Gardens, Bread, and My Big Helper

It looks like our sweet neighbors Dennis, Betsy, Gabbi and Nathan will be moving away soon.  Because of that, our other neighbor Elise and I will be taking over Betsy's garden.  Which is really a very foolish idea because I think a garden is far too much work, but I think God is teaching me a lot through it.  And if nothing else, I will learn to appreciate farmers more.  Which I hear about a lot.  There are dozens and dozens of parables, proverbs and stories relating to farming in the Bible.  Now I understand those parables and things a lot more than I ever did before.  Like the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few (I sure wish I had some more workers in my garden!  Just a little bit of help makes a huge difference!).

Gardening is also such a good opportunity in our neighborhood to meet our neighbors and share a common hobby.  Many people are here from Bhutan or Nepal and they love to help the silly white ladies.  They do things really different than we do and there's often some serious miscommunication.  This one guy who speaks very little English watered our garden for us today--while I was weeding it--which made for a rather muddy experience.  But he weeded all the broccoli for me so I guess it's forgivable.  

Josiah and I were out in the garden for an hour today.  He is very good out there, just sitting in the wagon eating crackers and playing with toys.  It's 90 degrees here today and that's much cooler than it has been, but even so, our time is limited out there because it's right in the sun and it's very humid.  I wore pants out there today because I was hoping to not be covered with mud today.  Again, a very foolish thing.  I was so stinky and sweaty, and Josiah was so covered in crackers, that we both got a shower at the same time.  John and Maryn were busy doing our grocery shopping today, so it was just Joe Man and me.  He loved the shower.  It was a lot like the splash park.  :)

In other news, I revamped our bread recipe.  I hadn't made bread in a very long time because for some reason it just started turning out really badly.  I read the back of our Vital Wheat Gluten box the other day and followed the directions to just add "4 teaspoons to every basic bread recipe."  This was a better solution to my other recipe which said to substitute 4 tablespoons of gluten for 4 tablespoons of flour.  That's kind of complicated and that's a lot of gluten, which isn't cheap.  

Anyway, I would like to record the bread recipe here because I'll probably lose it soon.

Homemade Wheat Bread

1 c. hot water

1 T. milk

2 T. honey

2 T. brown sugar

1 t. salt

1 1/2 cups wheat flour

1 1/2 cups white flour

4 teaspoons gluten

2 t. yeast

I just put all these ingredients in the breadmaker.  Maryn loves to help make bread and I find it's great to cook with her during Josiah's morning nap.  The house actually stays cleaner AND we get something yummy out of it.  Josiah loves this bread!  It's a great finger food and probably a little better than giving him Saltines...lol.

Anyway, after the bread maker makes the dough, I pull it out and put it in a greased pan, let it rise for about 10 minutes and pop it in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes, then I cover it with foil for an additional 10 minutes, roughly.  Because if I don't cover it, the crust just gets too dark.  

I'm so excited that Maryn really knows what  ingredients go into different recipes and she even remembers some of the steps.  I was about to put in the yeast today and she reminded me, "I have to make a hole!"  And I had completely forgotten to let her make a hole in the flour to pour the yeast into.  She also whisked our scrambled eggs together all by herself today, ground all the pepper, and she has been folding all her and Josiah's laundry.  I really do put the clothes into their drawers how she folds them, too.  So in case you ever visit us, just know that's why their drawers are a little, um, exciting.  

What a fun, sweet, smart girl Maryn is!  She is a great blessing to me.  And Josiah is such a fun, sweet, smart little guy as well.  He is a great blessing to me, too.  I am so grateful for them.  Mmmmmh...I smell bread baking.  Time to get back in the kitchen!

in 6 weeks or less

In 6 weeks or less, we will have a new baby in our house. This time next month, we quite possibly could have a newborn baby in our arms. Or at least be very close to that day.

We do not have a place for him to sleep yet. His clothes are piled here and there around a room that is half-office, half-nursery, and the walls are bare. Boring and bare. This makes me a little sad for my baby boy but I know he'll probably be just like his daddy. And if he could talk, he'd say, "Huh? What do we need decorations for?"

I have no motivation to sort through all these clothes of Maryn's to make room for his. I promise you I sort through Maryn's clothes and pack away clothes she's outgrown at least every two weeks. I put them in a box and sometimes store them in a closet and eventually we put them in the storage unit. And yet there still isn't room for Josiah's clothes in the little changing table totes. And we still have so, so much to do! It seems hopeless, like there's just no end in sight. I can barely keep up with the dishes lately. My back is killing me today. Our garden is a mess. And then there's the unpacking. And the laundry. And three meals a day. I shall no longer judge mothers who feed their kids those microwavable Kid Cuisines. Maybe they're on to something.

