Tomato - 2

My poor little tomato plant doesn't seem to be doing to well. A branch died off and the tomato turned red (well that part is good) but it didn't get much larger then it had been. I'm hoping the transplant was just rough on it... after all, it took the other one a while to come back. 

It's still alive, by the way, and has even gotten a total of 3 flowers on it now. The first one died. The second one just fell off. Like the stem even. It was weird. We'll see what the third one does. 

Cucumber - 5

My two cucumber plants are still doing really well. They are growing at the same pace and stand strong and tall... well sort of. Taller then they were. ;) Hopefully we start seeing some flowers on them in a week! 

Romaine Lettuce - 2

I should have updated the lettuce a week or so ago but oh well. Here you can see it is doing quite well! Only one leaf has some damage on it which is nice. They are getting nice and tall and look super healthy. I can't wait to eat it! 

Strawberries - 7

As you can see, my strawberries are continuing to do well! Each one of these is about 1" long so far and still not quite done. And, we got a new flower going on with two new buds. With any luck, the next time I take a picture of this plant, I'll have even more to show! 

Here is another split strawberry. The last one I took a photo of died shortly after the image. This one is getting a little farther. Who knows what will happen with it :p It kind of looks like a hippo nose and mouth though. :p If the hippo got punched in the nose that is. 

This strawberry is starting to get hues of pink in it! 

And here is my second little plant that is still holding on somehow! There are three or four buds on it and one that just lost the petals and should start turning into a strawberry soon! 

Carrots - 3

This little guy is one of the two transplants that survived. The other one isn't doing near as well and is only about half the size. We've got a lot more growing to do before it is done though! 

And here we have some of the seeds I planted. They aren't very far behind the one I transplanted despite it having such a leap in growth time! I will have to start thinning soon. The info I found on that said to cut them at the edge rather then pull so it will nourish the other plants and that is what I plan to do! 

Green Onion - 3

I finally figured it out. It's green onion. My husband and I took the kiddos to see their great-grandma the other day and she has a large garden (much larger then mine this time around) and she had much larger "things" that looked exactly like mine... but you know, larger. And they were green onion.

At long last, the mystery has been solved. I had really hoped it was garlic too lol

Cantaloupe - 6

As you can see, my cantaloupe has really been growing! Several days ago I had noticed little groups of stubby looking things and figured they would just pour out and turn into more leaves and "branches" so to speak.

Well, that probably is what they are going to do but some of them were also flowers! Which is beyond exciting. My cantaloupe plants are actually getting little cantaloupe flowers!

I don't even know what a cantaloupe flower looks like (though I'll probably go and google it once I finish this post) but I do know they are yellow! I can't wait to actually get a cantaloupe out of all of this. :D

 This picture shows the seedling leaves really well. They used to be the largest part of the plant and now they are the smallest!

This is the group of stubby looking things I mentioned above.

Tons and tons of flowers!

Strawberries - 6

I am so excited! I have strawberries growing!! And yes, you do see an ies instead of a y at the end of that word there. I'm thrilled. And curious. Let me show you why.

So first here we have a newly growing strawberry that just started up a few days ago. You can even see the white petals from the flower still curled up around it, right? In the background you can see a future flower and hopefully a future strawberry. This hand pollinating thing is harder then you'd think. I can't help but wonder if  caused what you're about to see next. 

I have no idea what this little guy is going to turn into. A deformed strawberry... or is it going to die? I suppose we will find out at some point! 

And finally we have this strawberry which has happened since my post about hand pollinating. yay for it working. Mostly lol 

This one is a bit farther along then that first one. It's starting to turn white and then, it shall be red. I can't wait. It is going to taste so good! 

Strawberries - 5

Family gardening - strawberries

This is my 5th post about my strawberry plants but this is the first one where I actually show a tiny strawberry that is forming. Turns out, that if the flowers don't get pollinated you won't get any fruit and because my garden is so small, it isn't attracting enough bees and other pollinating insects. There IS a solution to this called hand pollinating which, at least for me, involved a very fine and soft paint brush and me "painting" across the sprigs from the middle of the flower to the petal.

