Everything seems to take so much longer to grow here, but we are finally making some progress.

We’ve got peppers and beans, aren’t those teeny beans so cute? This is the first year I’ve grown either of these veg.

We’ve also got cucumbers, yellow squash, and cantaloupes beginning to flower.

There are even some small green tomatoes popping up. The raspberry and current bushes are bulking up as well. Last year was the first year we had them and they weren’t much more than a couple of twigs, though they are filling out very nicely this year.

For a while I thought my entire garden was doomed as nothing seemed to be growing in the slightest, but now we are picking up speed. Here’s to a late blooming garden.

I feel like I am cheating when it comes to gardening when I plant already started plants into the ground. I have resigned myself to the fact that if I want to grow anything, this is the way it will have to be. Forget greenfingers, I have gardening fingers of death. Do you remember all of my beautiful seedlings? Want to know how many survived? Not one single one.

After lovingly looking after them for months, they just stopped growing. They weren’t big enough to transplant, and I have no idea what I did wrong. It is so disheartening for me, as I really, really want to be able to grow things from seed.

We ended up going to the garden center and purchasing already started plants. I got them in the ground and have high hopes for them producing. We shall see though, as I can manage to kill just about any plant with a single glance.

The decluttering is going well, I have a whole van load to head to the thrift store, a stack of books that I am selling, and a few things that are going on ebay. I still have so much more to do, but I am finally seeing some progress.

Oh, and I am finally getting sleep. If the babe takes a late afternoon nap, she doesn’t go to sleep till about 9:30pm, but she doesn’t wake up during the night. I’m still trying to decide whether I want calm, quiet, child free evenings or a decent nights sleep. Some days it’s a toss up.

After we left my in-laws house, we had the chance to stop by my Hubby’s Aunt’s house. She has the most spectacular garden where lots of fruits, herbs and veggies are flourishing.

I was completely jealous as by mid May, she already has so many things thriving. Here our last frost date is June 1st, which means nothing is ready, or even in the ground yet.

She has the most gorgeous chickens, which the kids loved watching as they scattered around the yard. They had me dreaming of having a few chooks of my own in the next couple of years.

The babe stood and watched the chickens for quite a while, shame we just missed the egg collecting.

Next we headed over to the strawberry patch. Yum, the girls had such fun searching for ripe berries.

We don’t have strawberries planted this year, but next year I have high hopes for having a huge patch to go searching in.

Is there anything better than a handful of ripe strawberries eaten within moments of being picked, still warm from the sun? Nope, I don’t think so.

a bowl full of apples

a bit of crochet in the sunshine, while keeping a hair elastic on my wrist to remind me which row I had just done (I blame mommy brain)

straight from the bath baby curls

It is these ordinary moments that make up our days, and make those days truly wonderful.

Spring has sprung, well, in Denver at least! It is slowly inching our way, and I am so excited. We had to go back down to Denver to get the computer worked on again (they broke something while they were doing the last repair), so we got to see spring in action.

I love all of the gorgeous flowers, and green grass. The rain showers and the fact that we can walk outside without having to bundle all four kids and ourselves in coats, hats, gloves etc. It has been a really long winter here, and I am oh so ready for spring.

Personally, I think I like the rain showers the best (besides the flowers of course), on a sunny afternoon, just a quick shower and it’s all over. What is your favourite thing about spring?

I love the idea of having a gardening journal that will last for several years. To be able to look at the same week for three years in a row sounds really great to me, because as I am really just starting out and learning what I am doing I think it will be invaluable to compare notes whether things go right, or wrong.

I looked at journals to buy, and there were some really beautiful ones, but to be honest, I know it would bother me to see them get dirty. So I did what any self-respecting do-it-yourselfer would do, and made my own. I bought an inexpensive spiral bound sketchbook, drew some straight lines, and started filling it in.

I think I am really going to like it, and it’s kind of fun to make notes of exactly what is happening. I also think it will be neat to look back after a couple of years and see how much I have learned.

I have used one page for each week of the year, and left the back side blank to be able to make additional notes if necessary. I plan on using the back of the pages to keep all of the info of the seeds etc. so that I can use the chart to mostly measure progress and what we are doing.

Do any of you use a gardening journal? Any tips on things for me to do?

Oh, and as a side note, see the green grass in the background? Yesterday it turned green, for the first time this year there is finally some green around, wohoo! I think we are well on our way to spring. Unfortunately our last frost free date for planting is June 1st, so it’ll still be a little while till I can get anything in the ground.

Well, we’ve got a busy day today, so I’m off. Enjoy your day, I hope it’s a great one.

Just popping in quickly today to show you some of our seedlings progress. They seem to be off to a good start, and I can hardly wait until it is time to get them in the ground.

What are your favourite things to go? Are you more into veggies, herbs, or flowers?

Last year was the first year that we did any serious gardening. I really do prefer to have my hands in the soil, but there were a few jobs where it would have been nice to have a good pair of gardening gloves, so this year I bought some. I love them, they are so bright and cheery, and they are leather rather than that plasticy, rubbery stuff which I would imagine would make my hands feel all sweaty and gross. This year, dealing with the prickly raspberry bush will be a much nicer task.

My friend Deb tells me that there really is no such thing as greenfingers so I just need to get out there and do it (well, she put it much nicer, but really that’s what I need to do). So here we are, a new spring to start working with. I’m throwing myself into it this year and though I expect plenty of failures, I’m hoping for more successes as well.

Look, some of the seeds have sprouted and we are on our way. Not brilliant pictures, but I was so excited to show you that at least I haven’t managed to kill them off yet.

I must admit, I still have this knot in the pit of my stomach that somehow I will manage to wipe them all out, but I’m giving it a go. We should learn plenty in the process, and besides, it sure is fun.

You know it’s finally a gorgeous spring day when the temperature hits 72 degrees, and you are able to spend pretty much the whole day outdoors. When you can plant flowers in a pretty hand painted thrifted pot….

when your most energetic boy can finally really work out some of those wiggles on the trampoline….

Well, let’s face it, they all have wiggles, and the tramp is the perfect spot to get in some exercise. I should probably get up there, but I’m not convinced I would be able to move the next day.

When it’s warm enough that they all have rosy cheeks, and are just about completely covered in layers of dirt, which makes the perfect time for a mango strawberry milkshake (just frozen mangoes and strawberries blended up with some milk).

What a gorgeous day it was. By the time we came in and got them all cleaned up with hot baths and warm food, their little heads hit the pillows and they were out. I am so ready for all of our days to be like this, though of course, it’s supposed to snow again on Friday.

Yesterday the girls and I started planting up some tomato and pepper seeds.We had a break in the cold weather and snow (though it was still chilly) and I decided that now was the time. Quite frankly I have no idea what I’m doing with gardening. Last year was the first year we tried to grow anything, and it’s a miracle anything survived. No seriously, the only plants that did survive were the ones that I bought from the plant sale, so they already had a good start in life by someone who knew what they were doing.

So this year I decided to take out a little extra insurance. We bought some trays with those plant-straight-into-the -ground-peat-pots and we planted quite a few seeds. I daresay, way too many, but I figure that when half of them don’t make it, we’ll still have a decent amount of viable plants.

We didn’t have any markers so we improvised and used tiny clothespins meant for their art wires. They worked well. So now we’ve got tiny tomato and pepper plant seeds buried in moist, nutrient rich soil, just waiting to start their productive, fruitful, delicious lives. Fingers crossed that some make it.

What are some of your favourite things to plant?