Oh hail!

Around 4 this morning we had some major hail. And I just kept picturing our little plants being ripped to shreds. Honestly, our garden has endured just about all of the possible weather events for this section of the country. Early frost, strong winds (although, thankfully, no tornadoes), heavy rain and large hail.

I can't believe I'm going to say this but I'm actually looking forward to the summer when every day is just hot and humid and mosquito-filled.

May showers bring slugs

Our garden is growing very quickly now. Our onions are thick and dark green, the potatoes have shot up


we've got our first tomato



and our first little zucchini



BUT, we also have our first pest of the season. Slugs.

It has been so wet this season and the slugs seem to really like the nice, moist mulch we have provided. We first noticed them when we harvested lettuce for the first time and had to pick several slugs off the inner leaves.

Then, yesterday, we went to the garden to discover they had severely munched on our zucchini and cucumber leaves.


We're not real worried because the zucchini, cucumbers and lettuce all have a lot of new growth so they are far from dead.

But we need to get rid of these slugs.

Our plan of action: get the slugs drunk. That's right, apparently, slugs LOVE beer. They love it so much that if you leave a bowl of beer out they will crawl right in and drown. We are also going to spray the leaves of the plant with a soapy water mixture to make them distasteful.

We'll see how it works!

Shout Out

This post is for you, babies Mason!

Last night I saw this pretty little red strawberry with a not-quite-ready berry growing right next to it.

Adam and I are currently blessed with two nieces, one nephew and one mystery niece/nephew on the way.

But this picture reminds me of my little red-headed niece Dorothy and her still-growing baby brother or sister. So this little post is dedicated to them.

Uncle Adam and Aunt Erin wish y'all lived closer to us so we could make you some fresh strawberry shortcake! In the meantime, we'll make do with blog shout-outs.

(And I will continue to look forward to the day when all my nieces and nephews hit the 2 year mark so that I can start referring to them in years instead of months. The month-age thing just confuses me.)

Honey Do

Last week, Adam went out to the farm to make some improvements while I stayed at home and worked on my research papers.

And since a large part of my waking hours since then has been consumed with finishing those research papers, I am just now getting around to writing about his accomplishments that day.

First, he made some bean poles out of bamboo. We are late planting our beans so we don't have any actual bean plants yet - but we've got some beautiful bean poles!


Second, he mulched our seating area. The county is putting in a sewer line near the farm and, therefore had to cut down some trees. They turned those trees into mulch - free for the taking!


Third, he planted our second round okra and covered them with cloches to prevent them from being nibbled on as they were the first time.

All in all, he got quite a lot done! I suspect he also drank a cold beer (or two) under our nice little umbrella but we don't have a picture of that.

Next on the to-do list:
1. Plant beans
2. Plant corn
3. Plant flowers

Still Here...

I promise we are still alive and kicking. Our garden is still doing well. We have been very busy.

Several new additions have been made to the garden. So many, in fact, that I just simply do not have the time to blog about them. Rest assured, I will very soon upload all of my pictures and post a probably too-lengthy blog about it all.

Also, very soon we will be bringing home our first big harvest. I see lettuce, cabbage, herbs and strawberries(!) in our very near future.

But, for the immediate future, I must go write a paper...

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Tomato blossom


Pepper blossom



Strawberry blossom (and a little berry!)