Rattlesnake Ledge

This weekend we did a family hike to Rattlesnake Ledge! It was such a great day to get out, especially in nature! It was our first real hike of the season-and first one with the babe! We went on a little warm up hike a few weeks ago to Meadowdale Beach Park, just to try out our backpack! Here are a few photos from this weekend!

This was before the hike-I look pretty ridiculous :)

He loves hiking!

This was the view from the top-beautiful!

I love nursing in nature!

:)

He conked out on the way down and it was so bumpy!

That rock is where we hiked to!

The next hike we go on, we want to start earlier, so we can have a little more solitude-this was a busy trail! There were probably 25 people at the top, and we started at 9:30am (later than we anticipated)! But all in all, a great hike and we'd do it again!

Garden II

The previous post's pictures were taken in mid March, so now to update you on what has changed!

I've planted almost everything now, only a couple of things left. In the 5'x3' planter, I planted two squares with 8 pole beans, two squares with 8 snap peas, one square of cucumber (I am going to plant another square today), two squares with 4 garlic plants, 3 squares with 9 onion plants, and 4 squares with 4 strawberry plants each. 

In the 4'x4' planter, I planted two squares with one broccoli plant each, two squares with one cauliflower plant each, two squares of 16 carrots each, one square with 16 radishes. I have 4 squares for spinach which I am planting every two weeks so I don't have a boatload of spinach all at once, I also have 4 squares of lettuce which I am doing the same thing. Here are two really cool paint pictures I made up to show you what is planted where, and also some real photos :)

5'x3'- all have been planted except the middle cucumber (to be planted today)

So far I've planted two squares of spinach and lettuce each.
I'm not sure what I want to put in the bottom 'basil' square. Any ideas? 

5'x3' planter pictures. Today I put up a few tomato cages for the beans, peas and cucumbers. You will see them in a future post.

These are the garlic plants

Onions!

Here are the strawberry plants in the front, with the onions behind them.

These are the snap peas coming up! (no beans coming up yet)

And now for the 4'x4' planter box.

This is the first square of spinach! The lettuce is barely showing, so will update later on that!

Here is one square of broccoli. The cauliflower looks the same so far.

Here is my square of radishes (I don't even like them!!)

I also have two brussel sprout plants that my mother-in-law gave me.

I have planted 2 pots with German butterball potatoes, and two with Red Pontiac potatoes, but there isn't anything to show yet.

Here are the blueberry plants.

Happy little lovers :)

Also, my basil and cilantro plants are looking great!

That's all I have for now! I WILL post again in a week or two about the garden, with photos of the growth! YAY! I love gardening and can't wait to teach E where his food comes from!

Gardening!

So I knew I would be an awesome blogger....NOT. It has been almost 2 months since my last post-out of what, five total? Ahh well. That's what's so wonderful-it's my blog and I can blog when I want to!

So this post is about my new garden! I've been working on it for a month or so now, and it's looking good! I have lots of pictures to share! I decided this year that I really wanted to do a good garden, and since we have a little backyard and a bit of space in the front, I did it! I am doing the square foot gardening method, it is so easy and very low maintenance!

I built two planter boxes, one 5'x3', and one 4'x4'. I was intending to put the 5'x3' box in the front of our place to get lots of sun, but quickly got reprimanded by the condo association. So we moved them to the back-much less sun, but we'll see what happens!

I built these myself, and put a plywood base on the bottom to keep the weeds out. With the help of the hubs, we put some ceder legs on the fronts to make them level! I used some nylon string to show each square foot. My uncle, who is a great gardener and sells plants and flowers at his local farmers market, sold me some dirt and chicken poop. He also gave me 16 strawberry plants, two blueberry bushes, three lavender plants and some garlic and onion sets! Thanks Uncle!

This is the 4'x4' box filled with dirt.

Here is the 5'x3' box with dirt.

Here they are together, however we just moved them yesterday,
so they are closer together and directly behind our unit.

In the front area I have the two blueberry plants, three green planters that I just planted zucchini, yellow summer squash, and grey squash, a ceder planter with three lavender plants, my dying rhubarb (oops), and some thyme. I also have a sage plant, which is perennial, but it doesn't look like it will come back! Maybe it will... 

Strawberry plants

Lavender

Here's the rhubarb looking pretty good..

Blueberry plants (two so they cross pollinate!)

In the house I planted two canning jars of cilantro, and two canning jars of basil.

I did all of this a month ago. I will do a second post to update you on how things are doing and where we're at now :)