Kindergardens

A new week of Kinder Gardens brings much of the same thing.  A lot of work happening here on the top of the hill.  But we have everything planted.  That is, if you can keep me out of the garden stores, we have everything planted.  I have this awful habit of visiting garden centers and coming home with plants, both flower and veggie, that I have no room for. 

For instance, last week I went to Home Depot to find a tomato cage.  I came home with 3 more tomato plants, 4 more pepper varieties, another watermelon, more okra and not one, but 4 tomato cages!  You know, since I had to buy cages for the new plants I got.  Geesh.  But I am finding more and more heirloom varieties in the garden centers which is great since that is what I start from seed.  I did buy an Early Girl, which is a hybrid, but I thought it would be nice to have some early tomatoes.  But, my cherry tomato plant is the clear winner in the tomato category so far.  Because of all my new purchases I had to add an addition to my main bed in back. 

So last week the girls and I dug a 4 x 8 extension.  Okay, it was mostly me, but the girls were in the general vicinity.  Nin was the Worm Captain.  Everytime a worm was uncovered she would pick it up, dangle it in her sister's face to illicit a scream and then run over and toss it in the compost pile.  Kk bless her heart, tried to help and accomplished more than her sister, but everytime we came across a worm she would scream and run for cover.  Geesh.  Girls.

See the right side of the pic, how there is no plank in the front? That is the addition!



We have already planted the 3 tomato plants, 2 of the peppers and 4 okra in there!

Volunteers! Some years, like last year, we have great volunteers in the garden. Last year a tomato popped up and produced all year long for us! It was in kind of a bad spot, a little too close to another tomato, but he did alright! This year, we have 2 cilantro volunteers and one in the back that is not yet identified. At first I was sure it was a canteloupe but now I am not so sure. Anyway, he is too close to the okra so I might have to find somewhere for him

What do you think? Canteloupe?



The girls have had fun playing in the fairy garden recently. Someone, or something, took all the sticks the girls colelcted and began poking them in the garden making structures....



The flowers are doing excellent!





snapdragons





We also put a fire pit in back where the girls built a fort. Hubby dug a hole, lined it with rocks and then stacked some sticks in it. The first night they made Smores! It was 90degrees and very windy, but they were determined!

Hubs even whittled down some sticks for the marshmallows!



Other gardening events!

peppers with onions at the top



zuchini (which always does really great in our garden)



Peppers, with mulch. Hubs raked out a bunch of leaves from the fence, ran over them with the lawn mower then dumped them in the garden. I still need more, but he said I had to rake the leaves. Yeah, that didn't happen...



A potato has sprouted in the compost bin.  It's doing really really great in there, but it had to be moved.  I planted it just as a experiment!



Look at this beauty!



Moon flower from a friend. She got some sprigs from a building downtown that was just pruning and throwing them away. She gave me a few to plant for the girls. They are supposed to bloom at night!



And finally, what is this? Is it a weed? I planted a bunch of hyssup seeds in the front garden and there are a bunch of these. I don't want to pull them in case they are my hyssup!

Kindergardens

I think this is week 3?  What I do know, is that I missed last week!  But I made sure to take plenty of pictures this weekend.  I still have more plants to get in the ground but I am waiting until the weather cooperates more.  Between the hail and rain, I am surprised anything has survived! 

Last Saturday was bee -u -tiful, so the girls and I worked outside for most of the day.  I planted veggies, they played in the mud and their fairy garden. 

Speaking of fairy gardens, here is what they have so far. Snap dragons, mexican heather, impatiens, Salvador purple which is a salvia, coreopsis (which reminds me of my granny, so I am glad they chose it!) and some little red flower thing that I can't remember the name of. All of them are just kind of willy nilly planted where they fit.





The amphitheater and watch guard.



Not sure what this is, maybe the beginnings of a fairy swimming pool..



A spider has been visiting the fairy garden!



Can you see it closer now...









The girls spent lots of time playing with their neighbor friend and getting dirty!















In other news, here are the rest of the pics from the garden. Lots of veggies. Some flowers, mainly ones the girls picked out because they thought they were pretty! I did buy myself some black petunias. Very pretty with such striking colors. They are black with gold stripes. I had never seen them in those colors so I bought a pack and stuck them in a planter with the purple ones!

A pepper!


Lettuce



carrots



cilantro



some plants



lettuce in the front yard. This lettuce patch suffered a beat down from the hail the other night, right after this picture was taken. Literally an hour after this picture it was shredded and matted up in the mud from the hail and rain. It seems to be making a comeback...



peas!



I just love pea flowers, they are soooo pretty!



tomatoes (I have about 4 more to be planted) these are mostly heirloom varieties, with one early girl. Red zebra, which are pretty, rosso scillian and german pink. One of the german pinks got shredded by hail, so I pulled it and replanted a tomato plant which I failed to mark. if I had to guess which variety it was, I would guess german pink base don the leaves. Once the tomatoes arrive, I can tell for sure!



okra, with 4 more to plant also, oh and weeds!



onions



cucumber



hosta flowers



hmmmm, I wonder why I only took one picture of the pepper plants. I have like 11 planted...

not garden related, but clothes on the line, which I try to do exclusively on weekends



my favorite part of summer, sun tea!



And finally, the hail that damaged most of our city the other day.









my poor lettuce!



Whew, that was a lot!

Skirts galore

It's no secret that I am raising girly girls.  Amazon size girly girls, but that's not what this post is about.  They love sparkles, rainbows, hair pretties, dresses, pink, purple, unicorns and skirts.  Well, maybe not so much the unicorn part.  But they do love their skirts!  Here are three new ones.

The Lil Blue Boo ruffle bustle skirt.  Nin wants to wear the bustle part in front.  Why you ask?  Because it's the pretty part and she wants to be able to see it.  I kept trying to tell her that it's the suprise part of the skirt.  No one will expect it and then when she turns around, bam!  A surprise!  That went over like a lead balloon and I had to bribe her to wear it correctly for the pictures.  It remains to be seen if this will be a continuing problem. 







I bought this ruffle fabric at JoAnns knowing that it would make the girls happy. It's ruffley, pink, purple and a skirt. All they qualities they look for.

This is just 2 pieces of ruffle fabric serged onto a 3 inch wide piece of elastic. Just like Justice sells. For both skirts it cost me $7.50 or $3.75 each. Take that Justice. You and your $30 kid skirts. Ha!





I put a tag on the back of each one so they could tell them apart!







The girls and I dyed the elastic for the waistbands since all I had was white. Since the elastic is mostly poly and it doesn't hold dye as well as something like cotton, it may fade over time. In fact, on it's first wash it lost a lot of color. But it's still pretty pink! Below is the process.

I initialed the pieces so I would know which waistband belonged to which girl, but after I finished dying them , I figured out they were exactly the same size! 


Salt



dye



stir stir stir



Then it sits for an hour in the dye, and when it came out it was this color



After the first wash it is now bubble gum pink!