Bolting Lettuce ...Hmm.

So we're first time gardeners and after being away for a week the garden looks SOOO different.

And apparently our lettuce didn't love us as much as we loved it...

I thought the lettuce "grew like crazy" when really apparently it "bolted."

Like ran away...see. It's easy to get confused. (Actually in the picture it sort of looks like we have two long rows of lettuce, but don't be fooled, those "long" things are actually TALL things.)

I found these websites when I was trying to figure out how we were supposed to harvest our Romaine Lettuce.  Turns out we waited too late... apparently they don't do well above 85 degrees.. we live in Texas.

Why Lettuce Bolts and What You Can do About It

Good Lettuce Gone Bad: Bolting and Flowering

And like the articles say, the lettuce is now very very bitter! I tried it and had to instantly spit it out of my mouth onto the counter...eww. Apparently growing romaine lettuce is not like buying lettuce in the store. See in the store you have a head of lettuce that was cut off all at once. But in your back yard, you just pluce off about 2/3 of the leaves when they look ready and then the leaves (AKA lettuce) keep growing back.  Then once it gets too hot, or the plant get's stressed out (lol), or if it just has bad lettuce genes then it will bolt --> tall growing --> flowers on the top --> all the leaves taste nasty nasty...

Better luck next time. And on to the tomatoes and corn :) :) :) ...and the spinach, and the onions, and the blueberries, apples, bell peppers, colored bell peppers, pineapple, and broccoli. That's all.

The Hesses have been...

...the Hesses have been...

Gardening...

Graduating... (and Kari, too!)

and

Coloradoing...

Details to Come... oh, and, Happy Summertime!

Arbor Day: The Boy and Girl Holly Trees

Happy Arbor Day!

Fun Fact #1: We have 2 holly trees in our front yard.

Fun Fact #2: I had no idea holly grew into trees, thought it was just a bush or a Christmas décor item. (Below is not the trees now... now the berries are green...)

Fun Fact #3: They have leaves all year and according to our good little friend Boston, they are the best climbing trees for little people.

See how the branches are like little steps all the way up? and it goes really far up...
 

Fun Fact #4: One of our trees is a boy. The other is a girl. The boy makes pollen, lots and lots of pollen. The girl makes holly berries. The girl is on the left, and her new berries are still green so it's hard to see them. I think the girl looks so much heavier than the boy, like she's stressed out, weighed down or something. I looked in older pictures of the house, and it appears she's been like that for a while. Hmm..

Fun Fact #5: It's fun calling the trees 'he' and 'she' now. It's like trees are our friends.

Maybe they are... Happy Arbor Day.

Earth Day Apples

Just in case you missed Earth Day.

We didn't.  Because, well… really, I have been slowly accepting the loss of our apple tree. It looks really scary and it has these hole in it.

See aren't they scary? Okay maybe you need to look closer...

Yep, creepy... We found out that they are more than likely from wood peckers or bees, but they still freak me out. Like I try to look at them because I'm so intrigued and then I run away yelling to Kyle that I think I'm going to have nightmares…

But I was still holding onto all hope that the tree would survive.  It made apples last summer, but they were all gone by the time we moved in. It probably has not been pruned in ten years, and probably wasn't watered for at least 2 summers.  But I appreciate that it tried to make apples last summer, and I wanted to give it another chance.

Then our 92-year-old neighbor told us the tree was dead. And somehow I believed him, even though Kyle had been telling me all along. I'm still trying to deny it, but if you look at the tree compared to the rest of the green yard, it's pretty obvious.

So then it was Earth Day, but mostly it was the day before my birthday and my husband bought me…

An APPLE TREE!

So we planted it and I'm sure all our neighbors though we were so "green." Really we just love apples, and plants that grow food.

Isn't it so lovely next to our holly trees?

So Happy Late Earth Day… or Happy Early Arbor Day (it's coming up on Friday so there's still time).

Happy Planting.

Twenty-five

Who knew I'd be twenty five already.

I didn't. Or at least last weekend I didn't when my uncle asked me how old I would be turning and I told him 26. My brother, who is exactly 1 year, two weeks, and 1 day older than me said, "no you're not."

I did the math and realized I'll only be twenty-five.

Having to do the math probably means that I'm getting older, that the years are passing by more quickly, and that I may need to use more of my "fine lines and wrinkles" St. Ive's face wash... although I still need the "acne AKA teenager" St. Ive's face wash too. I'm not sure how that works.

But let's be honest, I know many of you, like my co-workers told me, are laughing thinking about when you turned twenty-five.  Because when you look back now, twenty-five seems like a very long time ago.

The clinic where I work has about forty employees. I am the youngest, and I have been told that I am actually younger than most people's children. I have been corrected when I did not understand 'the way things are in the real world,' and I have been puzzled many times when we talk about 'where Jimmy Hoffa is buried'.

