Gardening

Our Garden 2018

One of my most favorite times of the year is here: gardening time! As per usual, Jimmy and I planted our garden on Memorial Day. This seems to be a safe planting time frost-wise for the Pittsburgh area.

A few days before planting, the garden was weeded, tilled, and compost was added. We then picked out our seedlings, put down landscaping fabric, and planted!

Guy and cocker spaniel puppy outsideGarden with wood and steel fence and landscaping fabric

Here’s what we planted this year:

  • Two “sweet 100” cherry tomato plants
  • One “early girl” tomato plant
  • Five green bean plants
  • Four “yum yum” sweet multicolored bell pepper plants
  • Three “keystone resistant giant” green pepper plants
  • Three green swiss chard plants
  • Three “candy” onion plants
  • Two “aristocrat” zucchini plants
  • One cucumber plant

Remember how I said we were going back and forth on whether or not we would plant a garden this year, and how we ultimately decided to plant one, but smaller? LOL. We went all out. I think we’re just hooked on gardening and can’t help ourselves 🙂

Vegetable garden with steel and wood fence and landscaping fabricVegetable garden with fence and landscaping fabric

We added some bamboo stakes for the green beans and peppers after I took this picture, and will put in tomato cages once the plants mature a little more.

We still haven’t finished our fence from last year, and we have paid for that because some rabbits (we think) have already nibbled on our green beans and swiss chard. Sad! One morning at like 6:00 I saw a rabbit in the garden and ran out in my pajamas like a crazy woman to shoo it out. It worked and the rabbit hopped away 😉

We put down some small animal repellant after we noticed the damage to the green beans and swiss chard in hopes that we don’t fully lose any of our plants. I’ll be sure to post some updates on the garden as the season goes on!

Cocker spaniel puppy in vegetable garden with zucchini plant

This is our second year using landscaping fabric to prevent weeds, and so far so good! If we hadn’t figured out this little trick, we definitely wouldn’t have been able to keep up with weeding and all the other projects we have around the house. Landscaping fabric is truly a game changer and I highly recommend it.

I think that’s all for our first gardening post of 2018. Yay! I can’t wait to start harvesting vegetables.

Do you like to garden?

What’s your favorite vegetable?

Adventuring and Getting Creative in the Kitchen

Pittsburgh has been getting some warmer weather and sunshine lately! So much so that we mowed our lawn twice this week and it was warm enough for Mavis and I to take a little adventure to a creek near our house.

Cocker spaniel puppy by water

This was her first experience with a body of water and she was definitely curious, but not super into it. Lola enjoys water, so I wish she had been with us to show Mavis how fun it is, but I’m not confident taking two dogs by the water with an almost 20 week baby bump, lol.

The warmer weather has me dreaming of gardening, too. Jimmy and I were back and forth on starting a garden this year since our baby is due in September and we have done like zero things to prepare for his or her arrival, but we figured we’ll just make the garden smaller this year and if it gets neglected, then oh well. We love gardening too much to give it up 🙂

I’ve been having fun in the kitchen lately! I think my favorite way to cook and bake is to see what we have on hand and then improvise and create meals or treats out of those items.

Tabbouleh ingredients cucumber, tomato, green onions, bulgur and quinoa mix, and lemonTabbouleh

I realized we had some of the classic tabbouleh ingredients on had yesterday, so I improvised off of this recipe and our little side dish turned out wonderfully!

I had also bought a container of cocoa powder and was in the mood for cookies, so I made these chocolate drop cookies and highly recommend the recipe. It’s simple and they definitely hit the spot.

King Arthur Flour Chocolate Drop Cookies on cooling rack

Other ways I’ve been creative in the kitchen lately include whipping up my favorite homemade baked beans and adding some extra spices, making a strawberries and cream oatmeal creation, and cooking cereal bars with marshmallow fluff, vanilla Chex, and Mr. Goodbars.

Alright, I better get going. I’m having my mother-in-law, mom, and sister over this evening and need to clean up our house a bit! I got the kitchen all cleaned from the aforementioned cooking and baking, but the rest has been a bit neglected 😉

Do you like to get creative with cooking and baking?