And, as a result I have this little growing strawberry for it! It's about time. I had gotten so excited about all the flowers I didn't even bother to really look into how they work and what role insects play in them.

So, while I have no idea how many strawberries i will actually end up with... I will end up with some! :D

In this second picture we see a different part of my strawberry plant. We have one bloom on the far left that has already bloomed and begun to turn into a strawberry. Then we have a bright strawberry flower that will soon do the same (I need to go and paint it) and then we see two other blooms that haven't quite opened yet. From what I read, my kiddos and I should be eating home grown strawberries within 6 week! Woot.

Cucumber - 4

And finally, we end this group of posts with an image of my cucumber plant. Two of the transplants officially made it and they are doing wonderful. Two leaves have fully come out of the center and a third is working on it.

I think what is most interesting about the cucumber is watching them against the cantaloupe. They are growing at the same rate but the cantaloupe had about a week start so they are obviously farther. Had they been planted at the same time, I really think they would be spot on with one another in growth! 

Strawberries - 4

I have a couple of pictures for you today of my strawberries. The first picture is of a plant that nearly got torn to shreds TWICE. Both times I considered just digging it up rather then waiting for it to die. Instead, I tried to group the soil around the roots (it had been lifted out a bit) and continued to water it with my other strawberry plant and somehow... it is sprouting a little flower that will turn into a strawberry. If it doe indeed produce a strawberry by the end of the season I will be amazed! 

The second image is of my fuller strawberry plant. It is up to about 9 strawberries (crazy right). And when I say strawberries I just mean blooms that flowered and wilted (or whatever the proper word is). This particular picture shows a flower right before blooming. I imagine in a day or two it will be a beautiful white strawberry flower but thought it looked so innocent and beautiful so I had to capture it.

:)

Carrot - 2

Originally, I wasn't going to do a carrot post today. They are still so tiny... but before I decided not to I went and looked at my last post and there is definitely some major change! (Psss... go check it out!)

This is one of two little carrots that I started in a baggie and transplanted. None of the others survived though I have a LOT of them sprouting up from the straight seeds I planted. I know the containers aren't deep enough but am hopeful that we will get a carrot or two out of the bunch :p 

Garlic/Green Onion - 2

I title this garlic/green onion because as it grows more I'm becoming less positive that it is garlic. Darn me for not labeling. :p

Most green onion seems to only have 2 little stems that sprout up so I remain hopeful that it was the garlic that survived. 

Cantaloupe - 4

This post has taken forever to get up. I just got a new computer and it didn't have any of my photoshop actions on it so I had to go figure out how to re-install them. Somehow, mostly via accident, I figured it out and was able to get my photos taken care of. :D

So here we have the fourth set of cantaloupe pictures and this is officially the first time I showed all three in one pot. I'm still unsure if they are to close together but the whole point of this has been to learn and by the end of this, I bet you I have an answer :p 

You can see some holes in a couple of the leaves which was caused by rain. We were down in the city at the time which caused me quite a bit of worry because rather large bits of hail came down there. They were actually large enough that I feared my car was going to have dents. Fortunately it didn't.

Anyways, in these pictures, you can see more leaves coming up and how different they look as well. You can also see the seedling leaves starting to change color and whither away. 

Tomato - 1

This is my second non-organic plant, a tomato we transplanted. It's... hanging in there. We are still kind of waiting to see if it is going to survive the transplant lol. Until then we remain hopeful that we will one day have a ripe tomato from it. 

:D

I'm picturing burgers with lettuce and tomato (home grown of course), a side salad (all home grown, duh) and a dessert of cantaloupe and strawberries. Yup... that will be one hell of an awesome meal.

Everyone says homegrown plants taste better and you have no idea how badly I want to taste the difference! 

Cucumbers - 3

My cucumbers are still growing a bit slower then my cantaloupe... then again, my cantaloupe had quite the headstart so I guess that is to be expected LOL But the cucumber is still doing good. These two are still doing well. The other three I planted... well two died and one, who knows what it's going to do.

