My Backyard

This blog originally began as a place to share my recipes but, as a busy college student I wasn't always able to create, test, and perfect recipes. A lot of what I eat has become whatever is fast, easy, cheap (while trying to be healthy), and usually not interesting enough to write about. I have become very inspired by the Pioneer Woman  Ree Drummond. The voice in her writing is so relate-able. She just cracks me up and I feel like she's my friend telling me about her life. Everyone should check her out!


Alrighty back to what I was saying..... she has inspired me to write about all different aspects of my life. One day I'll have a really professional blog with different categories and professional pictures and giveaways and millions of followers! Sigh. But until then I'm going to work with what I got!  So here it goes!


P.s. I've never been one for grammar so if I have errors, which I'm sure I do, let me know cause I'm working on it and not just putting commas where, ever, I, think, they, should, go.

I have loved gardening since I was young. Even after the very traumatizing experience of growing corn. I had the tallest corn stalks (probably only like 6ft tall, I was 10) with huge ears of corn growing. Ok I doubt they were as big as I remember. I was so excited to pick the corn only to find out....


That they were full of ants 
And no corn. 
I guess its smart to check if your planting things on top of an ant hill. 
Yep found that one after but in my defense I was 10. How was I supposed to know ants are out to ruin your life.
Needless to say I was crushed and have yet to plant corn again. Damn ants.


But I have successfully grown a variety of different vegetables since then. Here are some of the things growing right now in my backyard.

Succulents! Succulents! And more succulents! I absolutely love them. They are so easy to grow and come in a ton of varieties. Plus their flowers are really interesting looking. I also love that you can just cut parts of the plant off and stick them in the ground and guess what they grow! I know, it's amazing! Just another reason why plants are some of the coolest things on earth! I'm a plant nerd I know. I guess its a good thing my life goal is to become a farmer.

I currently have four tomato varieties. Sun power, Big Rainbow, Black plum, and Sungold. As always I planted them way to close together. I only have a small raised bed and tend to think I can plant a ton of stuff when the plants are small and there's lots of room around them. The plants of course always grow well past my expectations. Some of my tomato plants are more than 8ft tall and with my 5ft 3 and a half inches I can barely see the top. I had to use a ladder in order to get them up on stakes. The only one that has actually produced a tomato yet is the Sun power (on the right and such a pretty orange). They are the size of a golf ball and so good! 

On the left is the Black Plum tomatoes. There are tons of tomatoes but none have changed color yet. With my luck they will all ripen to their deep purple color at once and I'll be stuck with 10 million pounds of tomatoes. I think I will definitely be making some spaghetti sauce! 

The last picture is of my Big Rainbow. It was the one variety I was really excited for because it produces these huge, beautiful, multi-colored tomatoes. Just like ones you always see in cooking magazines with fresh mozzarella, a little salt and pepper, and some fresh basil; maybe a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. I need to stop I'm making myself hungry.

The Big Rainbow hasn't produced a tomato yet. 

Just flowers. 

Which fall off. 

And break my heart. 

But now that I have staked them up properly I'm crossing my fingers and willing them to produce at least one tomato. 

I also have cucumbers. These are strictly for my dog because she is incapable of staying out of the garden and away from the cucumbers. She tends to get the cucumbers before they get big enough to pick. I find pieces around the backyard and her looking happy and only a slight bit shameful. 

My green beans are finally getting there. I had first started seeds in my little hot box but I guess the seeds were bad because sadly they never grew. So I went and bought some more seeds and decided to throw caution to the wind and just plant them directly in my garden. I don't always do this because I have a really bad rollie polly (non-technical name) problem and they love to munch on baby plants. Must be a delicacy to them or something because they just go to town. I don't want to get rid of them though because they important to the garden. They break down dead leaves making ORGANIC MATTER! (My fellow crop science friends will know the joke).








That's one of the many Pasilla peppers. It has probably doubled in size since I've taken this picture. It is doing surprisingly well. I thought it wasn't going to last at first but now it has a ton of peppers. It's extremely difficult to wait for them to get big enough to make chile rellenos. I also have orange bell peppers growing. I am currently in a war with spider mites over them but I will prevail! 

Can you guess what this one is? If you guessed pumpkin...you're wrong! Just kidding. I planted this one on a whim when I found a seed in my gardening apron. 


Side note: Gardening aprons are amazing. You can put stuff in the pockets like your clippers or twine. I generally have my cell phone in there too. Plus I don't get dirty and have a place to wipe my hands on instead of my jeans. 


Anyways, I've been talking to this pumpkin plant everyday. I might start playing some classical music for it so it feels relaxed and can put all of its energy into making a pumpkin because I really want a pumpkin. I mean how cool would it be to carve a pumpkin you grew for Halloween! One day on my farm I am going to grow lots and lots of pumpkins. One day, hopefully in the near future. So far it has only had male flowers so no pumpkins yet!


      So there's just some of the things I have in my garden. I have lots more but I think I'll save those for another time. What are some of the things you guys are growing?