Life in the Garden

I really think the beautiful thing about blogging is that there is amazing flexibility.  Sure, it might not be the best for my "blog stats" to take a month off, but I am continually asking myself if that is why I blog, or if I write because I love to.  It's because I love to.  :) So, I thought I'd give you an idea of just how I fill my time off the computer... My garden!  It is always a work in progress... which is why I really love spending my days outside.  I've been slowly adding this gorgeous rock and keeping things watered, which is especially challenging with our summer drought.  The raised beds house strawberries, a "salad bar", and raspberries.  We have a great pumpkin patch growing with a handful of different varieties, and the forest behind the pumpkins is my crazy tomatoes.  I started these from seeds this spring, and it has just been a banner year for them! 

And although the tomatoes have really been the stars of the garden, I also had a nice crop of sugar snap peas, green beans, cucumbers, beets, radishes, watermelon, broccoli, brussel sprouts, eggplant, carrots, and peppers.  We have had so much fun getting dirty in our garden this summer!
... and flower gardens are always fun to tame...
... and of course, enjoying Montana style recreation.  


Hope you've had a lovely summer as well!!

Peas and pumpkins

Here's a little August update on my garden project!  Last time I showed you this, it was merely sugar snap pea sprouts!  I've definitely had a learning curve on my first garden project.

The weeds have been kept at bay by tilling, but the ground is still pretty rough.  I'm going to compost and manure it this fall, and hopefully it will loosen things up a bit.  My herb garden is doing really well, along with pumpkins, zucchini, tomatoes, and some little asparagus shoots too!  I think those little buggers will take a couple years, but we're excited!

My root veggies haven't done so hot... radishes, beets, and carrots have been few and far between.  The girls and I enjoyed the peas, and we even harvested a few raspberries!

We've also been enjoying filling this big flower bed!  Most of my plants have been gifted to me from my mom and m-i-l, which makes gardening pretty affordable!  I also ordered a few things from Spring Hill Nursery, and have been looking at a few things at Brighter Blooms, too!  Do you have any online site you recommend for seeds/plants?

{ignore the grass growing in there... we're working on it! :)}

We've still got some projects on our lists:

rock border around the vegetable garden and berry patches  {we have a rock quarry on our ranch, which makes this a pretty easy and affordable one!}

adding a handful of apple trees

fixing our lawn mower :)

keeping my hydrangea plants alive this winter

planting some bulbs {I'm in love with allium this year!}

What kind of planting do you do when fall comes around?

How does your garden grow?

how does your garden grow?

Hi all and happy Monday!  We've been busy here getting our garden planted, and were so excited to see that the semi-flooding didn't wash away our seeds we had planted at the end of May!

I know some of you may be thinking we're crazy with these small little guys, but we're seriously slow up here in Zone 3-4.  Slow like our lilacs are just blooming, and slow like my peonies have yet to open up too!

And slow like the snowpack on the mountains hasn't even melted yet.

On a side note, anyone else have little garden helpers?  Straight lines are a thing of the past for our garden this year!

Do you have a green/black thumb? {or somewhere in between?}  I love gardening stories! :)

{be sure to enter the two very awesome giveaways, too!}

Garden help!

Happy Friday!

So, as you may, or may not have heard, Blogger was down.  If you've entered giveaways the past couple days, check in to see if your comment is still there! :)  Hopefully it gets sorted out soon!

In other news, way up in Zone 3-4, it's finally getting to be safe to actually start gardening!  The girls and I have been out weeding our flower beds, transplanting, and having LOTS of fun dreaming up new arrangements.  Here is a new bed I'm creating... what likes to grow by these coniferous trees?  I've planted my tried and true: daylilies, poppies, and irises.  Anything that you particularly love?

It's my first year of doing a full out vegetable garden, and so I'm soaking up all the tips and tricks I can!  I've been scouring the internet, asking my trusted mom, sister, and Grandpa, and of course chatting with my mother in law who has been gardening here for years!  Here's my HUGE space {plus a neighbor-ly bull next door}...

My dear husband is coming in with the backhoe to dig out a nice rectangle for me, and we're fixing up the cellar for a nice garden shed!  Then, it's planting, rock work, and deer/skunk/rabbit/raccoon/elk/other various critters fencing.

I'd love to hear your favorite varieties of plants, tricks, gardening stories, no matter what zone you are in!  

So, please tell, what are you doing with your green thumb this year?