Just a little garden harvest of banana peppers, green beans, and basil (to season tonight’s lasagna dinner).
The kids helped me water the front garden (because of this excessive heat 🥵), and they noticed a few beans and peppers looked ready to harvest.
A little garden harvest in the morning 🌶🫛
Harvesting green beans 🫛
Harvesting banana peppers 🌶
All week the temps have been in the high 90s. 🥵 We’ve had to deep water the gardens—the front garden in the morning and the back garden in the evening.
I based the watering schedules on when each garden gets full sun. It’s been working pretty well for the plants, too!
This question of the day is very timely, as I am having a tough day on this Wednesday. 😏
Our minivan needs some costly repairs, and it’s our only vehicle. So, it immediately triggered my anxiety.
Negative thoughts and questions started swarming through my head, and I felt a little defeated, at first.
What about this…? What about that…? How will we…? How much will it cost…? Trying to hurriedly come up with solutions, and so on.
Beautiful Cosmos flower 🌸
Pause and just breathe
But instead of letting it get me down, I took a few slow deep breaths and quietly sat in the kitchen for a moment. 😌
The kitchen is the heart of our home, so it just made the most sense to pause here. 💜
I decided to stick with my morning routine: light the prayer candle, morning prayers, get the tea kettle on, tidy the kitchen, start breakfast for the kids.
And then I spent the rest of the morning in my garden. My happy place. 😊🌼
Potato flower in the garden! 😍🥔🌸 We will be harvesting potatoes very soon! This made me SO happy. 😊
It doesn’t make the problems go away. We will still have to get the minivan fixed. I know that.
But I also trust in God; He is my hope. 🙏🏽
A timely message of encouragement
Yesterday, we went to the Tuesday evening Mass. Fr. Jim’s homily focused on having hope and trusting in Jesus even when life throws us some curve balls.
I’m thankful for his very timely message. It turned out I would need it this Wednesday morning. 💜🙏🏽
Our spider flowes are doing their best in this heat. 🥵🌸
And tending to the vegetable plants and admiring our flower blooms was the joy and peace I needed to help me take a break from the stress of auto repair issues. 🥰🌸💜🙏🏽
Our cucumbers have flowers now! 😍🥒🌼 I noticed the bright, yellow flowers this past Saturday.
Travis and I were geeking out about it. Lol! 😂This is the first time we have grown cucumbers, so we are very excited!
We’re growing eight pickle cucumber plants. I plan on making dill pickles with our cucumber harvest, so I’m also growing dill in the same grow bags.
The cucumber plants are also showing signs they’re ready to start climbing. Thin tendrils have emerged and started curling around the trellis. 🥹🌿
I think it’s just amazing how the plants know to reach out and wrap itself around nearby objects. They’re like little hands searching for something to embrace. 😄😍
Over the weekend, Travis installed a simple homemade trellis behind the cucumbers. He just used nails and twine. Super easy!
We also ended up transplanting a few of the plants into separate grow bags so they don’t crowd each other and have enough root space to grow.
I can’t wait to see the cucumbers start growing! Shouldn’t be too much longer now. 😊🥒🌼
The day started with a cozy brunch at home. I’ve mentioned before on Fridays we have Pizza Friday.
I always order my pizza from a local Italian market. They always use fresh ingredients and cook the pizza using a wood-burning oven. It’s the best fresh pizza I’ve ever had! 😋
You get an 11″ pizza with unlimited toppings for just $12! Great deal! I always order the meat lovers pizza with artichoke as an extra topping.
For brunch on the weekends, I like to have my favorite tea with a slice of my leftover pizza with a fried egg and honey drizzle on top. I put on my jazz playlist and just enjoy the vibes.
Last Saturday, I introduced my pizza brunch recreation to Travis and he was amazed at how delicious the leftover pizza tasted with fried egg.
“Yo! This is REALLY good!” he exclaimed. “How did you come up with this?” 😲🍕
A little work in the garden
We did a little work in the garden. I planted another sugar baby watermelon start, and Zaya (5) wanted to plant a cosmos flower seed in her little baby pot. 🥹🌸
This makes two sugar baby watermelon starts we are growing in the garden.
Zhen (13) chose the mini watermelon to grow because she LOVES watermelon. 🍉
I’m a little nervous about having enough space for the watermelon to vine, but I’ve been researching ways to grow vertically, so I think we can make it work! 🤞🏾😁
It looks like he’s smiling at me. 😄🐸
Mr. Toad back again
And while I was tending to the patio garden, my little toad friend was hopping behind me. 😄🐸 It’s so cute because I often see this toad pop out when I am working in the garden.
It seems he was on his way to the garden section of our peppers and tomatoes. Lol 😅 That was perfect because some bugs have been hanging around the plants. 🪲
Mass and a quick stop at H-Mart
Later in the afternoon, we went to the Saturday vigil Mass.
Since Travis works six days a week, we have found going to Saturday Mass is a little easier on him. That way he can sleep in and fully rest on Sundays.
After Mass, we stopped by H-Mart to get lo mein noodles and a few other ingredients. I had a craving for homemade chicken lo mein and I wanted to cook it for dinner.
These Canton Style Egg Noodles are so easy to cook and the texture is perfect for my homemade stir-fry. 😋🍜
I also saw these lo mein egg noodles. I’ve never cooked them before, so I thought I’d give it a try. 🍜
The kids LOVE H-Mart! 😍 Every time we go, they always want to get ramyun and snacks. This time, they found K-Pop Demon Hunters snacks, so of course, we had to get it! 😂🫶🏾
What we bought at H-Mart…
I love H-Mart because they sell so many varieties of noodles, rice, kimchi, and other unique foods that you can’t find at American supermarkets.