You should see our garden! We were gone almost two weeks, so I knew it would be a big mess. I didn't expect the weeds to be taller than my two year old daughter. They were so hard to pull out, that when one bunch finally did come loose for me, I fell over backwards into our pretty little cucumber fence.

I have no balance.

I do not like carrying around this extra 30 pounds.

Anyway, we harvested a little bowl of green beans, a yellow squash and one little cucumber. We have ten or fifteen very nice looking tomatoes growing and a few red peppers. There's also a head of lettuce that's ready to be harvested. They look so pretty!

Remember how someone else planted other veggies in our garden? Well, two of those plants attacked while we were gone. Their vines were everywhere, and I think they may have killed our main cucumber plants and they were well on their way to strangling our tomatoes. I apologized profusely to the tomatoes. I knew those were vining plants and I should have taken them out before we left.

The weeds are so bad in the garden I may just let them take over the peas and green beans. The peas are mostly dead now because of the weeds, and because they were too thickly planted (we didn't plant them, and we tried to thin them out but it wasn't enough) and I never really wanted beans or peas in the first place. I would have loved to try the peas but it looks like someone stole them.

Yes, we have some garden thieves. Big surprise. Neighbor Betsy warned me to not get too attached to our garden, but how can I not be? It's like a family pet or something.

Well, this is a very sad post. I need to take a nap.

Growing, Growing.

What now?

These are our self-made cages for our tomatoes. John pounded in the stakes with a hammer and Maryn helped with her own Little Tikes red plastic hammer. It was really precious.

Look! Maryn is wearing Crocs! Thanks to sweet Hannah/Nicole kindly passing the most hideous fad of the 2000s down to her. They have been nothing but a blessing, Michele! She loves them and they are easy to spray clean as we leave the garden. Thank you! Maryn is also wearing a very hip garden outfit courtesy of Kohl's and Gap Kids.

Does anyone know what this plant is? It's definitely a climbing plant, so if it's not something easy and little, I'm going to have to take it out. It WANTS our tomatoes. See the vine reaching out for the tomato cages?
This is our very nifty cucumber fence. I have no idea if this will work. But it looks kind of cool.
Below, a row of yellow bell peppers. We also have two red pepper plants. A row of beans...they look ridiculous, I know. I guess I should thin them out, but we have nowhere to put them, really. Plus I don't even know if I'll like whatever bean it is that they'll produce. Then you also see there our peas, which Mr. Lee thinned out for me and took quite a few for his own garden.
I shouldn't even post this because Maryn seems to be showing a bit of cleavage in it, but she just looked so two-year-oldish today in this outfit (also thanks to Hannah and Nicole) and her pigtails. She wore her pigtails for a few HOURS today. I just had to post a picture of her. She was very uncooperative with the camera.

Doesn't she look so big?

We had a super fun day! Gardening, playing in the hose, picnicking, walking, playing on the playground! It was a two year old's dream day. I am also 30 weeks pregnant today and feeling much better. I think one of the keys to feeling good while pregnant is staying active. I was definitely active today and got so much work and PLAY done.

I am no longer watching LittleTike and I can't tell you what a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I feel so liberated. Our neighbors downstairs are moving, which is ultimately very sad, but is also relieving because they've been quite noisy in the past few months. Life is good! Very good!

I'm just as confused as you are, baby.

It's been over a month since we planted our garden. I went back and read my blog posts from those first days and was reminded how exhausted I was. A few days after all that work, I went out to our garden and noticed it looked a bit different-like someone had weeded it. REALLY weeded it. I returned home in tears, telling John I thought someone may have tilled it all up. But he was very calm, as were our neighbors, and they said maybe someone was just nice and weeded it for us.

Enter my mom's words here: YEAH RIGHT, AMANDA! YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER!

But I grew more and more skeptical as strange plants sprouted and as I noticed little plants being planted all over the garden. Even after I planted ALL our plants. Yesterday a lady came to my door to apologize.

Yes, she had replanted our entire garden. Our herbs are gone and have been replaced by peas, beans, some kind of squash, and some other plant I have yet to identify. Our tomatoes and peppers are still intact, thank goodness, as well as our cucumbers and one very sad lettuce.

We bought a pea fence and are now trying to figure out what to do about our cucumbers and zucchini. "Vertical gardening" is popular here with plots so small, so we've been looking into that and building our own tomato fences with wooden stakes and twine. But I hear cucumbers and zucchini need the same type of help. So what to do? Is it worth the investment? I have been Googling all day and have come up with very little information.

I have always said I would never buy these books, but I am seriously considering purchasing "Gardening for Dummies." I really, really want someone to spell it out for me with PICTURES. But everyone just calmly smiles at me like I'm a freaking psychopath.

