GaRdEN

I wouldn't go as far to say I'm a domestic diva however I have accomplished some rather domastic things this summer (with a lot of help from others:)... Alot of my friends are brillant mothers and can sew and make things that are just BEYOND me:) haha.  I have realized the domestic skills I'm honing in on are: food... Hmmm! Not so flattering but I do love to eat. haha.  No really it's because the last few years I've really gotten into healthy eating, so that inspired me to learn how to cook.  Anyhow one of my dreams in moving home to Utah was to have my own garden.  I had a HUGE orchard growing up and I never knew just how  blessed I was until I got older.  I drove my mother's CRAZY around gardening season this year on the whens, hows, whats, etc.. finally my sweet mother-in-law came over one day and we planted my garden together... I was terrified I would do it wrong, water it too much or too little, I've never been able to keep a house plant alive let alone a garden.  Alas we tried and can I just say it's turned out awsome! It wasn't the biggest or most glorious but for me it was what we needed and could handle! Most of it came through, except my poor cucumbers:( 

We planted: Yellow squash, Zucchini, green beans, carrots, bell peppers, cantaloupe, tomatoes, spinach & a little herb garden:)  

It's been some work to keep up but so fun! We've eaten fresh veggies all summer.  Sometimes we couldn't eat as fast as it was coming so I tried to find some yummy stuff to make that I could freeze which included: Roasted tomato and black bean soup, fresh tomatoe sauce, Raspberry jam, Minestrone soup recipe (i don't like the canned stuff but this homemade recipe of my moms is to die for, it was supposed to be for the winter but I've almost gone through it already), dried Apricots & Pears, along with fruit leather & homemade granola (w/my mama's help)... Clearly not all of this product came from my garden but we've been SO blessed to be given the boxes of fruits and other stuff that made this possible. It's been a fun summer of learning. I may have over dried some of the pears, but hey we all have to learn right;) Seth just calls them Pear Chips:)   A successful garden was a huge prayer of mine and I'm so grateful for the learning experience. Thank you to all of my "moms" that helped me this summer:) LOVE YOU

I didn't get pictures of everything but here's some I did manage to snap along the way...

This lovely artichoke is a picture I took from Grandma Cookie's garden... I didn't know the plants were so pretty:)

{ Just starting out}

{A little futher along}