holy apples!

The other day I walked out my front door and.....



Holy Apples!  We thought this tree was a crab apple tree originally and have just been throwing the little ones that fell away.  All of a sudden there are hundreds of beautiful (and yummy) apples in our front yard!  I can't let them go to waste.  All weekend I picked the ones I could reach, and Brian only fell off the ladder once. :)  I made 6 apple crisps...one of which was devoured by two little ladies I know...



This week I peeled, sliced, and froze 5 dozen for later use, and tonight we're going to attempt applesauce to freeze! My house looks like an apple factory.




What a fun surprise!

crop

Some pictures of our crop! We've been eating TONS of cherry tomatoes...a few green peppers, some mini onions (not sure why they were so tiny?), some hot peppers that only Brian eats because they make my skin burn from just cutting them, and a couple surprise cucumbers that I thought were gonza for the third time! This is so much fun!!!

the day the cucumbers died

We have our first casualty. I'm not sure why or how, but the cucumber plant is gone. Just gone, not wilted up and brown and dead, but missing!? It's still early enough to try again, so I'll replace it but isn't that strange? I guess it died and blew away, but still.  I'm a little concerned about my little garden as I watered it last night while I took the dog on a walk, came back and it was pretty drenched (standing water). I figured it'd dry out today in the sun. Yah not so much it's been raining all morning and doesn't look like its stopping any time soon. So we may end up with a marsh. Whoopsy as Klaire would say:)

our garden!

Well the garden is in.  I recruited the rest of the family to "help," we shopped and planted the whole thing in one morning!  Honestly, we ended up going to Menards and grabbing a bunch of the burpee plants that were on sale...so not as thought out as I imagined, but planted nonetheless.





We bought 5 kinds of tomatos because we weren't sure which ones are good, including roma and cherry, so we'll see!

The girls had a blast helping and I think it will be fun to watch it grow...assuming it grows.



Here's what we ended up with:
5 kinds of tomatoes (ha ha)
cucumbers
green peppers
red peppers
onions
some garlic onions, which I thought was garlic, oh well:)
2 kinds of hot peppers
cauliflower
green beans
strawberries
we forgot carrots, but I think I have room so might stick them in too

virgin harvest

We have the perfect little plot (maybe 10x10) for a garden at our new house....I've been thinking about growing a garden and I think my girls would love to watch things grow, then get to eat them!!!!  I mentioned this to a friend at work, she said there 's a blog I read that's having a 'virgin harvest.' Perfect and how clever!!!  Here we go!

I've read to only plant things you're really going to eat sooooo my plan is this:

Tomatoes (regular and cherry)
Cucumbers
Strawberries
Onions
Carrots
Green Beans
Jalapenos (thanks Anne:)
Garlic...can you grow garlic?? ;)
Basil