My little garden

Well it's sure been a mild winter, and now spring here in NC.  Which makes me a little concerned about what this summer may bring (in terms of heat).  But it makes me excited because we've been able to eat fruits of our labor in a our little garden already! :)  Here are some pics of our growing little place...

 The whole "container garden" as of now.  We still have a couple of plants (well seedlings) in a our little greenhouse inside waiting to get bigger before being planted outside.

 Our green beans are making their way up the stakes.  So cool huh?  It amuses me...although sometimes they get confused and get wrapped around the little fencing we have...then I have to gently unwind and place them on the stakes.

 Here you can see our mint plant on the left, peas in the back, part of the pot of the tomato on the right and the green beans in the front center.

 This year we decided to get a strawberry plant, and instead of getting a little one, we kind of splurged and got this big one that was already in a  hanging basket.  And as you can see it's already bearing some fruit!  Yummy!  :)

The layout again with some labels.  Our lettuce has really taken off and we've gotten several dinner salads out of it so far.  Hope it continues for a while...

Well, just thought I'd give you an update on the progess of our garden (or more like gardneing attempts.)  Hope you have a great week!  Our thoughts and prayers go out to those in the Dallas area after all that destruction.

Mini Container Gardening: Eggshells

So, my hubby and I live in this great apartment that is like a townhouse.  (Read: Two level apartment attached to a couple others just like it with a small porch in front and small patio in the back.)  We have some space to do some gardening but we are really just limited to container gardening inside and out.

We've started beans, cabbage, tomatoes, more herbs, wildflowers and petunias from seeds.  And we got a nice sized strawberry plant from the store.  I guess you could say that we've gotten pretty into it this year, which is definitely thanks in part to my Mom's suggestion getting some lettuce plants while she was out here a couple weeks ago.  We picked some up at the Farmer's Market and Rocket Scientist re-potted them promptly.  Tonight we actually got to eat some of the fruits of our labor (or our plants' labor) of some lettuce and one strawberry.  It was great too!  :)  

Really, if it were up to me...it would probably all die.  I forget to water things, and well, with the heat we've been having things definitely would be dead by now.  So it's a great thing that RS is into this too and takes care of watering all the plants!  :)  We also have a ficus, aloe, some heather (thanks to my Mom!), mini rose, basil, parsley and some african violets (thanks to my MIL).  Oh and a pineapple, and some other things...I guess you could say we're a little into this whole plant thing.  Anyway, when I saw a pin on Pintrest of this a couple weeks ago about using eggshells as little mini planters I just had to do it!  So here a the ones we started tonight.  I will post more pics later when they sprout!  :)

 Carefully break away some of the top of the eggshell and pour the egg out.  (Use in recipes, or for breakfast, etc...)  Then carefully wash or at least rinse out the shells.  Then place some potting soil inside.  (No need for a drain whole because eggshells are porous)  Plant seeds, cover with more potting soil, water and set to germinate!  :)  Pretty easy peasy.  (Read: I could do it, so can you!  Although I had the hubs do one so I could more easily take photos of the process, so those man looking hands really are man hands, not mine.  k?:)

I can't wait till these sprout!  They are going to be SO cute and I plan on using them to decorate our table on Easter!  :)