Rhubarb

I know a lot of people that have a rhubarb plant growing out of control in their back yard.  I have seen these people bring grocery bags of the stuff to work and beg people to take it off their hands.

I have heard: "Come on over tonight and take as much as you want, we never eat it ourselves."

I grew up with at least one big rhubarb plant, and I remember us having way too much too, but that did not stop me.

I wanted my own.  I wanted to be able to make jam, pies, tarts or platz (breakfast dish I grew up with) whenever I wanted and not have to wait for the bag of rhubarb to show up at work.

When I bought this baby a few weeks ago from a local greenhouse, the big leaf in the middle (the one with the arrow pointing at it) was not there at all!

Jackie has been so happy to see this little guy start growing new leaves.  Already we have another leaf well on its way, see the little guy at the bottom.

If you are nice to me, I just might give you a jar of jam in the fall.

Garden Picture - week 2 1/2

I want to post a weekly picture of my garden, I missed week one - but since there was nothing new, it was the same as the first picture.

This one shows you where I put the strawberries, the tomatoes are hard to see, but they are one the other side of the pea fence.  Right now there are still only the 3 cherry tomato plants in the ground, the 4 Roma plants are going in this week.

I also missed taking this picture right on week 2 - it was raining a lot and the picture would not have been very good.

You can see though we have a lot of little sprouts.

The carrots are coming up nicely along with most everything else.  We are still waiting for green beans (but I can see they are coming), my green onions are not up at all - do they normally take this long?  I planted them from seed with a seed tape - is that why they are taking longer than everything else?

I also planed garlic - no sign of that yet either, but I am not expecting much - it does much better if you plant it in the fall.

On the plan for this week:
- transplant the Roma tomatoes into the ground
- plant the second row of peas and beans
- plant the remainder of the lettuce, spinach and green onion rows

I should be able to get a week 3 picture on time this week!

We Have Sprouts!

(Yellow Onions - planted from bulbs)

We came back from the long weekend away at our trailer and discovered things had changed dramatically in our little garden.

I had not been expecting anything to pop up until I hit that 2 week mark (still a few days away), so I brought the kids into the back yard to check out the tomatoes and strawberries.

When I saw not one or two sprouts, not one or two rows but lots of rows up and showing me their little green babies.  
I was jumping up and down, doing a little dance, showing the kids and then pulling hubby into the back yard to show him. (There might have been an eye roll, but he did come and looks and express mild excitment).

Yes I know – maybe a bit too much excitement, but I was just thrilled!

Here is what we have popping up right now:

-          Yellow onions

-          Lettuce

-          Spinach

-          Beets

-          Peas

-          And a little, little bit of carrots (only 1 variety so far)

We also got another leaf growing on the rhubarb, and lots more little tiny baby tomatoes have shown up (cherry tomatoes), the grape tomatoes (the ones in pots) are now showing us their beautiful yellow flowers.  (Rhubarb post to follow soon.)

 Beets

Carrots

These pictures were all taken Monday - May 23rd.

A Reading Chair

I love to read!  I love books and someday I would love to have a house with an actual library.

I am lucky, I can read almost anywhere – I do not need a quiet place to read.

So I hang out with the kids while they are watching TV and since as good as Diego is, I find it a bit more interesting to read my books.

I read laying down on the couch when they are in bed, I read in my bed, I bring a book with me to work every day and sometimes read over my lunch hour.

But what I would really love is a reading chair, preferably in my library, but someplace that would be mine, where a cup of coffee (or glass on wine) and a book are meant to be together.

What about you?  Are you a reader?  Where is your favourite place to read?  Do you have a special reading chair or place?

Tomatoes

I have decided to plant quite a few tomatoes this year,

First I picked up 3 rather large (1 gallon pot size) cherry tomato plants.  Then I picked up 4 much smaller plants (not sure the pot size) - grape tomatoes.  And last but not least I am waiting for my garden centre to bring in the one gallon size Roma tomatoes (should be here around the long weekend).

The cherry tomato plants were well established - one plant actually had 2 small tomatoes on it when I brought it home!

I planted the 3 cherry tomatoes in the ground and the 4 grape tomatoes are in pots on my deck (where they will stay), the Romas will also be put into the ground when I get them.

Here are some pictures of my little babies!

Cherry tomatoes & flowers

These next 2 photos are of the 2 tomatoes that were on the plant when I bought them, it was very hard to take the picture since there is a fence right there, hence my face in the second picture.

