Peas!

While we were gone on our trip(s), we were bad gardeners. We weren't too worried about the first weekend we were gone, since Shawn was back home after only 4 days. We figured the plants would survive (especially since we have the extra reservoirs at the bottom of our planters). However, for the longer time away, we kind of forgot to arrange for someone to come over regularly. Shawn was able to contact one of his co-workers, and he came over to feed the fish and water the plants after we'd already been gone about a week. When we came home, I thought we'd probably killed all our plants. But there have been new blooms on the columbines, there are little itty bitty tomatoes, and suddenly there are lots of pea pods! I was most certain that we'd killed the peas, so I'm very excited to see them growing (especially since I love eating peas right off the vine).

Shawn and I picked one pod yesterday, just to see if we were correct in thinking it was ready...and it was yummy! Here are pod #2 and #3 that I just picked this morning!

It's official...we have peas from our "garden"! :-)

Beautiful Saturday!

This morning, Shawn went to go play in a social rugby tournament. I decided to stay at home. I just figured that since it's a social tournament, the outcome doesn't really matter. And being a tournament, there would be plenty of games played that wouldn't involve Shawn.

So he got up around 6:30. I kept sleeping. He woke me up to say goodbye at 8:00...I went back to sleep. I ended up staying in bed until almost 10:30, and it was wonderful!! There was a bit of a cool breeze coming in through the window, and it was just about perfect. Just would've been nicer if Shawn was still there. :)

Now I'm sitting out on our porch with my laptop. I'm thinking this is where I'll spend most of the rest of my day...just bring out a book, some food, a beverage. Perfect. I don't think I could ask for nicer weather! I took a few pictures. :)

This is what I'm looking at right now. I'm actually just a little surprised there are no kids playing out in that grassy area right now. Maybe they're all at the apartment complex pool.

I also thought I'd post a couple pictures of our "garden." Remember what they looked like just a few weeks ago? I took these pictures on May 9. Look at them now!

We need to get stakes for the pea plants. And frankly, I need to thin them out...we have too many plants in that small pot. Hopefully we'll get that taken care of this week! Maybe tomorrow, actually.

New Sprouts!

Shawn and I have been diligently checking on our tiny "container garden" just about every day. We had a few days of steady rain this week, and our babies seemed to like it. The tomato plant is definitely growing. And we've positioned our wooden bear to look over the plant and make sure it behaves. :)But the most fun news is that we have new sprouts! We've been noticing little, tiny green sprouts for a little while now, but they're so small I doubt the camera would pick up on them. So here are a couple pictures I took this morning. I'm pretty sure that the pure green ones are peas, and the more yellow/pink ones are the morning glories that Shawn randomly decided he wanted to experiment with.

Putting Down Roots

(Thanks to Shawn for the catchy post title.) :)

Sometime last fall, I started thinking that it would be really nice to grow some of our own veggies. I borrowed a book from the library a couple months ago about making a container garden, and it certainly seems do-able. It's also slightly daunting at the same time, though, since I'm obviously not very familiar yet with this climate. For example, I think I have a pretty good idea of how much sun our porch gets each day, but we haven't lived here during a summer yet, so I'm not sure exactly where the sun will be in, say, July...or where the shadows will fall.

So this past Sunday, Shawn and I bit the bullet and headed to the garden center. We spent some time looking around, trying to get an idea of what plants are available around here. We decided to go with a tomato plant that's already been started. We're also going to attempt some peas and carrots from seed. Here are the containers we started on Sunday:

We're really looking at this whole project as an experiment and as something different to try together. Neither of us has ever attempted gardening before (unless you count us helping our parents when we were kids), and we have no idea if this is going to work at all. But hey...plants naturally want to grow, right? So we'll try our best to give them sunshine and water, and we'll keep our fingers crossed. :)When we were at the garden center, we also thought it might be nice to get a pot of flowers. Shawn wasn't really sure about it until I pointed out the Columbine to him. :) Since it's the Colorado state flower, we decided to get a pot for the nostalgia factor. Hopefully we'll keep these alive for awhile, too!

Updates

I feel the need to blog, but frankly, I don't have much to say. :) This weekend was fairly low-key for us. We ended up going out to dinner on Friday night. We went to Boston's Gourmet Pizza, which has become one of our new favorite restaurants. Of course, we were home in time to watch Battlestar Galactica. :)

On Saturday, Shawn had rugby, so that took up most of the day. Sunday was very lazy. Shawn went for a run with the ruggers, but other than that, we stayed home most of the day. On Monday, Shawn decided to take the car to work, so I just stayed at home again. Today, I had a sub job at an "alternative" high school, and I treated myself to a Starbucks coffee on my way home. I realized that this was the first time since we've moved here that I've gotten Starbucks here! That's 4 months of living in the Seattle area with no Starbucks...I bet there are those of you who wouldn't have believed that was possible. :)


So...other little things that have been going on with us? I've been continuing with the Wii Fit and the 200 Sit Ups Program. I've let the 100 Push Ups fall by the way side, but I do have every intention of picking it up again in a few weeks. I've been doing a bit of work on a crocheted blanket (and I do intend to post pictures soon...I just have to find the camera).



I've also been reading McGee & Stuckey's Bountiful Container, which has given me some ideas for creating a small container garden on our porch this spring/summer. I'm thinking about attempting to grow peas, beans, tomatoes, and/or carrots. I'll probably throw in some herbs or some flowers while I'm at it. Wish me luck on this one...I pretty much have a black thumb. :)