You Say To-MAY-to, I Say To-MAH-to...

I say we have them coming out our ears!!!

LAST YEAR, I planted three tomato plants, and we had WAY TOO MANY tomatoes, so, as a solution, this year I only planted one.
WELL, I do believe our ONE plant has OUTPRODUCED the three that I had last year!!!

Every time I went out to pick.....

...I got this many!

And this has been going on for a couple of months now.

In fact, last month, when Kyle was trying to think of a way (translated: badgering asking me what to do) to answer a girl to the Harvest Dance.... after throwing around many different ideas, I said, "Can't ya do it somehow with tomatoes???"  (Since there's NO shortage of those around here!) 

So, he did:

(do you 'get it?')

So, now that it's October, there are STILL dozens (maybe hundreds?) of green and half green/half red tomatoes on the plant!  It's going to start getting too chilly at night to be good for the plant, so I tried something new that I heard about.  

Someone told me that I could dig out the plant, with roots still attached....

LOOK how monstrous that plant became!!!
It started out like this:

Instead of saying, "Growing like a weed," I'm gonna start saying, "She's growing like a tomato plant!"

 (A regular scene these days on my kitchen window sill - these are all the ones that fell off during the digging it up and transporting stages)

....anyway, after you pull it out, you're suppose to hang it upside-down in your garage, and the tomatoes will continue to ripen, and you can keep using your tomato supply instead of losing them all to the cold weather.  (At least that's what I heard)

So, I did it:

After each of the kids came in from school that day and ALL inquired, in half-panicked voices, a version of the same, "WHAT THE HECK IS OUT IN THE GARAGE????" question, I decided I better warn my husband before he got home, seems as it was hanging in his parking space.

So, I texted him, "You MIGHT be surprised when you come into the garage tonight.... just giving ya a heads up. ;)"

To which he replied back,  "A new Suburban?  HaHa."

Oh, man....now THAT would've been a first-rate surprise!!!

But, so sorry, Babe - you're going to be sadly disappointed when you open the garage door.......and discover it is ONLY an upside-down tomato plant!  ;)   

Happy Harvest!

I tried my hand at a REAL garden this year for the first time.  Definition of "REAL?" As in a rectangle-shaped one with multiple rows of plants.  

(Previously, I have planted 1-2 zucchini plants in a flower bed on the edge of our old yard - which I considered not a REAL garden.)

Ryan organized our family - for his Family Life merit badge - back during Spring Break to first, prepare a plot of land in our yard for a garden.  This took half a day, leveling, and getting out the rocks and weeds, and making a "box" around the outer edges with all the leftover boards that were still hanging around our property from the builders 8 months prior.  We really know how to "Live it Up" for Spring Break, don't we?!?  ;)  haha.  Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of that day.

Gradually, I planted the various vegetables & fruits (green onions, onions, tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon, pumpkins, zucchini, and corn) over the next 6 weeks based on when the seed packet suggested.  (Again, I'm a rookie, so I wasn't ever sure I was doing things exactly right....and I might have been tardy on some of my planting times.)
I don't have any photos of the planting process, either.

And since we didn't have a landscaped yard in, yet, we also didn't have any sprinklers, but our kind back door neighbors (the experienced gardners) let us hook a hose up to their garden spout, so we could at least hand water it.

We divided the garden rows up between us, and each person was in charge of weeding their row.  Like Mom was corn, Dad was onions & tomatoes, Kyle was green onions, Katelyn was zucchini, etc.  Let's just say that some rows stayed better weeded than others!  (like the corn!)

I periodically took pictures through the rest of the season.

JUNE 

AUGUST

We picked our first batch of corn and had it for dinner one night!

(Katelyn's face doesn't look so sure!  :)  That's because OUR corn was not a "pretty" as the corn she was used to getting from the farmer's corn field that used to occupy the land where our home now sits.  Again, I'm a rookie.)

SEPTEMBER

I guess the seed packet was NOT kidding when it suggested putting 3-4 feet in between each row of the vine-like plants (canteloupe/watermelon/pumpkins)......well, I didn't have that kind of space, so I didn't.....and the vines all tangled together and cross-germinated, and produced hybrids, maybe?  Rookie mistake, right?!?

Watermelon

Zucchini

Usually people around here have zucchini growing out their ears, but I can count on my hands how many I got, so maybe I did something wrong?  (Again, I'm a rookie!)

