basil

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend! Mine was filled with family, fun, and food! Just the way I like it. Got some yummy recipe posts for later in the week too. For now, a photo catch-up.

In her dress for the fourth!

Despite this picture being blurry and not well framed, I still love it. I love seeing the looks of joy on my favorite two people!

Beach trips! The water is still too chilly for me, but the miss just runs on in. Luckily Daddy is willing to go with her!

My herbs are doing great! Right now I’ve got oregano and basil up on the drying line. The oregano is actually ready to crush and get bottled. Also, pardon my chicken scratch menu board there. 😀

She’s such a serious painter.

Reading to her stuffies during quiet time.

I always pack candles when camping, and I love the wax stalactites that taper candles make!

Sometimes quiet time turns into a nap.

I guess I was pretty child focused with this weeks bunch! What can I say, I just love taking photos of her. I think I’m going to start finding some prompts to follow along with (besides #creativedaily) – maybe even a new photo challenge! Do you participate in one?

Spring has finally arrived here in NH. 90% of the snow is gone, the temps have hit 50+, and it is so gorgeous! I can’t wait for everything to start greening up.

We’ve been going on a bit of planting spree to get our seedlings started (we grow all our veggies direct from seed) and get some flowers and herbs going in pots. I wanted to do some more things indoors this year, so we decided to do a few new attempts.

First we snagged some plain terra cotta pots for my little to have. Of course, they had to be decorated. She was thrilled to be able to use ‘grown up’ paint and pick out her own colors.

One painted, we planted radishes in the bigger pot, and marigolds in the small pot, which will eventually be transferred to the garden. Marigolds are pretty much the perfect garden plant – they attract bees to pollinate, but deter harmful bugs and pests. We’ve got more pots of them growing for transplants too!

Then we took some mason jars (we used tall quart size, but any big size would work) and planted some basil, lavender, and cat grass! The cat grass is more an experiment to see if our cats would actually eat it. It has grown incredibly quickly, and our kitties love it! We are now planting more in a large planter outside so when we take our big kitty on outdoor excursions he can munch away.

First basil sprouts!

Lots of lavender coming – gonna need a trim!

In regular seed starters we’ve got our tomato and broccoli seedlings going. The little went just a tad overboard on the seeding, and this batch is clearly going to need some thinning!

Our first broccoli sprouts just popped up yesterday. We are going to be building our first raised bed in the coming weeks – I’m so excited! Posts on that adventure for sure, and definitely more plant updates!

If you have a garden, what do you grow? I’m looking into adding a container raspberry bush and planting strawberries – any advice?

-Kayly