Matt's Garden- Big post!



You probably remember this post.  Matt has the green thumb for sure between the two of us.  I always wanted a garden but have never had the motivation or the space.  I have great memories of my mother's garden.  Sitting on the porch while she snapped beans, pulling off raspberries and putting them on your fingertips to eat one at a time.  Burying the poor squirrel that Skipper killed in the corner of the strawberry patch.  Here is what the garden started out as.  Matt borrowed a really nice tiller a guy he works with owns and tilled a 12 x 24 foot area in the sunniest part of the backyard.  We bought some good quality stakes from my old job ECI and started putting it up.  I should say he, I really did very little.  Pretty much watched the baby while he worked.



Chicken wire up- Matt took one if the signs from our wedding-love it.  Our neighbors must think we are nuts.  But let me tell ya, put a garden in and every old person on the block wants to come talk to you about it- we've met so many of our neighbors. 

Charlie supervising

Corn

With so little free time, Matt was literally planting in the dark.  This is him getting some tomatoes in

Night vision style

installing a flagstone/old paver path

Squash

Hot peppers- these are banana

peas

more waiting to go in

This was the corn today- growing so fast!

Sweeeet coooorn

banana peppers already ready to be picked...I think...we don't really know what we're doing

Our first squash blossom- that is the zucchini behind it!

Our first pea

First little baby strawberry

The whole garden- still have room here at the front left- we have cabbage, cantaloupe (I guess I should call it mussmelon) and bell peppers that are still going to go in

aerating the ground so it efficiently takes the water- it's so hot right now, we water after the sun sets otherwise it just evaporates

Wild strawberries out of the yard- was pretty excited, but they were seedy and tasteless

I'm so glad I married someone with a green thumb.  I love fresh produce and it's so expensive. I am so excited that it will come out of my back yard.  I'm thrilled to give Charlie and the kids food that I know where it came from and how it was harvested.  We are going to have so much food.  I would really like to learn how to can.  Another time- hopefully late summer.  I'm sure that will be another hilarious post, lets hope I don't blow up the kitchen.  Otherwise it's BLTs and zucchini bread for the rest of the summer!

Zucchini anyone?  We're going to have tons!!

They say it's bad to give your baby a bath every night, but what am I supposed to do????

He has this thing where he spits part of it out, then proceeds to rub his hands all over his face, in his hair, over his eyes so it gets in his eyelashes

Baby food turns to concrete pretty quickly, so the only way to solve the problem is to dunk him in the tub

He loves it, and it's pretty hilairious so it's hard to get too mad

Finger Food

We tried little pieces of banana tonight.  It was pretty hilarious watching him try to get them in his mouth.  There was banana down his bib, in the high chair, on the floor and smashed on his tray, but he did really well!  He loves banana, so he was all about it.  Meanwhile, I sat anxiously waiting to have to perform baby heimlich just in case.

Lunch for the two of us

Best part about homemade baby food?  Made lunch for Charlie and a smoothie for me!  I had some way over ripe bananas so I blended them up for Charlie and with the leftovers I threw some ice and a cube of my  mixed fruit baby food and had a smoothie.  Charlie loves, loves, loves bananas

Introducing meat

So far, Charlie has been on veggies & fruit only.  I thought it might be time to introduce him to some serious protein.  He is able to eat large amounts of baby food and seems to be hungry an hour after eating.  I'm hoping this will keep him full longer.  I made brown rice with a bay leaf and boiled some chicken.  I blended it with no salt added vegetable stock and added Bavarian Seasoning from Penzeys spices.  It is a salt free mixture that includes brown mustard, rosemary, garlic, thyme, bay leaves & sage.  I'm trying to raise an adventurous eater.   

He seemed to like it.  He ate about half of what he eats of the vegetables.  It seemed to fill him up fast.  It was pretty thick, I had to add some water to it to thin it out. 

Preparing a boat load more baby food

This is potatoes, sweet potatoes, apples & carrots.  All blended, frozen and ready to eat for Charlie

My first attempt at a batch of baby food

I had thrown a banana in the blender a few times, but hadn't done the big batch of baby food.  I bought a ginormous acorn squash, cut it in half and baked it meat side down in about 2" water at 400 for 40 minutes.  20 minutes in I put 2 huge skinned a cored apples with a little cinnamon, cut into pieces in about 2 " water and let them cook the remaining time



I blended the squash and apples together with a little of the water from the pans.  Got some on my finger and tasted it- it was actually quite tasty!  It made 2 1/2 ice cube trays, which I'll freeze.  Then I'll pop them out and put them in ziploc bags which I can keep in the deep freeze and just grab as I go. 




Didn't know what to think at first



Then he liked it