Plants installed

Oh how I love going to nurseries.  What's even better is taking two cars and having Peter go home early so I'm free to load whatever I can in my car (hehehe).  We went to Evergreen Nursery yesterday.  Peter put two mandarin trees in his car and then headed home for a meeting.  Connor and I picked up shade plants, an apple tree that does well in part shade and when the trunk and front passenger seat were full we called it a day.

 These are all shade tolerant plants and I still have a few left to plant and need some more for the top box.

Here are the two mandarin trees and we moved the compost box over.  Now I think we need to put some wood chips/mulch down so I don't have to worry about weeding this area and it'll look nicer.  Peter plans on putting all the fruit trees on one sprinkler circuit and the rest of the gardens on other circuits.  The sprinkler manifold for the backyard is right across from the compost bin, so it's important to keep this area easy to get to. 

We have grass!

I just love it!  When we bought this house the backyard was nothing but concrete.  We had the majority of the concrete removed last year and then were left with sand for awhile.  We built some garden boxes and then had mulch/soil delivered and our backyard was loaded with dirt, all we needed was some grass.  Except, that we were in a huge drought and ordering grass sounded like a bad idea, so we lived with the dirt.  Now that we're expecting a ton of rain this year we decided to get the grass.  It arrived today on a forklift and Peter, and both grandpas installed it.  It looks great!

Connor helped water it down, while daddy adjusted the sprinklers.

Chloe wanted her picture taken too...she and Connor love the sandbox.

Daddy invited Connor to play in the sprinklers with him.  Connor took him up on that offer and had a blast getting soaking wet.

Now what should we plant here?  Peter and my dad made these two boxes a little while ago and we haven't figured out what to plant in them yet.  They are nearly always in the shade.

We also have this area left to plant.  I'm thinking we can squeeze in 2-3 more fruit trees here.  The one directly next to me is a 5 in 1 fruit salad tree.  It's supposed to bear peaches, two types of plums, apricots and nectarines.  We've had it a couple years in a pot and less than a year in the ground, so we'll see if anything happens.  Directly behind the fence-in the front yard is a row of trees-pomegranate, lemon and a mandarin.  Our mandarin bore fruit this year and they were super tasty, I think I need at least one more mandarin tree. 

Yard construction

Well we're at it again.  We can't just sit still with our house.  The backyard has been an eye sore for, well the whole time we've had this house.  A few months ago we hired a company to come and dig out a bunch of our concrete and another company came and redid our fences.  Both look way better!  Now it's time to do something with the backyard so the kids can actually play in the backyard and be safe.  Saturday Peter and my dad worked on building planter boxes for our backyard.  Tomorrow the work will continue and hopefully all boxes will be built (or at least all for now). 
Here's the patio.  This odd shaped box will go off to the left in the corner.

 In this area we plan on a fruit tree or two...we're thinking pomegranate along the fence and then a box near the house.

 Here's one box already done...the one in the middle.  This wall will house our raspberry, blackberry and boysenberry plants.

 This is the corner that will house the odd shaped box

 Here's the side of the house that we're still A-trying to get rid of cinder blocks, and B-we're not sure of what we're going to do here.  Perhaps a shade garden, perhaps a kids area with a sand box...????  Along the fence we're thinking of herbs, but we really have no idea.

 This area we also don't know about.  The cement removers were not able to remove this cement since it is connected to the wall, so we're not sure what we're going to do here.  The neighbor's tree drops a ton of little seeds and leaves, so whatever goes there is going to be covered in seeds constantly.

The work continues tomorrow...

Berries!

We picked these a week ago and had the best berry shortcake ever!

This is also from about a week ago...

This week we picked a lot of blackberries and everyone enjoyed them

Yes even Chloe

This was just too cute I couldn't resist a picture

All ready for church!

So yeah we've been picking berries left and right.  We pick a full container of blackberries and strawberries every 2-3 days.  Our blackberry bushes have taken over the strawberries in the raised containers.  I can't wait to get working on our backyard and build boxes to transplant all of the blackberries back there.  First we have to remove concrete and replace two fences...and then we can start to figure out what we're going to do with the backyard. 

Tis the season to bake cookies and play in the garden

Connor enjoyed making sugar cookies today.  He helped make the dough, rolled it out all by himself and then used the cookie cutters.

 While Connor was busy, Chloe was having tummy time.

On Saturday we went to Sea World.  Zoom in on the picture to see Connor's face...so precious

While our friends are experiencing snow and frigid temperatures...Connor enjoyed plucking some tomatoes off a plant he planted by seed.  Yes this is all one plant sprawled everywhere, with a tiny bit of a raspberry bush on the right.

 He also picked a giant carrot

Look at the size of this thing

 

We also planted some pea seeds.  

Connor placed his pea seeds throughout the garden, which will be interesting as they start growing.

Still Waiting...

