Our Garden!

I'm so excited to finally have a yard to garden in! I have big plans for our yard. This year we won't be able to have quite as big of a garden as I would like, but we've got a few little plants in the ground and plans to get ready for next spring!

Here is where I plan to build our raised beds.
I'm leaning towards using cinder blocks for the bed. 

Here is our persimmons tree. It had fruit on it pretty
well into the winter. I'm hoping it'll liven up again soon.

Eventually I will clear this out and use this bed as well.
I'd like to try some hardy herbs in this spot.

This bed was cleared out and is home to our
little garden for this year. Next year I'd like to make this the
boys' plot and let them pick what they'd like to grow.

Here's Alex with our little garden!
We've got two tomato plants and four pots of leaf lettuce.
We got the plants from a local nursery: Deep Roots Nursery
which uses heirloom seeds and natural growing methods.

What's going into your garden this year?

My First Basket!

I just picked up my first Bountiful Baskets basket. I don't know that I've ever been so excited about produce. Seriously, I got excited about seeing what veggies I'd get and I'm not a veggie-lover.

Bountiful Baskets is a food co-op that supplies produce as well as some other foods. The baskets are the main item and can be conventional or organic. Here's the catch: You don't know what will be in your basket until you pick it up. It'll be about half fruit and half vegetables but that's really all you know. You can order add-ons that are specific foods or food types but the main baskets are a surprise. (How's that for adding some surprises to your meal planning!)

Here's my first basket:

This is a conventional basket so it was $15 plus the processing fee and the one-time first basket fee. It ended up being right around $20 for all that produce! Included this week: two bags of carrots, one pineapple, one acorn squash, two heads of lettuce, several bananas, one bunch of spinach, one bag of apples, three avocados, one bunch of leeks, five tomatoes, eight tangerines, and eight new potatoes! It all came looking great!

Oranges, apples, and bananas will be snacks and breakfast fruits. The spinach, lettuce, and tomato will be used for salads. The carrots will be steamed for Alex (maybe I'll toss a few in the salad, but don't get your hopes up). Pineapple will likely be snacks or saved for Alex. I have no idea what to do with the acorn squash, avocados, or leeks. I have never cooked acorn squash or leeks and generally don't enjoy avocados. The new potatoes will also be interesting as we usually eat plain white potatoes.

I'm really excited about planning our meals for the next two weeks now!