::tomato planting::

 

Four tomato plants in the cottage garden

AND 18 in the orchard garden.

That is a whole bunch of tomatoes.

All different colors and shapes and sizes and glorious-ness.

 I spent the winter reading about different techniques for tomatoes.

~Because I am a big geek~

I decided to plant them in rows covered with black landscape fabric on top.

Then when they are big and tough I will heavily mulch them with grass clippings.  The black fabric makes the soil hotter making the tomatoes grow faster.  Then latter it keeps down weeds.

I also followed a tip from my father inlaw and cut off all the leaves but the top set and planted them on there sides.  So only the top leaf set is above ground.  This gives a much larger root base and a stronger stalk, plus it keeps the initial roots closer to the surface making them hotter faster so they grow like crazy.

Why the hula hoop?  It is the exact size an average tomato plant needs to thrive - 3ft.  I used mark off my spacing in the row. 

I really do love sticks.

Cheap and effective.  

(Just like me?????)

See how short the far row is and how tall the plants waiting to go in are?

All that goes back to this planting them on their side idea.

This winter I also looked into the many ways to stake them.

I didn't really want to do cages for the orchard garden.  

Too much material and storage space.

Plus - again - I am cheap.

I stumbled across a technique called Florida Weave.  

I will post about it as it goes in.

Link here to learn more now.

::THE TEA PARTY:

 We had the tea party!!  And it went great.  I had to be flexible and change all my well laid out plans.  The party was from 2-4 and a really bad think-about-going-to-the-basement thunderstorm was coming sometime around 4.  In bad weather we usually move parties to the barn, but that didn’t really work with my tea party theme.  So I moved around all my furniture and set up in the house.  It was actually very nice to have all the major set up done ahead of time. 

 

We started out with two different crafts.

 The first one was “Decorate You Tea Cup”.  I had a jar of different color Sharpies for the girls to use.  My only instruction was – write your name on it so you can see it and then decorate it how ever you want.  They came up with some really cute stuff.

 The second craft was newspaper hats.  You take two sheet of a newspaper and unfold it.  Place them on top of the kids head and wrap masking tape around the papers at about eye brow level.  This leads to a hat shape that the kids can then trim and decorate.  Most of the kids left them big, but Lily trimmed hers down to a stylish little hat.  I had feathers out for them use to decorate with.

When these crafts started I had my helpers out on the porch doing face painting.  They had some flowers stamps to use or they could also just free hand things.  My Emma and my neighbor girl, that are the same age, where the big artists of the day.  But my mother in-law and my older neighbor girl (who does most of my babysitting) also did some great work too.

Next we went outside and played games.  I wanted them to burn off a little energy.  We played Duck/Duck/Goose, sugar cube spoon relay, and hot-potato.

Then they came back inside to eat.  An idea that helped me stay within budget came over from my friend Wendy.  She made a circle table runner for her rainbow party and I converted that into my table.  I also used slightly larger circles as chargers.  The napkins had some feather napkin rings added to them.  The pink table cloth is a cheap flat sheet.  The little butterflies down the middle are a little splurge that I am going to use as part of the wrapping on future presents.  Over head was a chandelier that was made from colored straws, twine, and paper.    

The food table was so much fun!  I bought a few spools of tulle and made the skirt.  It’s just a long piece of twine with loops of tulle pulled thru.  Link here for a tutorial on how to make tutu if you want more information.  The table cloth and back ground are two green flat sheets straight out of my linen closet.  I made some of the food and bought some.  I thought long and hard about making all the food, but it really reduced my stress load to just buy some of it.  

 Please see my Tea Party Food post if you want more deets. 

After they ate, I took them back into the craft room to do the last two crafts.  The first craft was making cherry blossom trees.  The girls painted a tree outline and then filled it in with pink punched out flowers.  They girls also got paper dolls to work on.  I bought these from an AMAZING vendor on Etsy called Anne Made Art.  Go see her shop.  She is talented.  And they were so CHEAP.  I had a large enveloped for the girls to take them home in so all the little parts would not get lost.

When all the crafts were done they went outside to play a few more games.  We played a game were they stacked sugar cubes and at the end of one minute whoever had the highest tower won.  Then we played a game were they sat in a circle with their eyes closed and I tucked a tea bag into one persons hand. They had to try and guess which one of them had it.  That game got lots of giggles.    

The party was 2 hours long and they were having fun the whole time.  We only had about ten minutes at the end were I just let them run wild on the playground.  And you could see the black clouds rolling toward us in the distance.     

We sent them home with a little treat bag that I had mocked up earlier in the week.

We ended up adding the flower straws and the tea cup saucers.

::tea party - the food::

I really let Lily help me this time.  I made myself uncomfortable and let her really do things.  Like roll the marshmallows in the sprinkles.  I was not totally comfortable with it.  But I did it.  And it made her so happy.  And I am so glad I loosened up at least a little and got to spend some fun time with her.

