Garden Pictures - March, 2010

Well, seeing all the garden shots and having beautiful Spring weather inspired me to share some of my garden photos in this early season. Many of the pictures will show just newly budding plants that will soon bring forth abundant goodness. God was so creative and thoughtful when He designed nature and all that comes from it. There are captions under each photo, so take a look and let me know what you think. I'll post a recipe in a few days. I hope everyone is enjoying their weather.

This is our baby nectarine tree that we just planted a week ago. Look at the pretty pink buds on it already! It's orange flesh, my favorite, and I'm still getting used to the fact that I'm growing my very own nectarines! The branches in the background are from our neighbor's mulberry tree that my husband pruned. I have a very hunky picture of him doing this, by the way, but I'm still hesitant to show family pics on the Internet. My girls, however, would love their pictures on here! As you can see the lawn isn't the greatest. We paid a pretty penny to have our backyard landscaped a few years ago, but with animals and kids that didn't last long. That's okay, I prefer them than being overly concerned about how my yard looks.

This is one of our garden beds. In the corner is our giant artichoke plant and next to it is a younger one. In the near corner is parsley. Next to it is kale, and in the back is lettuce.

This is another garden bed full of healthy carrots that my children love to pull and eat. In the back are Brussels sprouts and strawberries. Last Summer this bed and the first one were so lush they looked like a rain forest with the crookneck squash, tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, basil, cilantro and more. This is still early in the season, so I'll take some shots a little later and show you the progress. I'm sitting on the corner of this bed in my blog picture.


These are garden beds that my husband built. The one on the left he dumps in weeds and anything large to sort through. We'll grow stuff in it, as well. The one in the back right with the plant pots on it is our compost bin. The three small ones connected to it will be used, as well. He also built the fence and gate you see in the back because our sweet dog Earl was leaving too much of himself behind, if you get my drift. Now, Earl can only come in while supervised.

The next three pictures are of our almond tree. I put several shots of this tree in because my oldest daughter was trying to take a picture of a bee pollinating and inadvertently took some breathtaking shots, I think.

Another shot of the almond blossoms.

Our almond tree - isn't she pretty? By the way, my husband is a proud squirrel rancher.

This is our mandarin tree; it's still a baby. Underneath are the ashes of our bunnies.

This is our young ruby red grapefruit tree. Underneath are the remains of our hermit crabs, and the rock is painted by the children for one in particular: Frederick.

I have a large flower bed, but I'm showing you my freesias (which were the flowers from our wedding) because my three-year-old son who normally gives me rocks and sticks as surprise gifts has been bestowing flowers on me recently. Yesterday, I received several freesias - hmm, where do you think he got those? When the second gift was bearing several unopened buds, I gently asked him to not pick so many of Mommy's freesias. So, they deserve a shot, too.

This is our dog, Earl. He's been on before, but he followed me diligently around while I snapped pictures, so I wanted one of him. It wasn't as easy as you might think since he's terrified of cameras. In the background you can see the mulberry branches again and a corner of one of the doghouses that my husband built with shingles, a hallway, the whole bit. In front of Earl is a corner of one of our two play structures for the children and their friends.

Well, since Earl got on we have to include Sparkly. Her expression here generally matches her disposition: not so sparkly, if you know what I mean. My oldest blessing named her several years ago - her name is quite ironic.

And, lastly, you gotta have Charlene, who was named after another cat, Charlie. Charlene is definitely a cat after Mama's own heart.

So, there you have it - a quick tour of the latest things growing at my house. Hope you enjoyed it! I had fun doing this, so I'll do it occasionally.