Garden Update Part Two: 2014

Ladies and gentlemen, we have vegetables! Lots and lots and lots of vegetables!

The past few weeks, our garden has been giving us so many delicious fresh veggies, and we couldn't be more excited about it! At the beginning of August, we decided the tomato plants were getting too tall and the cages weren't able to support their height. A good problem to have, but still we needed a fix. We got creative with supplies we had on hand and ended up using zip ties to tie the to tall posts in the center of the plants.

Remember when I said I was excited for a salsa garden? Well, a salsa garden I got! I whipped up three batches of salsa last week, and I am planing to make even more this weekend. 

Not too much difference in August, at least not much that you can see from a distant picture. But if you look closer, there is a whole lot of growing going on in there.

It seemed to take forever for our tomatoes to redden, but now that they have, we have tomatoes growing out of our ears!

Our cucumbers are also doing great! One day I was saying how sad I was that none were growing, and then all of a sudden 8 were ready to pick. We have not been able to keep up with the cucumbers at all. For a while, every time we ate one, we picked two more!

Our peppers are also doing really well, but I decided I may need to double the green pepper plants for next year. We have had a decent amount of them, I just feel like if we have more, we would definitely eat them right up. 

We also planted red onions, and they grew, but they are very tiny. I just purchased them at a nursery and transferred them to the ground, but I am thinking they just didn't have enough room to grow. I haven't decided if I will plant onions again, but if I do I will be sure to spread them out. 

As our first garden, we are very pleasantly surprised with how well everything grew! 

We will most definitely be planting another vegetable garden next year!

How are your gardens doing?

Does anyone else have vegetables coming out their ears? 

How To Hang a Hammock and My New Happy Place

Welcome to my new happy place, my backyard hammock! 

When we moved in to our house, I always thought those three trees in a row would be the perfect place to hang a hammock. This summer, we finally made it happen. We found this rope hammock at Lowe's. It was an $80 hammock, but we managed to get it for $40. Score! 

Our hammock came with the supplies to hang it, but we did need to purchase some extra chain since our trees were so far apart. The hanging process was much easier than I had anticipated. We drilled a hole into the tree and twisted the eye bolts into the tree with the hooks attached. The hardest part has been figuring out how much chain to put on each side. We need that perfect balance so it is not too high, but also not so low our bums skim the grass when we lay on it, but I think we've finally found it.

I love curling up on this hammock with a good book (or good drink) in hand. It has even been a good place for cuddling with my man. It's just so peaceful out there.

Garden Update: 2014

After our vacation, it seems as though everything in our garden is really starting to grow. We have vegetables popping up everywhere, and I'm definitely not complaining! I thought I'd share a little garden update with you today.

As you can see, things sure have changed since my last garden post. Everything is doing great! We have tomato plants over 4 feet tall, a green pepper that's already 3 inches long, and baby cucumbers that are just starting to grow. I am also loving have a constant source of FRESH cilantro and parsley to add into my recipes. It's hard to tell what the onion is doing since it's buried in the ground, but so far everything looks good! The only thing that really didn't do well this year was our lettuce. When we got back from vacation it appeared to be all rotted (disgusting!), so we pulled it. 

How are your gardens coming along?

Happy Men Tell All Monday Friends!

It's Mexican night at our house, so I'll be enjoying a margarita or two while I wait to see Chris and Marcus one more time.

Wine Cork Garden Markers {and our first garden}

This year, we planted our first garden! I call it my salsa garden because I have every intention to ma ke all kinds of yummy fresh garden salsa with these vegetables. We planted tomatoes, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, red onions and cilantro. We still had some extra space, so we also planted cucumbers, lettuce, and parsley. Neither of us have really ever had a garden, so we can't really be sure we will have vegetables by the end of summer. We have just been watering the plants every night and things seem to be growing quite well. 

I decided I wanted to put in some garden markers, so I pulled out my wine corks, skewers, and a permanent marker. 

I simply wrote each vegetable on a wine cork with my marker, and then stabbed a skewer into the bottom of the cork. Within minutes, I had fun garden markers ready to stick into the dirt. 

And now we wait! Hopefully we will have vegetables coming out of ears in no time. 

What do you usually grow in your garden? 

I'm kind of regretting not throwing a few strawberry plants in there. There's always next year, right?

Have a great weekend!

Vibrant Adirondack Chairs

Today I am sharing with you a project that I have been dying to complete for over a year!
Over the past few weekends, Adam built me these wonderful Adirondack chairs for the backyard, and I just finished painting them this week (just in time for the BBQ we are hosting on Sunday). Hooray! 

We used Ana White's book, The Handbuilt Home, as a reference to build these beauties. It was pretty inexpensive to buy all of the supplies, and overall took Adam two afternoons to build both chairs and the table. Once they were built, Adam sanded them down so they were ready for me to paint.