I'm excited. 

Romaine Lettuce - 1

Lettuce! Dun-dun! haha I had wanted to grow lettuce so badly and container gardening has made it possible! This little baby lettuce was transplanted (almost as difficult as the carrots but not quite... most of the transplanted ones survived) and they have done really well since. I'm so excited. It's a fearful thing doing a transplant. You just rush out every day to check and see if your plant has survived or not. Mine is so I'm exciting :D hehe 

Because I was afraid the transplants wouldn't make it (and because some wouldn't transplant) I planted some seeds as well. As you can see, the entire group of seeds I planted sprouted so I'll have some thinning to do just like with my carrots but that's okay... I have to learn eventually! What would be really cool is if I could save them somehow. Ah well. 

And here you can see my container filled with lettuce. :) Hopefully it's large enough. With this being my first time I know I'll make mistakes... but now I am confident that I will have at least one head of lettuce by the end of this. One delicious and nutritious head of organic romaine lettuce! Yum! 

Strawberries - 3

Here we have my beautiful strawberry plant. Everything kind of blends in together but you can spot 5 strawberry beginnings for sure (they may be hard to spot but click the picture to make it big and you might find them all) and we have a total of 7 (one that you can see towards the top hasn't opened and turned into a flower yet). So, we have a total of SEVEN strawberries that all should come from this plant.

I'm excited. This is one of my two non-organic plants (which I will remedy next year) but I knew it would be the most fun for my three year old so we got it. :p

This is the plant we picked all of those spider eggs from. Ick. I do think we got them all though and my plant seems to be alive and well! (And making babies.)

Carrots - 1

I've got a couple of pictures of my carrots to finally share with you guys. This first one is a transplanted carrot. Now, let me say that I transplanted about 6 of them that I started off in a baggie method and only 2 of them made it. That was after starting probably 20 seeds in the bag too. These are so fragile and the roots just couldn't handle it. But this guy and his brother have held on. 

This second picture shows a group of baby carrots that I planted for the first time on the same day I did the transplant. I figured none would make it through the transplant so I planted some seeds as well and they are finally sprouting and growing! I've no idea how to thin them but I guess I'll be learning! :D 

Garlic - 1

So... I think this is garlic. And the reason I say think is because I planted it a while ago and this is the only one that survived... and I plannted green onino on one side of the pot and garlic on the other side. Then I didn't label each side.

Now I have this lone plant in the center of my pot and I am pretty sure it is garlic, at least I hope so. Thus, I am labeling it garlic until I figure it out :p

This guy, he's my fighter. :D

Cantaloupe - 3

And, just 8 days later... here is my cantaloupe!! Look's awesome right? The little leaves from the seedling are starting to shrivel away and large leaves that make up the actual cantaloupe plan are getting so big! I hadn't realized so much time had gone since my last photos of my plants. I need to stay on top of this! Going outside every day and seeing them all grow just leaves me in aww! 

Of all the plants I'm growing, I have to say that I think the cantaloupe excites me most with  my cucumber being a close second. When I was little, cantaloupe was a favorite of mine. I begged my parents to let us grow cantaloupe and my dad tried with me but wasn't all that dedicated. We got very tiny melons that slowly died but this time I am determined to see them grow large and healthy and then... I will get to share beautiful images of my little kiddos eating them!

I can't wait. 

Biking Along the Arkansas River

My family and I just moved up to this area of Colorado in February. There is so much of it we don't know and having grown up in a small area, I know just how many hidden places there are in towns like the one we live in now. While trying to figure out what part of the river we wanted to ride along yesterday, we came across this trail that is up on a mountain over looking the river. It is beautiful!

About 1.3 miles in, the tire on the kid's buggy blew and we had to stop and make the rather tiring ride back (riding a bike with a trailer that has a blown tire is not an easy feat... fortunately, my husband's bike was attached to it, not mine). We were able to replace the tire, get it all fixed and went back to the trail today.