Cantaloupe

Pumpkins

In the end, our onions, green onions, and tomatoes never did come up....they just disappeared into thin air!   (Rookie!) Our [experienced gardner] neighbors actually gave us an "extra" tomato plant she had in a pot and helped my girls plant it in our empty tomato row -- but I think it was a little too late in the season - we never got any ripe tomatoes before we lost our warm weather, they just progressed to the green tomato point....maybe I should just say that we were TRYING to grow green tomatoes - ya know, for Fried Green Tomatoes? - and then I won't look so non-professional!
We also transplanted Miss B's sunflower seed she had planted in a cup at preschool - it grew pretty good out there.

LATER

We picked and ate them!

Another sign of a rookie:

Here's the inside of a couple of our watermelons.....I THINK something is wrong!?!  (Rookie!)

OCTOBER

Our "pumpkin patch" experience was really slick this year.....

We just went out to our back yard and got 'em!

And we carved our very own hone-grown pumpkins into Jack-o-Lanterns with our friends/neighbors one evening.....they all got ripped off by the pumpkin patch prices!  SUCKERS!  ;)

But, as beginner's luck would have it.....there were a couple of our pumpkins in the garden that never did turn ORANGE.....they were STILL green towards the middle of October.  (Again, rookie?)

So, instead, with some Pinspiration, I gave them a little "face lift" - just painted them up, so NO ONE would ever know!

{Except all who read this!}

NOVEMBER

And we displayed them on our porch with some of the pulled-up corn stalks from our garden, too!

 Then we yanked everything all out = end of the season.

Due to the way our landscaping [surprisingly and contrary to our plans] turned out, we're doubling the size of our garden next year!

Is that good or bad?!!?

{We'll hopefully get better at this.}

School's Out for Summer!

So, WHY do I feel like it's kicking my butt?
Like everyone in this house is on vacation, but ME?

WHO came up with the phrase, "Lazy Days of Summer"???

After just one week, my car drives itself to Cherry Hill, Ryan's place of employment for the summer - that I have to take him to and pick him up from practically every day!

It's true.  Yesterday, I was [supposedly] taking Kyle to pick up the newspapers he delivers once a week, when he finally asks me, "Where are we going?"  I came to, and realized I was about 5 blocks past the turn off for the newspapers.  To his question, I answered, "Cherry Hill.  This car KNOWS the way now."   And then I turned around and got him to the right place.  ;)

We started out the week with only two baseball games on our calendar -- which eventually turned into A GAME EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, with possibly TWO tonight!  And the boys have both been umpiring at the ball park a few nights this week.
{ALL of which need a ride from ME!}

Kyle made this observation about our "What's for Dinner?" chart:

"So, pretty much -- this planned menu sign is meaningless?!?"

(Since we haven't been around at dinnertime to ever have a real dinner!)

AND.....Here's a question:

WHY is it so freakin' hard for *some people* to pick up the otter pop wrappers and throw them in the garbage can?

It's not.  It's NOT!  It REALLY isn't people!  It's so easy!!  I don't get it!!!


AND...my excuse very good reason for not having a garden in the past was because we did not have enough yard for one.  Well, NOW we do.
As Ryan's "family project" for his Family Life merit badge, our family cleared away a plot of land in our [otherwise unfinished, weed fest] yard and made a garden.  The "project" only required 4 hrs. of work, and that was accomplished two months ago, so he's less than enthusiastic about doing anything with it anymore...

But, I'm out there every day.....always something to do!  I'm sweatin' up a storm in the morning, or getting eaten by bugs in the evening.
Our corn, pumpkins, watermelon, and cantaloupe are coming up!
The onions, green onions, and tomatoes ARE NOT!
Like NO SIGN of them (not that us lame-o's would even know what the plant was suppose to look like!)....and it's been enough time to sprout.....so I think we must've made some ROOKIE mistakes!   

Planted the seeds too deep?  Too many seeds too close together?  Too much water?  Not enough water?  Too many people stepping on them?  Too many weeds?  Bad seeds?  Too many rocks in the soil? (DEFINITELY in these parts!)  


I got me a nice, lobster-red chest - a combination of it being our1st time out this year, faulty sunscreen(?) and a new swimsuit whose designer did not have my size in mind when manufacturing it - from taking the kids to Seven Peaks water park one day.  And it DID turn into a whole day once we drive to & from.

I am even down one child since I drove Haylee out to my sister's for a few days of "cousin play" but I still feel like I am not having a relaxing summer, yet.

Maybe next week?

That's when I'm going to start my summer exercise/training schedule, too.  ;)

I