Speaking of painting, I had one heck of a time deciding which colors to go with. We spent Memorial Day weekend up north on Long Lake, and talk about immense amounts of brightly colored Adirondack chairs. One cottage had a row of chairs painted every color of the rainbow. It was to die for! Each cottage we passed had at least a few brightly colored chairs sitting in the lawn overlooking the water. I debated for-ev-er and each color combination seemed just as perfect as the next. Blues, yellows, pinks, oranges, greens. How was I ever going to decide?! I ended up narrowing it down to a few options and let Adam have the final say. He's a good decision maker when I am too indecisive. What can I say, I picked a winner. We finally decided to go with blue, green, and pink. I primed each piece, gave each piece two coats of paint, and used a spray sealer for some extra protection since they will be outside all summer long. 

I am thrilled with how they turned out, and even more excited to be sharing them with you!

What colors would you paint your Adirondack chairs?

Landscaping The Backyard

When we first moved into our home, we were so excited about the size of our backyard! It needed a little bit of work, but we saw (and still see) endless possibilities. The yard was wide open on three sides, the pine trees went all the way to the ground, and aside from the grass, there was not much life back there.

The fall after we moved in, we enlisted some family to partake in "Tree Fest." Although it sounded enjoyable, it was a lot of work. We cut down a beautiful large pine tree on the side of our house. I was sad to see it go, but it was planted wayyy too close to the house and was resting on the roof. During this time, we elevated the pine trees in the backyard to give them a cleaner and healthier look.

After "Tree Fest" came "Fence Fest" and let's just say our parents now know to stay far away from any "fest" we come up with. When we decided to get our Lucy Lou, we knew a fenced in yard would come shortly after. After spending the entire winter keeping her tied up whenever she was outside, we knew that as soon as the ground thawed, we would be putting up a fence so she would have room to run. Last April, we finally got our fence (see picture above). We also made other small improvements last year, such as pulling up all the brick for the patio and attempting to flatten it ("Patio Palooza"). Adam also built us some beautiful steps to get to the patio. When we moved in, there were concrete steps on the opposite side from where the sliding door opened. The previous owners made some funky steps just to be able to get into the backyard, but lets just say it looked awful. 

THIS YEAR: We decided to edge and mulch around the two big pine trees. We were hesitant, simply because we were afraid Lucy would spend too much time in there, either digging, pooping, or chasing squirrels. We didn't want to spend the money if it was just going to make a mess. 

Well, we decided there was only one way to find out. After two afternoons and 5 trips to Menards later, we finally finished. And my goodness WHAT A DIFFERENCE!

We were able to splint some of the plants from our front yard, and got a few more from my parent's and our wonderful neighbors. The bench Adam built for our balcony when we lived in an apartment finally found it's home too! (I have since added some flowers to those pots as well)

We planted a whole lot of hostas and day lillies. We also have a few fern and I planted some tulip bulbs from some blooms I had inside this year. I love all the green out there now, especially against the mulch instead of dirt. I just can't wait to see some yellow, too!

And guess what?! Aside from the occasion ball landing in the mulch, Lucy learned to stay out of it very quickly. Success!

Has anyone else tackled some big landscaping projects while the weather has been nice? 

Fence Fest!

Ladies and Gentleman, WE HAVE A FENCE!

This weekend was Fence Fest, in other words we put up a fence. You see, we put "fest" at the end of anything requiring our parents help to get them excited to help with work at our house. Fence fest, paint fest, tree fest. Well, they are starting to get the hint. We are thinking of changing from "fest" to "palooza" to fool them again. Patio Palooza anyone?

Anyways, back to Fence Fest. We started off on Saturday and planned to finish Saturday, but that didn't end up happening. Whoever said we could finish in a day lied. This was definitely a two day job, but well worth it when we finished! 

We have been wanting to put up a fence since we moved in, but after getting Lucy we set the ball in motion a little sooner than we otherwise would have.

(Warning: There are a lot of pictures in this post)

We enlisted our families to help get the job done. It was a beautiful two days to work in the yard and we tried to have as much fun as possible. Adam even strengthened his knee as he wobbled around. And although no one will admit it, I think everyone may have even enjoyed themselves a little bit. 

Once Lucy was allowed off the leash, she didn't know what to do with herself. Every time I threw a ball across the yard, she would hesitate when she got to the edge of her usual leashed area. When she finally realized she could venture out around the whole yard, we could not get her to come inside! Even in the rain, she fell asleep under the overhang until we forced her to come in.

Adam couldn't wait to be able to take this picture: 

"Well, you know Tim..."

Once the fence was up, we barbecued followed by a nap lounging on the couch and watching Last Man Standing.

Did anyone else take advantage of this gorgeous weekend to get some work done outdoors?