That’s a photo of our Roma Tomato plant as of the weekend before last. There’s no way you can see all the blooms and tomatoes on this one plant. It’s absolute madness!!!
A close up of some of them:
Again, that’s one plant with dozens of tomatoes and dozens more blooms… Did I mention we have like 2 full rows of tomatoes????? LOL!
Charles signed up for a test package of Sunflower seeds this past winter. We received them earlier this year and planted them when the time was right. In return for receiving this gift, all we have to do is report bee activity back to the company who sent us the seeds. Such a little experiment. It has actually been so much fun that we plan on having more next year. It’s so exciting to watch them grow and now one of them has a beautiful bloom:
(Please note the watermark on these is for protection of the photo as these are available as cards and prints in my shop The Cozy Loft on etsy.)
These flowers are ones that just make you happy. They are so pretty and delicate yet strong and handsome. Perhaps they should be called smileflowers…
Lately, my life has been a whirlwind of work, gardening, spending time with Charles and then we run out of time. Where does it all go so quickly? Especially the weekends – they are gone in the blink of an eye and then good ole Monday rolls around again.
This weekend, Charles and I worked in our garden, doing some much needed weeding and a little bit of harvesting. We had a large strawberry ready on our one strawberry plant. I should say the reason we only have one plant is that we bought it at a little country seed store here where we live and when we went back for more, they were sold out. We couldn’t find more of this same variety so we are going to be patient and hold out until next year and purchase more of this same variety so we know we love them! That one strawberry we did have was better than having a dozen so-so strawberries though. It was the best flavor and texture! Soooooo good!
We have also harvested an onion and a carrot just to see if they were ready. Lettuce and greens are ready like crazy and we’ve even shared some of our harvest with friends and family. That’s always nice when someone does that for us and now that we are gardening, we are happy to return the favor.
Back to the carrot for a sec…I had read online they are ready to harvest after 60-80 days. Realizing it had been 80 days, we harvested one which ended up being really small, so they have more time to go before they are ready. Still, we are definitely having it on our salads tonight. Here’s the carrot in the middle of our harvest:
And a close up of our Bibb Lettuce, really dark in color and so tasty:
And here’s some of the Black Seeded Simpson lettuce:
Our broccoli that we started indoors from seed is really starting to show some excitement. Check this out:
How exciting is all this? We weren’t sure how things would grow here since this is our first attempt. So far, so good. This year is sort of a work in progress and hopefully we’ll learn some things that will help us in our next garden next year 
All I know is this…I love love love eating lettuce from our garden. I really want to do whatever it takes to have it year round. There are ways to grow lettuce indoors during cold months. We just have to figure out a good place as well as what we’ll need and we just might do it…
Hey Everyone! I couldn’t wait to show you a couple things!
Charles and I have been working so hard on our garden and it’s been paying off greatly. We have been harvesting lettuce for over a week now – almost daily! Not only that but we were able to share some with our next door neighbors as well as my parents who came by to visit us yesterday afternoon. It’s such a great feeling to be able to give people things we’ve grown ourselves!
It dawned on me that I should definitely take a picture of this gorgeous salad for you to see:
That’s Charles’ salad as he loves tomatoes and I have never developed a taste for them. This is what he had instead of the what I had, which leads me to this…
Here’s a photo of the mustard greens from our garden that I ate this evening:
Charles hasn’t ever liked mustard greens and bless his heart, he tried a bite and just could not like them even though he wanted to. On the other hand, I love them because I grew up having them every gardening season. I guess it’s an acquired taste? At any rate, they were sooooo good!
I hope you are trying some gardening this year. It’s such a great feeling to be eating something you grew yourself. Not only is it healthy, but it’s also a money saver!
Earlier this year, we purchased a Seedless Grapevine from Lowe’s and had planted it according to the instructions. We had given up on it and had already discussed digging it back up and exchanging it this past weekend.
When we walked outside Saturday morning, lo and behold there was life! Beautiful foilage has shown itself just when we had completely given up hope. Here’s a little shot of our special surprise:
Now Charles has told me I have to figure out what kind of trellis I would like for this little creature. No problem!! YAY!!