The kids wanted to check out the toy section (obviously lol), and they wanted us to buy something.
I told them to save up their allowance money so we can come back and they can buy the toy they really want to get. 🤓💡
Before leaving H-Mart, we played a game of Toy House—the claw machine game.
We didn’t win anything (does anyone ever win these games? 😏 lol), but it was still fun trying. 😊
I went to the library to drop off my returns, and I discovered they offer a seed catalog! 😲🥳
So naturally, I grabbed a few seed packets to add to my midsummer seed order. 😆🌿
The seed packets I chose were Chinese giant sweet pepper, okra, cilantro, and parsley.
I know it might be a little too late to start the Chinese giant sweet peppers, but I’m going to try planting a couple of seeds.
The other day, I accidentally spilled some of my cilantro seeds, so that’s why I grabbed another pack.
I went ahead and planted the pepper and okra seeds in seed trays. Then, I added some cilantro and parsley seeds to the herb pots I currently have growing.
My midsummer seed order has arrived, and I am excited! I took advantage of MIGardener’s 20% off sale because the deals were really good. I was impressed with how quickly I received my order, too! 😁🌿
I love watching their YouTube channel. I have learned so much about gardening and growing food within a year’s time all thanks to Luke, owner of MIGardener!
The seeds I bought
Parisian carrots, purple carrots, midori soybeans, painted pony beans, flor de mayo beans, light red kidney beans, midnight black turtle beans, Charleston Wakefield cabbage, gold rush wax bush beans, sugar beets, peach melba nasturium, and Tom Thumb dwarf pea.
This time I focused on foods we can grow in our grow bags and get started end of June.
We also wanted to try crops we haven’t grown before such as sugar beets, painted pony bush beans, and midori bush soybeans.
I just love MIGardener’s seed packagaing. 🌿
It’s all a learning journey
Last year, when I did a late summer seed order, I bought fall crops such as lettuce, green onions, spinach, carrots, bok choy, and collard greens.
The problem with that was I planted the seeds too late in the growing season, so we didn’t have a fall harvest. 😕
It was a learning experience for me, though, so I wasn’t mad about it. It taught me how and when to plant seeds for a fall harvest.
And I still have a bunch of seeds from last year’s order, so I am ready to plant our fall crops on time this year! 😁
I love how one day I will check on the garden and I can’t seem to find a single new bloom.
But then the next day, all of a sudden it seems like a flower has bloomed, there are green beans growing, and little green tomatoes have appeared. 😅
Yesterday, I noticed we now have green beans growing. 😍 I am so excited to see so many green beans sprouting, even though I don’t like to eat green beans. 🤣
My kids love fresh green beans, so I am excited to grow a food that I know they love. I can’t wait to harvest the green beans and cook them for the kids!
This is the first time I have grown spider flowers (cleome). I found the the unique flowers at a local farm store.
I intentionally planted four spider flowers near the food plants so it could attract pollinators to the garden.
I wanted to add something different to the garden this year, and I think the spider flowers were a perfect addition. The magenta petals are so beautiful!
And the tickseed flowers have bloomed, too. I actually planted these seeds last summer, but the flowers never grew. So, this was a nice surprise!
I’m so excited because I finally have outdoor shelves for my herb plants! 😁🪴 Travis worked on building the shelves all weekend, even on Father’s Day.
He was so proud of his work that he snapped a picture of the shelves and said, “Now when I go to work and someone asks me what I did this weekend, I can show them I built garden shelves.” 😄
We’ve been finding more efficient ways to grow food in a small space. Growing vertically, like with our new herb plant shelves, makes it possible for us to grow a great variety of herbs without taking up a lot of ground space in our small patio garden.
Now when I am cooking and need herbs from the garden, I can just walk out on the patio and reach for the pot I need on the shelf.
I love my herb plant shelves! 😍 Travis did a great job building the shelves. I said, “Now that I know you know how to build shelves, I’m going to ask you to build more shelves all the time!” 🤣😁
We’re supposed to get a storm later tonight. Possible thunderstorms, flash flooding, and tornado.
I hope it just rains and there aren’t any bad storms, but if we do have harsh weather tonight, I hope everyone takes the necessary precautions and stays safe!
We moved our grow bags in a safe spot just in case it storms later tonight.
We prepped our basement in case water gets in it. This type of flash flooding is very common for southeast Michigan.
I also worked on moving our garden grow bags to spots outside that will hopefully keep them safe from the storm.
I’ll have to bring our seedlings inside so the storm doesn’t hurt them. 🌿
We’ve had unusually cooler temps all week with rain off and on. My poor summer vegetables and some of my transplants are freaking out. 😩
They’re like, “Girl, what is going on?! I can’t stand up straight.” 😏😆
It should be sunny tomorrow, so I’m hoping the soil can dry out and the stressed plants perk up.
My new celery starts have had enough of this rain!
The careors and green beans are looking good!
I’m feeling much better than I did yesterday. The rest did me good. The kids are getting better each day, too. I think by next Monday everyone will be feeling 100% better.
This viral bug has a slow recovery. We rarely get sick in the summer. 😏 I’m very thankful everyone is healing comfortably at home.and no one had to go to the doctor!
And since we’re feeling a little better, I decided to make a sweet treat for the family — homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. 😋🍪
Of course, my chef assistant Zaya (5) helped. 😄 She LOVES cooking! 😍
I’ll share my homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe in another post. The cookies are DELICIOUS! It’s hard to eat just one! 😋🍪
