Busy, Busy

We have been doing lots of projects around and outside the house lately. I was excited to buy our house and have a yard but it has been so much better than I even imagined. I really enjoy fixing up our yard and our house. We are having a party on Saturday to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary and housewarming. This is the first party we have thrown since we moved and y'all know how we get about parties. We have been working really hard (and having lot of fun) this week to get some projects off our list. Here are some we have been working on:

We built a fire pit in our side yard - now we just need firewood...

This is a farther away picture - we hung a hammock in the trees on the left side of the yard. I will get a better picture of it soon.

Tim got an electric trimmer and has been meticulously trimming the yard ever since - it looks awesome!

Tim also planted some tomato and pepper plants. We still have beans, watermelons, pumpkins, corn and other warm season vegetables to plant.

I hope to post more pictures soon of all of the other projects we have been working on.

Red Potatoes

This is what they looked like when we planted them

One great thing about the cool season vegetables (everything we have planted so far) is that we can plant them once more in the fall. Hopefully we will have potatoes to eat all winter!

They are really pretty plants that will have flowers on them. The potatoes are ready when
all of the green dies. I really want to pull one up now and see what is growing but
I have resisted the urge. If something happens and we don't end up with
potatoes, it's nice to know that we can try again in the fall.

Garden Update

I know it has been a long time since we posted (sorry!) but after you see the pictures below, I think you will see why.

We actually have vegetables growing! Here is the garden as of yesterday. I am going to post more posts with pictures of each vegetable.

We have also been planting some fruit trees and bushes. We have planted 2 apple trees (red and yellow), 6 raspberry plants, and 16 strawberry plants all in the front yard. Here are some pictures of those:

Strawberries in the front of the house


This is what the strawberry plants looked like when we got them


This is what they look like now. They will get flowers on them later but we have to pinch them off so the nutrients go the roots and fruit instead of the flowers. We should get some strawberries this year but it will be much less than next year. I will be pleased with just 1 strawberry - okay maybe 3 so that Tim, Susie and I can get our own.


This one of the apple trees. I should have taken a picture before Tim pruned. It looked much larger the other day. It has to be pruned once each year - looks kinda sad now.


These are the raspberry plants - yum! The tall cane on the left is all that there was when we got them. The green is all new!

Tim used old tires to build our compost pile. To turn the pile, we simply move each layer.

Free Water! Tim also set up a rain barrel to catch the rainwater. Thanks to Cherith Brook for giving us the barrels. Now we just have to wait for it to rain...


This is the last bed that we hand tilled - now we get to pull all of the weeds and roots out of it.

We have lots more beds to till to get the warm season seeds in the ground. We plan to go all the way across the yard with beds. It is hard work but we are REALLY enjoying it!

Another picture of the beds. I'll post pictures of the vegetables soon!