Free Kittens!

Wilson and soon-to-be-adopted friend.

(this one is yours Mom:)

Foraging

Once again we are benefiting from an abundance

of unwanted citrus in a friends yard.

We picked enough oranges to squeeze and freeze 15 quarts of juice...

...and we still have several more trees to plunder :)

Broccoli

We are eating the last of the broccoli this week.

We had planted several in the front yard a couple weeks after the other broccoli plants in the garden but they seemed to be stuck in a state of suspended animation for a month or so. I wasn't sure we were going to get anything off them, but they finally woke up and developed nice big crowns.

Broccoli soup for lunch last week, and as a side dish for chicken tonight...yum!

Sweet Potatoes

Starting slips in the kitchen window. Hoping to get these in the ground by the first of May.

That's our Boy!

Let the bragging begin....Wison graduates this year from Exeter Union High School and has managed to put himself in the number 7 position of the top 10 seniors. Yippee Yahoo!

As well as having brains, Wilson pitches on the baseball team, plays shortstop and 1st base...

....and is one of the teams top hitters.

Way to go Wils!

View from our Front Door

Something to brighten my day.

Now I must go pay taxes...sigh.

Potatoes

We have been digging up potatoes for the past couple weeks, tho the plants are not flowering and not ready to be completely pulled up they are producing edible (and delicious) little spuds. Every couple of days when I decide potatoes would be a good side dish, I go out in the garden and search in the dirt. Usually I just feel around under a plant, trying not to disturb the littlest spuds, until I find one big enough to pull up and ta da!

What's strange to me (and this is only our second year growing potatoes) is the difference in size of the tots attached to the same plant. Yesterday I found a couple that were quite big, tho they still had the lighter, undeveloped skin of 'new' potatoes. Hard to know just what we're going to find under there, but so far we've eaten over 13lbs. of potatoes...Yum!

(egg is in photo to show size)

...tee hee :)

Never explain yourself.

Your friends don't need it, and your

enemies won't believe it.

-Belgicia Howell

....thanks sis

Transplanting Tomatoes and Peppers

As the seedlings get bigger, their containers must also. This week I've been transplanting the not-so-little pepper and tomato starts into their new homes to give their roots a bit more room to expand.

And as the weather has improved we also transport the trays to the garden during the day to soak up the sun.

Tomatoes don't seem to mind being uprooted and moved, and with each move they get planted deeper into the soil so their roots can grow along the stem.

It helps to pinch off any side branches.

Dirt filled to the top.

Peppers do not get the same kind of transplant instructions, they go in like pretty much anything else, soil line stays the same.

For today the newly disturbed plants stayed under the shade of our pecan tree. And not all the tomatoes got new homes.....must find more 4inch pots.

Happy plants :)