We were determined to finish it! What we didn't know that the entire trail was only 2 miles long and we had already done over half of it... but none the less it was a fun ride.

In total, today we biked 4 miles which is great considering we haven't ridden bikes in at least a month. Life caught up to us and it fell to the way side. But here we are again, biking and working on health related things. It's fantastic.

The area is absolutely beautiful! Idk how often we'll do this bike ride since it is only 2 miles one way but I imagine we will do it another time or to. There was wildlife everywhere. Some of the butterflies we saw were HUGE too. It was incredible. 

On both bike rides down this trail we saw people kyacking and drifting down the river. It was kind of funny because when the tire blew my husband had to go a lot slower then me... so after I got a little ahead, I'd stop and wait for him. It was like a game of race with the guys in the little boats because I'd go flying past them and then stop so they'd pass me, so on and so forth :p 

Beautiful huh? 

My husband used his iphone to get a couple of panoramic photos. This one isn't so great... 

but I love how this one turns out. Imagine it without the curve and you'll have a pretty good idea of what our view was :p 

So yeah... there you have it. Our biking experience out on a trail that is, though short, very beautiful! 

Eggs in the Strawberries

Spider eggs. At least that is what I am 100% convinced they are. We found them in our strawberry plant shortly after finding a creepy looking spider in them. I never imagined the damn thingw ould start laying eggs in the soil! I mean, she even buried some of them. It was weird.

The first ones we found were directly on top. There were two. We took them out, destroyed them (yes, destroyed... the idea of baby spiders crawling all over my back porck was less then appealing to me lol). We then moved the mama spider to the large field outside out large yard. After finding even more of her eggs, maybe we should have offed her too.

I know, I know, that sounds horrible... but she looked so creepy! She was black and brown, fuzzy and had 6 or 8 circles lined up in 2 rows on her back. Creepy. And she laid EGGS in my STRAWBERRIES.

After finding as many of them as I did, I started to wonder if it was possible that they were a part of the soil... so I went and did an online search. I found images of what spider eggs look like inside the web sac they are typically in. They look identical to what I found. Then I researched what kind come in soil and sort of found something. Then I found a thread where people had found them too and shared pics... identical! And all agreed they were an egg of some sort and agreed... DESTROY!

:p

So we did. And will continue looking for more. The whole idea just gives me the heeby jeebies (The Grinch anyone?).

We now have a total of 6 flowers either bloomed and gone or starting to bloom on our little strawberry plant too. SIX! That's awesome. I can't wait until I can see actual tiny little strawberries pop off :p

Strawberries - 2

Here is the update on my strawberry plant. I noticed a new little strawberry set up that's about to become a flower (I think). That will make a total of FOUR strawberries that this little plant is working on. I wanted to share this photo because I just think it looks so cool. You can totally see the tip of the strawberry (again... I think - haha). 

And the 2-day comparison photo - 

The one that shows most because of my fingers is the same one as you see in the second photo. You can see a good bit of difference here too! And the white flower is no longer around... it's working on the same transformation as the one in the second photo. 

Cucumber - 2

My cucumbers have of course made some progress as well though not near as much as my cantaloupe. Still, though, you can see the difference in the leaves that are coming out. They are much fuzzier!

Here is a comparison shot. Still hard to believe its only been two days though much easier with the cucumber comparison then with the cantaloupe one! 

You know, looking at it side by side shows me more difference then I originally thought. I still think that watching something grow like this is incredible. Imagine if we could do this with our own babies too. Ah! Life is just such an amazing thing :)

Cantaloup - 2

So, I couldn't resist. Just 2 days later I had to take more photos. But that was because amazing things were happening! You couldn't see this two days ago. I'm just amazed at how fast these are growing. I'm excited to go back out and look tomorrow :p

You know... I know I'm a little biased, but I think I have some very handsome cantaloupe plants growing right now :p 

And just to prove I'm not crazy... check out this side by side comparison. There is only a TWO day difference! (both photos are of the same plant)

Isn't that just incredible?! (hint - it is) lol