such as skip cleaning the house today to get some work done outside, but tomorrow skip the work outside and concentrate on doing water changes in the aquariums and finishing laundry. It would be so much easier if my son was old enough to do chores.

At this exact moment in time, I skipped cleaning the house this morning so I could go to town and do the grocery shopping. The house needs to be cleaned, dishes need to be washed, a load of laundry still needs to be finished, the animals need to be checked on and refed and watered as needed (ducks and geese are most definitely out of water by this time of day), the garden needs to be watered (which takes at least an hour and a half with a spray hose), the vineyard and trees need to be watered, the quail eggs in the incubator need to be moved over to their new egg trays so they fit better and give us more space in the incubator, the chicken eggs need to be collected and put in the incubator, dinner needs to be cooked, my husband will most likely ask me to clean a bit outside to make room along one fence to plant the last of the Crape Myrtles, and I would really like to be able to sit down at least from 7pm to 8pm for the American Idol results show (2 people are going home tonight, and last night I voted a million times to ensure Scotty, Paul, and Casey stay another week). The sun will most likely be going down by 8, which means I will be inside for almost the last hour of daylight. My husband is very adamant about using up as much sunlight as he possibly can each day before coming indoors. Which means that I will be cooking dinner while watching my show to give me a bit more of a reason for being indoors during that time. Oh right, as I look over at my son playing ball with the rabbit, I am reminded that I also need to clean the rabbit cage.

It is already almost 3:30pm. There is no way I'm going to get this all done tonight... but a lot of it really needs to be done today. So I was rushing around, trying to do it all at once and I suddenly realized I needed to stop and breathe. And as I did so, I had one of those moments. When I'm moving nonstop trying to get everything in the world done in one day, and I just had to take a second to breathe when I realized that maybe I'm trying to do too much. To quote Bilbo Baggins from Lord of the Rings (the Fellowship of the Ring, Part One) I feel like butter being spread over too much bread.

I think it's about time to slow down, and convince myself of the obvious truth that my mind refuses to grasp: I will still be doing these chores every day even after the baby is born. The house will always need to be cleaned, dinner will always need to be made, the animals will always need food and water, and sometimes there will be things that just need to put on hold for a day or so to get other things caught up. The incubator and the garden will only need to be tended to during the summer and the beginning of fall, until the birds are done laying for the year and harvest season is over. Just because I have a newborn does not mean that I have to hold him and fuss over him every minute of every day. There will be time to get it all done. I just need to slow down, remember to breathe, and focus on one thing at a time. If you find yourself having one of those moments, just remember this. Remember to slow down, remember to breathe. There is never a good enough reason to spread yourself too thin. If you dont have enough butter, dont make so much toast. Have a bagel and cream cheese instead. Or a bowl of cereal. Or whatever you want, really. Oh, you get it.