Garden Update!!!!

I have not updated on my garden in awhile. We just have so much to share that the garden goes on the back burner. But it's all about her today. She is producing and flowering all over the place. It's the part of gardening I love the most. The fruits of all of that labor come pouring into my kitchen. See...(I apologize in advance to all of my family and friends for the massive amount of squash you will be receiving this year.)



This is a beautiful and perfect tomato blossom.


The garden scene!


Patty-pan squash. Amazing and cute.


Green bean blossoms.


Loaded jalapeno plant!


Clusters of tomato blossoms.


My niece Emma is shorter than my tomato plants!


Cantaloupe blossom. Oh I pray these make fruit. It is such a taste of summer to me.


Basil, I love you. I really do. I hope we can be friends for a long long time. You, me, Parmesan cheese, pine nuts, olive oil and garlic will be there. We'll invite crusty bread too. He's a good guy. I'm going to stop having deep conversations with my food now, thank you.


Finally, our growing chicks are more like small chickens now.

Winter Herbs

Tonight for dinner, taco salad. Boring but delicious. Simple seasoned ground beef and beans, greens, tomatoes, avacado, cheese, salsa and tortilla chips. It's a good way to get lots of veggies into the kiddos.

So I think I have mentioned this before but I will mention it again. The middle of winter is a perfect time to remind yourself of the coming spring by using dried herbs from the garden. The smell of herbs is like summer in a little green package. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear my kids screaming at each other from the backyard and see them squirting each other with the hose.
I had pretty much used up my first batch of herbs but still had several bunches hanging in our sunroom. Today I decided to process the bunches to use in cooking. I documented this in pictures for all of you! This is not all that interesting to most but I am unusally in love with all things that come out of the garden so to me, this is beautiful.

These are the little tiny jewels if goodness called thyme.


This is oregano!


I love little jars of yummy home grown things.

And my life is complete,(well maybe just my spice cabinet but trust me this is big!)


This is what happens when you are a not-so-neat do-er of things.

And this is what happens when...


I try to take close-ups...


of a very handsy 7 month-old.