zucchini – A Smith of All Trades

Garden

Gallivanting in my garden

May 29, 2015May 29, 2015 Jessica Smith

I am loving this spring — the weather has been amazing and we are enjoying it tremendously!

It’s that time of year again when my nails are always caked in dirt from playing in my gardennnnnnn. I spent days in April enlarging my garden, like I do every year. I have two main areas that I plant in every year, plus my berries! This year, I expanded both of my beds and it didn’t take long to fill the extra space — I already don’t know how I got by without it last year. Annnnnd, no surprise, I already have plans to make next years larger, too. I have a real problem!

This year, I planted tomatoes, eggplant, squash, zucchini, lettuce, spinach, potatoes (sweet, white & blue), onions, peppers (bell & spicy), cantaloupe, watermelon and a few more strawberry plants. I’m probably forgetting a few things, too!

Brian and I also lined all of the beds with new landscape timbers and mulched the berry beds. It’s been a lot of work, but so worth it.

Now I just have to be patient and wait for everything to grow. That’s the hard part of gardening — patience!

In other news, I chopped off all of my hair 🙂

It’s a different sort of before & after for my blog, but here ya go!

Before:

Long-Hair

And 10-inches later….

After:

Short-Hair

I’m donating my long locks to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. My new hair feels so much better — and just in time for the warm weather!

Garden, Life

Tomato Tally

July 21, 2014July 21, 2014 Jessica Smith

My buddy Amy suggested I keep a running tally of how many tomatoes I get from my garden this year. Being the garden-lover I am, how could I pass up such a fun idea?

Yesterday’s haul at 8:30 p.m. proved very fruitful, no garden pun intended. And I know we missed a bunch of pickins because it was getting dark. As of last night, the tomato tally is up to 33. Not bad! I am hoping to get enough to make a batch of salsa this upcoming weekend… that means that I need to stop giving them away and eating them, which is the hard part. I still have a few onions left from my garden and my jalapeño peppers are growing like weeds. If I have enough tomatoes, I should be able to make salsa almost purely from my garden 🙂

In this picture you’ll see a green zucchini, a yellow squash, an oddly shaped cucumber, a handful of cherry tomatoes, three purple heirloom tomatoes, a few Roma tomatoes, a few early girl tomatoes and one yellow heirloom tomato. That are so pretty. There are also two banana peppers, which I do not remember planting. I wonder if labels got mixed up at Home Depot or something…. I planted tabasco peppers (those aren’t growing, darn), red bell peppers, green bell peppers, cayenne peppers and jalapeño peppers. Somehow the bananas snuck in there. They won’t go to waste.

Speaking of nature (good transition, yes?), Brian and I hiked the Billy Goat trail between the C&O Canal and Potomac River.

It was the best hike we’ve ever been on and I can’t recommend it enough. If you are anywhere near Great Falls National Park, you have to hike this trail.

Other than hiking, I spent the weekend winning a round of mini golf….

(Go me! I never win at mini golf!)

… hanging out with our neighbors…. (yes, our dogs are strange)

… and visiting with my cousins. Oh, and I helped paint my friend’s basement. Quite the tiring and eventful weekend.

Hope you all had great weekends!

Garden

Gardengardengardengarden gardennnnnn

July 7, 2014July 7, 2014 Jessica Smith

Imagine me singing the title of this blog post.

I got back from New York on Friday — four days away from my garden! … and my husband and my dog. But who cares about them (just kidding!). They don’t change much in four days, but a garden sure does. I came back to lettuce that was almost past its prime, cukes ready to be picked, my first two ripe tomatoes, squash, onions and a few cherry tomatoes! Oh, and a whole cup of blueberries! A WHOLE CUP!

My raspberry plants are growing by the minute and my strawberries are giving us a few berries each day still.

I’m so pleased! I spent yesterday clearing out all of he lettuce and onions, so now I need to figure out if I can plant something else in their spot or if it is too late. I think it might be too late.

I also need to figure out if my blueberries need to be moved around a bit. I have one bush that doesn’t doesn’t seem to be doing so well. I might move it into a sunnier spot, but that means I’ll need to transplant two raspberry bushes, too. It might be worth it if it will get those blueberries more sun.