Top Decoration

It didn't take much coaxing for me to take on this next project.

After Kimba posted on Monday about putting her succulents under glass, I decided to try my hand at it.

I gathered my supplies:

Cactus Mix Potting Soil

Two small succulents

And a square glass jar that measures 6"x 6"x 6"

Potting was a snap!

But while I liked the look, I didn't love it.

It needed something more...

I had a bag of Wonder Rock just waiting to be used.

Yes, it's aquarium gravel, but the pebbles are tiny and a large bag is cheap!

I think it works perfectly for this!

Much better!

I like the contrast between the layers of dark and light and the way the varied shades of green pop against the white rock!

I think it makes for a cute, little point of interest on the coffee table...

Now, if I can just figure out how to keep the three-year-old little fingers out of it...

We have pumpkins!

Ok, ok...I know we don't have "pumpkins" yet.

Not like these anyway...

But we do have this!

Do you see it there?

I know. It's tiny. An itty-bitty, little sprout...

but it's there!

I'm telling you, gardening from seed is seriously gratifying!

Like, when your child receives an award at school, kind of gratifying!

"You did it! Great job! We're so proud of you!"

M-hmm...you're thinking I sound ridiculous, right?

Think what you will, but when my husband came in to tell me that we had a sprout, I jumped up, squealed, clapped, we smiled proudly at each other and then hugged...

Ok, maybe it does sound ridiculous, but I'm trusting that all of you other seed-gardeners can relate!


I suppose I should back up and tell you why I am so shocked and excited about this little pumpkin sprout...

Three weeks ago we decided to make ourselves a pumpkin patch in the back corner of our yard. It was just sitting there as an empty planting bed and after throwing around ideas about what we could turn it into, we decided that a pumpkin patch would be the easiest, cheapest, most maintenance-free option, and come October we would be able to carve our own home grown pumpkins!

Very exciting!

We followed the directions on the back of the seed packet, mounded up the soil and planted 5 seeds into each of the four mounds that we had made.

I made the appropriate sign...

(because every pumpkin patch needs a "PUMPKINS" sign, right?)

And my husband built a little fence to keep the wild animals out.

(ie: our children)

All we had to do was sit back, watch and wait!

That is,

until we started talking to friends and family that had actually grown pumpkins in their backyards before!

What we didn't know was that these pumpkins and their vines were going to take over our yard!

So after much consideration, we decided to take our four mounds and turn them into one. We dug up all of the seeds we had planted, put aside all of those that had begun to sprout and replanted them into one single mound. I thought for sure that since we had disrupted them so much that there was no way we were going to get anything out of them. And not to mention that the seed packet we had was one that we had bought a year ago! My husband tried to convince me that seeds don't expire, but I wasn't so optimistic.

And then, after all of that, there it was! The sprout!

Now you see why I am so excited! We may actually have our own Jack-O-Lanterns to carve!

But until then, we're hoping that thinning it down to one mound means that we can count on significantly less vines to manage once these pumpkins take off on a growth spurt!

And since we were over there digging around anyway, we decided to use the extra space next to the pumpkin patch to plant cantaloupes. My dad had brought over a couple of seed packets, so we figured we would give it a shot.

The fence and rock border were repositioned to stretch all along the front of the new patch.

Here is our pumpkin mound...

All along the back we planted Giant Sunflowers, and in the center we planted a Wild Flower Mix to break up the patches a bit. All of them from seeds...

And here is the cantaloupe mound...

Our "new" pumpkin patch, cantaloupes, sunflowers and wild flowers were all planted on Mother's Day after being served my all-time favorite breakfast and receiving these:


Brought home from school by our 7 year old...

A personalized gift bag:

A personalized votive candle holder...

A hand-painted Butterfly...

And this:

(front)

(back)

How cute is that?

And these from my husband...

Followed by an afternoon of this:

A little bit of day-camping! With all of this rain lately we have to squeeze camping in wherever we can get it, so we drove to Greenwater, made a fire, roasted hot dogs and made S'mores...because it's not camping without the S'mores!

It was a great Mother's Day!


But back to the garden...

Here's a peek into other parts of our crop:

(can we call it a crop? It's tiny. But I think we can!)


Walla Walla Onions

Beets

(which Owen cannot wait for! Crazy kid - someone told him they have sugar in them so he's all about the beets! He's in for a rude awakening!
No offense to all the beet-lovers out there!)

And our Sweet Peas

We grew these last year and had more pea pods than we knew what to do with!

This year we planted even more - they're just so good right off the vine!

Grow, baby, grow!

So, we'll keep our fingers crossed that everything grows just as it should! We also planted carrots, potatoes, rhubarb and strawberries!

Our seven year old walked out onto the deck after we had planted everything and said:

"You know, we could be farmers! We have planted a lot of stuff!"

The image of my husband in overalls and a straw hat, with pitch fork in hand came to my mind...

As I laughed, all I could think to say was:

"Yep! We could be farmers!"

Maybe someday...

It feels like Spring may never come!
And it sure is cold out there, but as you can see...it is on its way!
I took these pictures in the backyard yesterday...

Clematis

Daylillies

Azalea

Forsythia

A weeping tree...not sure of the name...

And something is sprouting up under the tree!



On the inside, my 5 year old's apple seeds are coming up! Every time he eats an apple he saves the seeds and we plant them. He loves watching them sprout!

To trick ourselves into thinking spring is closer than it may be, we bought a couple of house plants last week. Our seven year old has been asking for a plant of his own to take care of for quite some time. He picked out this succulent at Home Depot. It's pretty small and only cost $2.49, but it will be that much more gratifying for him to watch it grow and take over the pot!

I bought this one for my desk. Another one that only cost $2.49.
Can't beat that!

My best friend has a fern in her dining room that I have admired for years...which is kind of odd because I have never been a fern lover. But it's gorgeous and adds an element of the outdoors to the room. It is called a Boston Fern. Just my luck, I found one the other day at Fred Meyer (our local one-stop-shopping store). I felt even luckier when I saw that it was only $6.oo! It's huge!
Here it is:

And from what she tells me, ferns are easy to grow, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've been pretty lucky with houseplants the past few years, so I'm hoping to continue the trend!

Have you added any new houseplants to your home?

Are you seeing Spring buds around your yard?


Here's hoping Spring will be here before we know it!

In the past my luck with houseplants has been...less than desirable. But not anymore! I bought this Christmas Cactus one year ago in a little, tiny pot. I have admired people who own Christmas Cactus' for quite some time and in awe of those that have had theirs for a decade or more. I kept hearing that "they're so easy to grow!", "very tolerant", "You can pretty much just ignore it". So I decided to give it a go. I wanted to start small just in case it should meet the untimely fate of my black thumb. Fortunately for me AND the plant, it's still alive and beautiful! It is now 4 times larger than it was when I got it and has a full bloom! There are little buds scattered all over it just waiting to pop out!

** Normally I would not be inclined to post about a houseplant, but this post is really intended for the benefit of my husband. He's skeptical about the possibility of me having a green thumb, so I needed proof! Documented proof!

Ahhh...the sweet smell of success!