Hi! Happy Monday! I hope you all are having a great day so far. This weekend we celebrated Stephen’s squadron’s 100th anniversary. My dad’s best friend, Cliff, was in the same squadron a “couple” of years (I won’t age you Cliff don’t worry 😉 ) ago so him and his wife were down here to celebrate with us. We had a blast! It’s a shame the weekend had to end… Although, I’m pretty sure I say that every Monday… HA!

I mentioned last week on Instagram stories that I want to focus on sharing home updates and projects this month. Don’t worry… I still plan on sharing anything and everything come July! For now though, I’ve shared quite a bit of our projects on Instagram and received a lot of questions so I want to get all of the information out that you guys deserve! The projects that we complete around our home bring us a lot of joy and hopefully if you decide to do them too then it’ll be same.

Today I’m sharing an update on our garden. We’ve been working on it for about the past two months with any extra time we’ve had. I said to Stephen… I think there’s so much more to this garden than just “having a garden”. It is some of the best therapy for me while dealing with the highs and lows of life. It is one of the greatest sources of joy and it is something I love coming home to care for every day (along with Stephen and precious Adi, of course). I could and do sit out there for hours covered in dirt and in awe of the growth that has occurred literally overnight. If you’ve ever had the itch to garden, I highly suggest you do! Even if it’s something small. Start with some herbs and watch those babies flourish! It’s incredibly rewarding.

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul. 

— Alfred Austin

This whole thing started with me growing some basil and mint. It was nothing fancy. I picked up some inexpensive pots from IKEA, bought the two plants and some generic potting soil at Lidl, transplanted them into the pots, and before I knew it they had doubled in size. I couldn’t get enough and now we have ourselves a little garden with varieties of fruits, vegetables, and herbs. I really shouldn’t be surprised though! My mom has always had huge gardens. She would work out there for hours and hours and come in so dirty and sweaty but with a huge smile on her face and a basket full of her harvest. I always thought it was neat and knew that her strawberries could blow any stores’ out of the water but I guess my teenage duties were way more “important” than helping her out there back then. Oh what I would do to be able to rewind the clock just a bit…

We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest.

— Voltaire

When we decided that we wanted to try to have a garden, we knew we’d have to make the most out of every inch of our little yard. We mapped it all out and decided to utilize the existing flower beds in the back as gardening space. Based on how the sun hits our house, we decided to plant all of the fruits on the left side of the house and all of the vegetables on the right side. We grow all of the herbs and a few more vegetables in the screened in porch where there is a tiny bit more shade.

On the fruit side we’re growing:

• Blueberry bushes
• “Little Miss Figgy” bush
• Raspberry bush

On the vegetable side we’re growing:

• Tomatoes (Heirloom, Cherry, Roma)
• Zucchini
• Yellow squash
• Spaghetti squash
• Jalapeno pepper
• Yellow bell pepper
• Green bell pepper (although it’s missing now… ADI???)
• Sweet onions

Herbs on the porch:

• Cilantro
• Parsley
• Mint
• Basil
• Green onions
• Chives
• Celery
• Lettuce

God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.

— Francis Bacon

After about a month of watching everything grow, we were wishing that we had more space to plant more. Like I said, our yard is pretty darn small so we knew we’d need some planters since we didn’t want to tear up the grass and still wanted space for Adi to run. I found quite a bit of options for planters on Pinterest but ultimately we decided to get a few stock tanks so that we could move them with us whenever the Air Force says, “Pack up! You’re moving to ____.” Tomorrow I want to share all about our stock tanks and how we prepared them for gardening but for now, here’s what we planted:

• Green beans – these have been the easiest things to grow so far!
• Cucumbers
• Brussels sprouts
• Lettuce
• Strawberries
• Cantaloupe

I’m by no means perfect at this whole garden thing but I sure am learning a lot! I hope to do a post on how I’ve planted and how I can improve, etc. I’m sure there are better ways to do it and it might not result in as high of a yield as it could but so far pretty much everything has survived and is thriving. Like I said, if you want to try it out, grab a pot or two and some of your favorite herbs and get planting! If you want to try out a vegetable, I highly suggest starting with green beans. Every day I go to check on them I’m amazed at how fast they’re growing. Before we know it it’ll be time to harvest them!

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