Around here lately

 We've been camping with friends...

 

Humor abounds! (If only you could travel to the Ministry of Magic through the floor by the toilets - pee pee problems would be solved on an international level...sigh...). Joey is especially thrilled by this sticker that Faith found on etsy.

It took several false starts, but I finally have a family hooked on Rummikub - do you know this game? I have so many memories of playing it with my grandma and cousins...and then with friends on the beach when I was in grad school...and then with David when we were dating. This is my third summer of pulling it out sheepishly and saying, "Let's try one more time?" and viola - this summer it stuck!

And it doesn't look like much, but I'm painting. Those might be two of my favorite words "I'm painting!"

Feels great! Wishing you an amazing weekend! xo

This week in our garden...

We're joining Amanda on Thursdays to report on our garden's progress (or lack thereof).

I have tomatoes planted in four places throughout our yard. So far we have harvested zero tomatoes which is very sad. St. Louis has had the most bizarre, cool summer and I just assumed the heat would catch up with us and stay until November or so...but that does not seem to be the case. Time will tell if we get a harvest.

 My peppers look healthy, but they are stunted and again, almost no fruit.

Our carrots are growing like crazy - they should be fun for the kids to pick.

 

This was our chamomile...

This is our chamomile. It's a perennial, so I'm not quite sure what to do with it. It's so pretty when it's blooming. I'll be googling about about pruning and care later today.

 My sweet potatoes seem to be doing well - that's great news!

 And I have about 30 figs growing! Hooray! Although animals ate every single one of our apples this year (at least 50 apples) so we'll see who gets to these first.

Here's a detailed photo of a fig leaf - I think they are breathtaking.

In other sad garden news - our peach tree died and our raspberries have yielded perhaps 15 berries. The weeds in my berry garden are overwhelming...I need to do some research on this too. But it's still gardening - still tons of fun. Hope your gardens are thriving! xo

This week in our garden...

I'm joining Amanda today to report on my garden. This year, I would describe my garden's growth as "slow and straggly" (not steady). It still is great fun, but our harvesting has been almost non-existent and we are half way to August!

Our grapes are beautiful, but alas, I didn't net them again this year. We are thinking about cutting them all off 1. to give the vine a break, and 2. to avoid "bird poop season" on our porch which is so gross and lasts a solid two weeks. Ew.

Faith has already made her famous pickles!

Swiss chard is new to our garden. So gorgeous, but we can't keep up with it!

I transplanted carrots and it worked - more on this soon because it was awesome!

Hard to see, but we had our first garlic harvest this year. The wood you see in the first photo is for our next raised bed which will be for garlic and onions only so we can dry them out a bit easier when the time comes. LOVE growing garlic - so fun to know something's thriving in your garden all winter long.

 Soybeans are new too - we're growing them in a container. So far, so good.

This is a new bed for red and yellow potatoes. I know they're not that healthy, but we love 'em, so we figured we should at least try to grow our own. Now that we are gluten free, I'm feeling cautious about using hay (dried wheat grasses?) to cover the potatoes. Need to make some calls, because so far, this is about $82 in dirt to keep them covered (exaggerating, but only a little).

Hope you're enjoying your Summer! xo