we grew a zucchini!!!!!!

last night when we went over to our tomato plant to pick some red cherry tomatoes off the vine, we found that we had a zucchini hiding under the leaves of the zucchini plant.  we are thrilled because in previous years our zucchini plants have looked nice but never produced any zucchini.  yay!!!

love, laurie

i spy . . .

. . . little cherry tomatoes growing on our tomato plant!!!  ryan snapped this picture of one of the tomato plants in our raised veggie garden yesterday and sent it to me.  we were both so happy to see cherry tomatoes growing.  when i came home from work, we picked that really red one on the left and split it.  (nothing like cutting a cherry tomato in half to share!)  it tasted great, and we can't wait for the others to be ready soon!

love, laurie

d.i.y. raised veggie and herb garden

as soon as the weather gets nice, there's always some sort of project going on at our house.  one of the projects that we worked on over memorial day weekend was building a raised garden for veggies and herbs.  we've been thinking about building a raised garden for a long time so i'm glad we finally got around to doing it.

all in all, we're really pleased with how the project turned out.  i wish i would have had my camera with me while we were building this, but i didn't, so here are a few pictures that we snapped on ryan's phone of the process . . .

^we started by finding a spot in our yard that would be best for the raised garden, and then removed the grass and leveled the ground.^

^we built the 6 foot by 3 foot frame for the raised garden out of only a few pieces of wood.  we didn't use a pattern and just created the design as we went.^

^after building the frame, we made sure the frame was sitting level on the ground and then lined it in landscape fabric which we stapled to the sides in order to make sure it would stay in place.^

^we filled the raised bed with vegetable garden soil and then went shopping for our veggies and herbs.^

^along the back of the garden, we planted cherry tomatoes, san marzano tomatoes, zucchini, and bok choy.  the front row has parsley, basil, rosemary, peppers, and lettuce.  in order to keep the neighborhood critters out, we put six stakes around the edges and covered the garden with flexible bird netting.  (so far it has actually kept the birds, bunnies, squirrels, and chipmunks out!)  we're really looking forward to enjoying the veggies and herbs from our new raised garden this summer!^

love, laurie

secret gardenscapes tour

on sunday we took a trip to wayne county with my parents for the annual secret gardenscapes tour.  the tour, which is run by the wayne county historical society, took us to nine different locations around the towns of white mills and hawley.

it was really neat to visit the different homes, businesses, and historic locations, and to see the gardens that were on display.  all of the flowers and plants were so beautiful and colorful.

the weather was absolutely perfect for the tour.  it was such a nice way to spend a sunday afternoon.

love, laurie

look, we grew a tomato!

in the beginning of the summer, ryan's mom gave us two tomato plants from her garden.  we have been taking care of them and doing our best not to kill them.  after several weeks of waiting patiently, we finally have our first tomato!

we have four other tomatoes that are growing on our plants too.  right now they are still green, but hopefully they will turn red soon.  they will go perfectly with the fresh basil that we have been growing.  yum!  nothing beats a homegrown tomato!

what did you grow in your garden this summer?

love, laurie