I don't know what I'm going to do with a bunch of cucumbers or a bunch of zucchini. I think it would make more sense if our neighborhood started some type of co-op and one person grew tomatoes, one grew lettuce, etc., and we all just traded. But maybe I'll start canning and do some pickles. I really love pickles. But canning? That is a whole other thing I do not want to start doing. I am turning into an Amish person.

I'm kind of grateful that lady planted us some peas and beans, because those look the best! I'm a total failure.

Garden Fairy

Here's our winsome little sprite.

John and Maryn are loading up the wagon here after a hard day's work.
This is our community garden. Each plot is 10 x 15 or 10 x 10.
They are right next to each other, divided by string and wooden posts,
with very small walking spaces in between. The neighborhood
provides a hose that reaches each plot.

Here is a close up of our tomatoes and peppers.
We propped them up the hillbilly way with sticks for now.

We have planted herbs here in our garden, including cilantro, basil, oregano and parsley. I have heard that you should do herbs in raised gardens or in pots, but we had the space so we gave it a go. But we are also planting some herbs on our kitchen window sill.

We also planted cucumbers, green onions, a couple types of lettuce, green peppers, red peppers , some wild flowers, and lots of tomatoes. I hope that if we get lots of tomatoes I can make some sauces to freeze. That won't take up too much freezer space, so we went ahead and planted a lot of those.

I'm not really counting on anything, but I was so proud of our garden today! I am going to try to get over there to check on it first thing in the morning. I think I may be falling in love with her. I'm trying to keep my distance because I know I'm in for a let down. :-/ Ah, attachment issues.

Please, if you have any gardening advice, let me know. Especially about how to stake those tomatoes (stake? Is that the correct word?).


In other news, I have been LOVING chopped salads lately. John spoiled me and let me get butterhead (or Boston) lettuce, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, peppers, and black olives to make some magnificent salads. Unfortunately, I am the only one in the house really enjoying them. But I've added homemade macaroni and cheese to our menu weekly, and we are loving that. Maryn and I are loving it, anyway. And it makes fantastic leftovers the kiddos love.

Gardening: Day Two

I have about a quarter of our seeds planted, including all our herbs (cilantro, basil, oregano and parsley) and some flowers. I really wanted to make some more rows to plant more, but I just didn't have the energy to build up another row today. It's really tough to keep Maryn busy out there, too. Our garden is surrounded by lots of others, so I can't let her run around. She does well for about an hour, digging and eating the snacks I bring. The problem is she wants to dig where I'm digging (sowing) and she wants to throw her cheese in the neighboring garden. :)

I really want to get out there again soon but I will need John to help me this time. Do you think he'll be up for it this weekend? We shall see.

Today I'm also making chocolate chip cookies, sloppy joes and macaroni and cheese. And we're also going swimming. Maryn looks SO cute in her swimsuit from her Auntie Alicia. I'll try to get a picture on John's phone.

Let the garden begin!

Man oh man. I am dead on my feet. What a day. WHAT a day!

I took on an extra child today. He's a great, GREAT kid, so I figured no biggie. Sometimes he actually makes my life a little easier. But he and Maryn butted heads (sharing) about every two minutes, which would leave them both in tears. Sigh. I can't WAIT to deal with sibling rivalry.

My back hurts extra badly on days that I babysit LittleTike. It's not necessarily from lifting him, but there's just more work. More bending, more cleaning, more of everything. He's two and a half and has some special needs, so you can imagine--he's a little heavier than Maryn and needs a lot of assistance.

So then I thought it would be a swell idea to start the garden. I mean it really did need to be started before more rain comes. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, so our eight year old neighbor girl abandoned her sweet mother and came to my rescue. Even she was surprised how clueless I was.

But you know, after I got that garden started I felt a little addicted. I had some major pain in my wrist (carpal tunnel during pregnancy), and I could tell my back was going to be sore, but I was actually enjoying myself. And the garden actually kind of looks like a beautiful garden similar to Rabbit's in Winnie the Pooh.

Well, that's the only serious garden I've ever seen.

I don't know if my garden will produce anything worth eating. But the soil looks so great and smells so good, and I really kind of love being out there working in the sun. And that is something I can be proud of.

The Joys of a Vegetable Garden!

It's that time of year. Time to plant my garden. Oh wait, I've never planted a garden.

Hmmm....

So I guess tomorrow I'm going to drag some gardening tools out there in our broken wagon, all two of my gardening tools, and a bunch of seeds and maybe borrow some more tools and start making rows and rows of dirt. Then I'll just plant a bunch of my random seeds we bought.

But I think I want to go to the greenhouse soon and buy some tomato and pepper starter plants since the backs of those seed packets said to start those indoors eight weeks ago.

I tried to watch some instructional videos on YouTube about gardening but they were all a little too high tech for me. I can't compost here. I'm not buying a tiller. I am not buying some weird black plastic stuff or an irrigation system.

MAN! I am so confused.