Now...

For the food!!!

I tried to hold myself back.

I tried to not overwhelm myself with complicated baking that would frustrate me and take up tons of my time.  Damn you Annie's Eats - you make it look so easy.  

Plus the "bakery" area of my local Walmart always looks pretty darn good.  I am a Target snob at heart, but my empty wallet forces me to become a Walmart shopper.  And the bakery stuff is good.  Promise.  (But you must go to People of Walmart, I have submitted pictures of people I have seen before)

At the bakery section I got

Three kinds of mini cupcakes - red velvet, chocolate chip cookie, and chocolate.  Pretty little things.  $2.50 each kind for one dozen = $7

Three kinds of cookies - sugar cookies, chocolate chip dunkers, and mini snowballs.

$2 each = $6

I also got chocolate covered pretzels - because they look pretty. $3

Last I bought some fancy looking swiss rolls and cut them into fourths. $2.50

We then left the bakery area and got:

Brownie mix with chocolate icing $3.75

Cheez-it's for something salty $3.50

These weirdo little marshmallow candies called "Mallo-Licious" that are shaped like ice cream cones (Now that I actually write that they do seem a little weird) $2

Fruit - the watermelon looked good so I bought one and cut it is half to make a bowl.  The rest of the fruit was just what ever looked good.  Then I put the girls in charge of putting them onto toothpicks to make them look fancy. $16 total but we will be happy to eat the left overs

I made rice crispy treats and used a cookie cutter to cut them into flower shapes.  Then I added a little bit of melted candy on top.  But that wasn't enough so I pulled out my handy sprinkles and finished it off.  $4.30

Chocolate covered strawberry's $5

Chocolate covered strawberry marshmallows $4

    Plus sucker sticks just because I like them $2

Drinks were pink lemonade at 68 cents a 2L

    But I only bought two!!!!  What was I thinking!  Hannah came out all day Friday to help me prep.  She pointed out the error of my 2 2L logic and hooked me up with more drinkage.

Raspberry tea $2.24

Total food budget: under $65

And beer for me. 

::tea party treat bag::

I always get carried away with treat bags.

Totally carried away.

But I managed to keep myself somewhat under control for the tea party.

I kept saying - this is not a birthday party, just a fun party.  Chill OUT.

So I came up with this.

A white lunch bag with the top folder over and punched to add interest.

Tied to the outside are sunflower seeds.

Inside the girls take home the cup that they will decorate at the party.

 

Total cost:  

     Seeds - $.20

     Bag - $.05

     Tissue - $.05

     Cup - $.50 (50% off at Goodwill)

80 CENTS PER BAG!!!!  

My lowest total ever!!!!

The kids will also take home the paper hats and paper dolls that they will make

STAY TUNED FOR THE TEA PARTY PICTURES~!

 

 

::junior high is a big deal::

The junior high dance is a big deal -

To Emma. 

I was called over to her mothers house as the photographer.  

I accepted my mission.

Chucks always go with a formal event.

Josh wouldn't even look at her. 

Starting to crack...

Cracked.

Random poppy that just looked too pretty to not take pictures of. 

Luna was a big help.  

Not at all actually. 

Some day soon I will be taking junior high pictures of this kid.

Gulp.

I totally get the fact that I didn't give birth to this kid.

But I choose her.

I choose to marry her Dad.

And I was so in love with this little kid, too.

I love the little tween she has become.  

::look at my melons::

 Melon puns all summer long!!!  That what you have to look forward to!

Seriously.  It's time to plant the summer crops.

Josh retilled my new orchard garden and I got to work.

 Lily happily played with the worms.

What a little farm kid.

 

I am big in to sticks as garden tools.  In this case I used them to mark my rows.

Then I used the tape measure were my melon mounds would be. 

 I marked the location of the mounds with more sticks. 

 Then I went back and made the mounds at the markers.  

I then placed one stick in the middle of each mound. 

HEAVY grass clippings mulch finished it off.

The only problem is that Josh said it looks like a puppy graveyard (90% of the reason he said that was to get me to have a reaction, which I did).  But those melons better come up fast because it does sort of look like a small animal graveyard.  Just a little too "Pet Cemetery" for me.

 

 Then these babies finally got their home.

Josh retilled this row too.  We dug holes about two times the size of the plants, filled it with peat moss, and planted my pretty berries.

I REALLY HOPE THEY DON'T DIE.

Which is my fear with everything I plant.  

Heavy grass mulch on these pretties has them all tucked in.  

Two down, MANY more to go. 

See my two little raspberries?  On each side of the monster wild raspberry that Josh wanted to transplant in?  We will see how that all goes.  This is all a big experiment and I really have ZERO idea what I am doing with the raspberries.