Garden 2015: Week 1

Today marks officially 1 week that the majority of the garden was put in to dirt! It is such a treat to watch this whole entire process.. being so hands on!

Stats so far:
Onions were started on February 25, 2015 and March 3, 2015. Why two different days... well because I started 11 seeds.. not really knowing what I was doing. Then started 61 more :)
All other seeds were started on March 23, 2015, meaning: tomatoes (3), peppers (2), squash, pumpkin, zucchini, cucumbers (2), broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower.
March 26, 2015 Broccoli was the first to poke through the dirt!
March 30, 2015 (today) everything but the peppers are up!

Sunday March 29, 2015: zucchini and pumpkin made their appearance in my kitchen window!

Monday March 30, 2015.. Officially week 1

Before I did anything this morning with the plants, I took good morning pictures :)

Next, I cleared my working space so I could one by one go through each tray clipping and watering..
Each type of plant has certain things you need to do while they are growing. Most are pretty easy.. clip all but 1 sprout, usually the strongest is left, then make sure you water and re-pot when needed, if needed, before moving out doors.

Onions were up first: For these I have 2 straws cut down.. one at 5 inches and the other at 3 inches. reasoning.. once the stem/leaf reaches 5+ inches I cut it back to 3" and continue with this process until it is time to transplant into our garden!

I just love the cucumber sprouts.. they are just pretty!

This has to be another difficult point for me in this whole starting everything from seed. Most advice tells you to plant 2-3 seeds per soil pod. Yet when you do that you end up with more then one sprout. The difficult part is CHOICE.. meaning I have to go through each pod and choose which sprout will produce the best plant later! I am deciding the fate of our plants and our garden! Fingers crossed I choose wisely!

There wasn't too much to do with the tomatoes as they JUST broke soil! Not even all the sprouts are up! Keeping fingers cross on the tomatoes as they can be pretty finicky!

Apparently, I stuck 4 seeds in this pod.. oops! but in my defense the seeds are tiny! I know you have opened a tomato before when cutting them the slimy middle section spews out at you with those tiny yellow seeds.. YUP those are the same ones you use to plant! TINY...hehehe

Pumpkin, this particular picture was right after the seed came off the new leaves.. you can still see the wetness between the leaves!

I had to share this! The pumpkin and zucchini seeds are huge! so when I planted them in the center of the pod.. I assumed the would grow up.. well the one (and a few others) decided to grown out the side getting caught in the biodegradable mesh outer pod thingy.. love my technical terms!

Holy roots batman!!! I had to capture the roots on the pumpkin and zucchini! I guess big seeds, make big roots, make big plants!!.. needless to say I will be re-potting these babies ALREADY!!

A lot of these gardening posts will be mostly pictures.. I mean seriously (back to this) a picture is worth 1000 words all in its self. Most of the time I am posting a pretty self explanatory picture.. and sometimes I have to tell you what I am trying to capture so you, as a reader, can see what I see..lol  My vision is in sparkles, unicorns and rainbows! :)

Gardening is just barely getting started for this 2015 year, so like always... Stay Tuned!

<3 T

Simply Always, Tina

Garbage Dump Bark: Easter Edition

Just because Spring is here and Easter is literally right around the corner (One week from today!) I choose my first experience in making almond bark to be Easter-ish. Annnnnnnnnd this year sadly we will be spending the Easter "holiday" apart. I will be driving 2 of my babies cross country for a family visit and my other 5 babies I am leaving behind. Sooo... we will enjoy goodness now and we will celebrate the weekend following together. With all of that, of course 4 of the kiddos had to assist me! I have the best helpers in the world! Sorry, I am biased...

I took some "quiet" time to set everything up a head of time before asking my helpers to come assist me! hahaha It definitely helps keep them on task when its all set up and ready to go!

Pre set up:

I have 4 little helpers, 4 cereal bowls (2 with M&M's, 1 with a Reese's bar and 1 with a Butterfingers bar) and 4 plastic small bowls that they could use to mush and crush the candy. I then chopped up some Hershey's kisses and marshmallows. I don't know whether to call then mini marshmallows or just regular ones.. but the regular ones :)

I had also spread out 3 sheets of wax paper.. mostly cause I didn't know what was in store. how much was this going to create and how messy was this going to get..

Time to bring in the reinforcements:

It was cute watching all of them.. each one had a different style to how they were going to get the candy into pieces. Just so you know.. the M&M's are impossible for a 6 and 7 years to crush.. I ended up chopping them with my knife..The M&M's not the kiddos!! hahaha I started melting down the chocolate flavored almond bark and the vanilla bark in double boilers..

Also, to share with you the cruel parent I am.. I let my kids play in candy, only to have an apple for snack.. hehehe >.<

After the kiddos crushed, punched or I chopped up the candy we started to "layer" our bark. First, I sprinkled the Reese's bar down, then the Butterfingers bar and lastly the chopped M&M's..

Then I poured the chocolate almond bark over the candy pieces. I tried to use my spatula to spread the chocolate over the candy pieces..

Then I poured the Vanilla bark (or white chocolate) over the top of the mixture and again used the spatula to try and spread the melted goodness out.. then the fun part came.. the garbage dump!!

Hershey's kisses, M&M's, Marshmallows and sprinkles! Diabetic Shock!! After letting it cool for about 6 hours I broke the bark into pieces..

And we all shared a yummy treat on Sunday afternoon!

Be creative with this one! Seriously, all you need is melting chocolate or almond bark and what ever flavors you think you may like! Next time I am thinking salty nuts, craisons and mini M&M's topped with gram crackers, marshmallows and kisses! A camp out in a bite!

GO create something!

<3 T

Simply Always, Tina

Garden 2015: Week almost 1

On March 23, 2015 I had planted pretty much what was going to be the rest of my families 2015 garden! Some of the seed are direct sow but the ones that were not.. I put in dirt. The potatoes are the only seeds not in my hands.. BUT have been shipped! Super exciting! In the mean time check out the progress in such short time (plus I have more I haven't uploaded from my camera yet!)



Thursday, March 26th, 2015:

Much to my surprise, and maybe due to my over hovering..lol I can't blame myself I am super excited about gardening. Either way that morning when I peaked through the clear lid I could see where a few, maybe 2 broccoli seeds had sprouted. I could not resist the temptation to open the lid and snap some pictures. More then anything the excitement!! This was happening.. I am going to succeed with this garden. I am super paranoid.. This is my first year doing it from start to finish. The planning, the plotting, seeding to weeding, harvesting and all the care that comes along with it. Of course I will never say NO to extra help from anyone who is willing to lend a hand or some advice!

Cheers to the beginning of what I hope to be a great garden!

Broccoli Sprouts ^

A sweet little cabbage sprout ^

Broccoli again.. Just amazed at how quick they are poking through the soil!

Even my hibiscus are feeling spring and budding like crazy!

Our onions (which its time to clip again, ALREADY)

Onions!

Friday March 27th 2015:

Just smiling from ear to ear! that the only way to describe how it felt when I check our "garden" this morning! I know I am silly at times, and maybe that is what keeps me sane.. either way I think I should name this years garden.. some thing like "Alpha Garden".. silly right?!?! Yeah I will stick with Garden 2015.. unless another name comes along.. hahahaha

My little gift of life:

It is seriously amazing how nature grows and matures in just a short period of time! From here on out I will do my best to contain my excitement and go with weekly updates. Lets agree to update Mondays.. I will take all the pictures I want and share them with you every Monday! You don't want to miss an update (and I don't want to miss telling the story) cause its going to be an exciting year!

Gardening.. Stay tuned...

<3 T

Simply Always, Tina