This weekend I embraced by youth by running a 5K through mud and fire and water and over nets and under barbed wire.  But let's be honest, I felt a little older when I had to stop and catch by breath, or when the 65-year-old man passed me.

I embraced by age when I woke up Monday morning and realized I was sore. Everywhere.

I'm twenty-five and one grammatical edit away from my Masters. I presented my research this weekend at a conference and I'll be attending research day today at the VA. This morning, I'll get my teeth cleaned, and next weekend I'm planning to buy pantry organizers at Ikea. It all sounds very grown up, doesn't it.

But I still love to run around outside and discover the world, and pull over on the side of the road to take pictures of the wild flowers. I love music and I love to sing out loud in my car, in my shower, and in the Wal-Mart.  I don't mind riding the shopping carts like they are skateboards or cheering louder than ever for my husband at his softball games.

I like twenty-five. I think it says I'm old enough to know what I love, but still young enough o add new things to the list. Quoting the wonderful author Shauna Neiquist from the 'Twenty-Five' chapter of  Bittersweet, "You are young enough to believe that anything is possible, and you are old enough to make that belief a reality."

I think I'm a pretty good twenty-five. I'm becoming, something, someone. Not yet thirty, not quite 20...but just twenty-five.

Happy Birthday.

How to Start a Garden From Seeds

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Last year this day I was taking my RD Exam... walking into the biggest test of my life when the lady behind the desk said, "where's your lunky green?" It was a big day for me, I hadn't realized it was St. Patrick's Day... I think the lady wanted to give me a heart attack about this bad luck...

Anyways, other green things...

So we've purchased some plants for our little vegetable garden, but we weren't able to find corn, spinach, or colored bell peppers to plant.

So we figured we'd give it a go starting from seeds. I've read what I could and asked every one of my old man patients about gardening.  We bought a handy little seeding green house for $4 (even though I know we could just plant in egg cartons) and got all our little seeds planted.

Kyle and I worked hard getting all the seeds covered and here's what we've got so far:

Bloomsdale, Long Standing Spinach: Says it will germinate (sprout)  in 8-10 days and be ready to harvest in 45 days. Love spinach, it's soooo good for you... so we'll see what we get.

Sweet Pepper Carnival Hybrid Mix: Includes California Wonder, Golden California Wonder, Orange Sun & Purple Beauty. I never saw a purple bell pepper before, but maybe we will soon. Germination in 10-21 days, harvest in 70 days.

Early Sunglow Hybrid Sweet Corn: Kyle loves corn. We're really excited to see if corn will grow down here. The little map on the back of the seed pack says it will... Germination in 7-10 days, 63 days to harvest!

We'll have our plant-plants in the garden soon, can't wait to see how this all turns out. We'll be planting those soon with our irrigation system, I'll keep you in the loop :)

What are you planting this year?

Making our own Cedar Raised Beds

So I've always wanted a garden. Not really one with beautiful flowers, although that'd be nice, but one that grows food!  I love the idea that I could grow my own food right in my own back yard.

After last year's attempt to grow berries in the flower beds at the rent out... This year after buying the house, we decided to go ahead and try our thumbs at real gardening this year. I found these plans (her link is down right now for some reason) by Ana White to make cedar beds out of cedar fence planks to cut the cost. We took her advice and mixed it with this guy's advice (because of his use of posts for corners and great idea to keep the moles out of the garden)...

First we cut the ends off the 6 foot fence planks to make them square. (Don't you like our straight edge?)

My cute handyman!

Per box we used 6 fence planks. Our boxes are about 6 foot by 3 foot by 1 foot. We simply cut the fence planks in half for the ends, and used the full length for the sides. The planks are 6 inches wide so we stacked 2 high to make 1 foot high beds. Check it out. We made the support posts a little longer so we could dig holes and bury the posts.

Then Kyle added the chicken wire to keep the moles out. Lindale is known for all the moles :) Note: the wire was added to the bottom while the frame was upside down. AKA wire goes on the bottom.

We layed a sheet at the bottom over the wire to keep out the weeds. Mostly because we didn't want to go back to the store for the black landscape stuff.

Then the organic compost filler!

TA DAAA!

We're real excited to get the plants in! Then get the irrigation system setup!

But I'm also trying to keep up with the money we spend for our garden this year to see if we save any money by gardening.  We also love the adventure, the fun, and the fact that we get to grow our own food so if we spend a little more, we're okay with that.

Money Spent:
12 Cedar Fence Planks ($2.50 each)
1 Cedar Post
Galvanized Screws
Chicken Wire
30 Square Feet Organic Compost
6 Square Feet of Mulch
(We already had the tools and 2 2x4s for the extra supports).
TOTAL $112.

So we'll see if we come out on top. We're planning an irrigation system and getting the plants in soon. Stay tuned :)

What are your spring projects this year?