The grape tomatoes are obviously a little behind, they were about 1/3 the size of the cheery tomatoes plants when I brought them home, but we are starting to get our buds on all 4 plants.

** Note - these pictures were all taken last week when there was actually sun in Calgary. **

Strawberries

Little Girl and I are both super excited about our garden project this year, we check everything every day looking for sprouts from the seeds (even though I know it is way too early), but we are also checking the strawberries and tomatoes (all planted as plants).

I picked up 5 strawberry plants - 2 of one type and 3 of another.  They all came with flowers or about to have flowers, so when we spotted our first strawberry and a few days later the slightest bit of pink in that strawberry I think I did a dance around the yard.

Here are a few pictures of my strawberries.

You can barely see the pink in this one, but trust me, she is blushing a little bit.

Planted

Here is a photo of my mostly planted garden.

Everything I am growing from seed was planted on May 11th.

So far I have planted:

Garlic (I know it is best planted in the fall - a bulb like a tulip, but they say you can also plan in the spring, you just might not get as big a bulb of garlic.

Yellow Onions

Green Onions (1/2 row only so far)

Lettuce (1/2 row only so far)

Spinach (1/2 row only so far)

Green Beans

Beets

Carrots (2 kinds)

Peas

Still to come - tomatoes and strawberries.

My Little Prince(ss)

Do you have a little boy that does this?

I have spoken with as many people as I know that have a boy who has an older sister, and everyone has admited their little boys dressed up as a princess more than a few times.

The funny part, is he is actually really good at walking in those heals.

When I was little, I had (and still do) an older brother, I hated dresses, did not like dolls, but instead wanted to play with trucks and cars -  I guess we all just want to copy the older sibling.

Garden Construction

There is one small problem when you suddenly decide you want to plant a garden. 

You actually need a garden!

This is where my wonderful husband comes in very handy.

I marked out where I wanted the garden to go (7 ½ feet X 13 feet), he then pulled up all the sod – transplanted it to a spot where we needed to plant some grass.

This was a ton of work, and I am so thankful he did it without complaining.

Once he was done though he did say “Those better be some super delicious vegetables!”

I told him not to worry, the chicken wing and cheesecake plants have been planted and we should have some by early July.

The Black Thumb of Death

If you have ever been to my house, you know that none of my plants are living, there is occasionally some fresh cut flowers, but that is where it ends.

I learned a long time ago I indeed have two black thumbs of death.  I have been given plants, being told there is no way you can kill this one, they can last a long time without water – but what happens when you water them too much?

Hubby and I have tried, we like the look of plants, we once bought a beautiful big plant to fill a corner in our house and ‘green’ it up a bit while we were trying to sell it.

A month later we see a few bugs – and instantly that plant was outside.  Both of us have absolutely no patience for bugs.

There is one thing I was able to do – once I planted basil by seed and got a beautiful pot full of fresh basil, but at some point in time it died (probably because I ate it all and I have no idea how to use enough to keep it still growing, but not all of it to kill it).

So when a friend, a fellow black thumb of deather, told me she was planting a vegetable garden this year and I should too, I started thinking, hmmm, maybe I could change to a green thumb, not all green – maybe just a dark green.

I will be blogging my whole gardening experience, if you remember this post, I commented on how much I hated my parent’s garden while growing up.  This whole experience has been a little scary; I am turning into my parents more and more.

Here are a few before pictures of our yard.

TV

I grew up without a TV in our house.

I know, shocking!  Who does that?

As weird as it sounds, I don't look back and think I missed much, yes I don't have childhood memories of certain TV shows, but I know even if we did have a TV, my parents would never have let us watch much anyway.

But now, no TV?  I would go insane.  I love my TV, Hubby loves his TV and I know our kids do too.

When I was home with the kids on mat leave, I watched a lot of TV.

Okay, that is an understatement, I watched TV all the time.  If I was home, the TV was on.

I was not always sitting on the couch watching TV (rarely actually), but it was on in the background.

I learned to love Regis & Kelly, The View, Ellen and loved watching old drama show re-runs during the day.

So now it is funny because I would prefer the TV off.

We do allow certain times the kids can watch TV, on a week day, they can watch TV in the morning but only if they are dressed (otherwise they would stay in their jammies all day).

On the weekend, they get to watch TV in their jammies when they wake up (trust me - they love this).

At night time, once they are in their jammies, they get to watch 1 or 2 shows (time dependant on when they get into their jammies) and have a snack.

(of course, there are always exceptions to that - and summer = less TV than winter.

What are your TV restrictions?