Here are a couple cute Connorisms from this week:

A package of sample formula arrived in the mail.  It had a picture of a duck on the front.  Connor-"There are ducks in my can."

"Mommy run your baby out."-Doctor said to do some power walking to aid in setting off labor.  "Mommy we go power walking and get your baby out."

"I go to the store with daddy and get some food."
A little later on..."I go to the store with daddy and get a doughnut and some food."
Unfortunately he was a bit naughty at the store, so he didn't get a doughnut.  We told him he could try again next time.  "I'm going bonkers!"  Yes, that's why you don't get a doughnut.

So this week while trying to walk a baby out, stay cool, rest and keep the swelling down-I practiced squatting in the garden.  Yesterday we plucked this bounty

We steamed the green beans for dinner and are enjoying the little yellow and orange peppers as a snack.  The yellow lemon cucumbers are something I don't need to plant next year.  They were an experiment and while they taste good, the skin is very thick and they have a ton of seeds.  So you have to peel the skin and cut the seeds out and then you have very little cucumber left to eat.  Connor enjoys eating the yellow and orange cherry tomatoes...he was swiping a few as I took the picture.

Our mini watermelons are small yet they don't look like 6 pounds so we're not sure if they're ready or not.  We planted more zucchini plants in hope for a late harvest.  Our zucchini plants this year gave us 4 zucchinis and then died all of a sudden.  Not sure what happened there, we're trying more water now.  We also planted some from seed, so we'll see if anything fruits before it gets too cold.  We tend to stay pretty hot until the end of October, so I'm hopeful.

Here are some purple peppers that are almost ready

 I spy 6 watermelons in this picture.  4 are the darker variety and they look identical, 2 are the color of the ones you buy at the store.  Though one of the two is almost completely covered by the plant. 

You reap what you sow

Our harvest today 

Not included because already consumed by a happy 2 year old-cherry tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes, 1 large tomato, and a dozen or so strawberries.

Our neighbor gave us this tomato plant.  Connor has enjoyed plucking and eating these as if they were cherry tomatoes.  There are many green tomatoes on the vine waiting to ripen.

Yellow squash ready to be picked

Bell peppers-we have a lot of these!  These are supposed to be sweet small orange peppers-we'll see if they change color.  We have green, red, orange and purple pepper plants.

Sugar baby watermelons-they stay small

We have several of them

Yellow pear tomatoes

This weekend we'll pick more green beans and I'm sure the tomatoes will be ready.  We also have another zucchini that should be ready by then as well.

I love having a garden!

Progress

A lot of progress has taken place over the past couple of weeks.  I anticipate much more progress to come in the near future as well.  The bedrooms upstairs are almost ready for carpet, which is really exciting!

Here are a couple shots of the nursery.  There will be a cute Winnie the Pooh border separating the green and blue paint.  There will also be butterflies on the wall.

 

Here's Connor's room-we are going for mountains with tufts of grass.

 Here's our new room.  Each room got a new ceiling fan.  The original fan in this room was missing a few blades.  The fan at the top of the stairs only works with a remote and guess what??  The owners didn't leave that behind...go figure.  So we have one more fan to purchase.  For now the fourth bedroom upstairs will not be getting a ceiling fan.  That room hasn't been worked on yet, but it will be the office/craft room.

This weekend this wonderful floor was put in.  We don't hear any creaking while walking down the hallway.  Once the fourth bedroom is done and painted, we'll have carpet installed here.

Back downstairs this is what our front room windows look like.  But they won't look like that for long, on Saturday my shipment of window covering arrived.

Also on Saturday we organized the garage.  Before it was a bit of a maze.  Boxes containing our island were in here and a big shelf.  We mounted the big shelf on the left wall, which is currently covered by a big drywall plank.  We also took the island cabinets inside and started playing with them.

With them roughly in the right place we realized we made a big calculation mistake.  We wanted an 8 foot island and ordered cabinets to be 8 feet long.  We didn't take into consideration the fact that we were building a pony wall for extra seating.  The three cabinets together were just too long.  So after a few options were thrown out we decided the island would consist of these two cabinets.

And this cabinet will be over here in the corner and will store the garbage and recycling cans.  We were going to put a breakfast nook over here, but I can live without that.  It looks like we'll have more than enough seating.  Not to mention we did just buy a 6 foot folding table with 8 chairs so we have enough seating for the big family dinners that we often throw.  The island will also have enough seating for at least 4 as well.

With the pony wall the island will be about 7 feet long and will have two heights.  The higher height will be for eating, the lower will be for preparing.

A few weeks back work on the stucco began again.  This is the window by the front door.  It looks so much better.  Once all the work inside is done, the last layer of stucco will be added.

And last but not least...here is how the garden is doing.  We plucked our first zucchini today.  We have been enjoying strawberries and a couple varieties of cherry tomatoes as well as a purple pepper.  Our carrots, green onion and radishes in another part of the yard have been doing wonderfully well.