Sunny, Sunny tight with money, How does your garden grow
Friday, August 19, 2011 - Posted by Sunny - 2 comments
With peppers galore, zucchinis and more. And PRETTY corn all in a row!!

With putting the retaining wall in and finishing the backyard, we didn't get our garden in when we usually did. We were going to put a ton of good rich dirt up in the garden area so we'd finally have plants that did well. The logistics of getting a bunch of compost to our house became a problem and so we just got some bagged Nutrimulch and planted our seedlings and seeds in a mixture of our dirt and the Nurtimulch. This is how it looked the day we planted it on May 21.


This is where I planted my corn. I'd read that corn and pumpkins,melons and cucumber were good companion plants sharing space well so I decided to give it a try. If you look closely in between the corn rows every other space there is something planted. I put the pumpkins towards the fence and the melons and cucumbers towards the wall since I knew I wouldn't be harvesting them until the end of the season while the cucumbers and melons would be along the way.


This is the upper half of the garden with the peppers and tomatoes. I planted two peppers in a row but stagger planted the tomatoes because I wanted to give them enough space. I planted them on the closer side to the range they give you but planted one in front and the other in back thinking that would give them plenty of space. I also planted a summer squash and a zucchini in between my peppers and different varieties of tomatoes.


This is over by the house. I planted broccoli and then I finally planted a strawberry pot with strawberries. Hyrum has been SOOOO excited for this. The tomatoes on the porch are the tomatoes I started from seed back in April. I started them late and they just stopped growing at around three inches and two sets of leaves It took me until July to plant these babies outside because I was sure I was sending them to their deaths.


Can you see them? As it turned out five of them survived. I was rather surprised.

This is what the garden looked like at the beginning of July. Towards the corn end


I had to replant one of the varieties three times. I did three rows each of three different varieties. (Humm there seems to be a thing with three going on here.)

This is towards the corn and peppers end


Pretty good I thought. I was getting excited for how it would look when it was all filled in. This is what it looked like at the end of July


I've never had zucchini do well here. The first two years we were here we maybe got 2 or 3. This year it is going CRAZY! It's so fun. I think zucchini needs to be grown every two or three houses and spread far and wide though. Our neighbors on both sides didn't have much success with their gardens this year and we are keeping them stocked in zucchini and tomatoes.


Hyrum helped me plant some of the seeds and the plant that he has been most excited about and has done the best is this.


The 'Casper' Pumpkin. Can you see his shadow in the picture. He LOVES to look at it. He checks on it every day.


Most notable difference this year has been our corn success. Sadly I was too eager on our first ear of corn and picked it before the kernels had fully formed

But look at those kernels ALL of them are there. And it's a FULL ear of corn.

This year I've just noticed the beauty of the garden. Maybe because it is such a focal point of our backyard now but I've just realized how magnificent nature is



This is what our garden looked like at the beginning of this month.



I LOVE it! I think it looks so amazing. Better than I ever imagined it would be. I love the way the vines dangle over the edge of the wall too. I thought I gave every thing enough space but it has been tough harvesting because things have grown into each other. It's going to look so bare when we rip it out after the harvest is over.

And my tiny little tomato plants are thriving and even have little flowers on them and tiny little fruit.
It's been a GOOD garden year. Much better than our first attempt. Wonder what next year will bring. Hopefully more of the same.


Waging war
Monday, August 15, 2011 - Posted by Sunny - 0 comments
I don't know how I lived for 30 plus years, being a gardening gal and not known about the dreaded squash bug. I've been waging war for three years and only this year am I seeing results in my struggle. Because I don't want any one to suffer my defeats I want to share.

Have you ever gone out to to your garden to find your squash, zucchini, or pumpkin leaves looking like this



or worse yet...this

Then you'd better start looking closer because let me assure you ...You are fighting the squash bugs.

Since I can't stand to be that close to one of them without snatching it up that's the best picture I'm able to offer but there's a better picture on this link

You might think. Oh it's just one little bug or just two little bugs ( and you'll most likely find them closer to the center of the plant on the stem or underside of the leaves ) but where there's one there's bound to be two and where there's two there will soon be this


Those are their eggs. The darker they are the closer they are to hatching and then your in trouble.


These little sap suckers will spread like crazy sucking your plant dry.


The first year I tried using Sevin a pesticide but because of their armor you have to get it onto their soft underside to have any hope of it working. I didn't see much success from that they always seemed to get their eggs out there before they died. So I tried another tactic. Drowning. Brutal I know. It was horrible to watch them try to swim for so long then ultimately die. It seemed inhumane. So the next year I placed bricks next to each plant and when I saw them I picked them up (with a leaf...I'm girly like that) and smashed them between the bricks. I started to see some success but this year I've gotten to most of them before they lay eggs or before the eggs hatch and my plants are actually bearing fruit.

We'll be drowning in zucchini this year.


Move over Idaho Falls
Sunday, July 24, 2011 - Posted by Sunny - 2 comments


We'd heard from friends here in our neighborhood that the Mapleton Pioneer day fireworks were pretty good. So this year we decided to find out what all the talk was about. We went down to Ira Allan Sports park around 6 o'clock with our neighbors so that we could be there for the ping pong ball drop. We didn't know what that was but were intrigued by it enough to make the effort.

As we walked up a band was playing. It was a fun atmosphere. We were impressed already. We walked around and the boys immediately saw the playground. So the boys played (and ran cars down the slides ) while Derek went to find a spot to get settled.



Around 7 o'clock the call was made for all the kids 4-7 to make their way to the soccer field.


No parents were allowed to be on the field with them so Derek braved the crowds of parents while Noah and I hung back and observed what we could from afar. When we registered they put a green ping pong ball in a bag, then they would drop them from a helicopter.


When they dropped the balls, the bag got caught up and not all of the balls landed in the field. Which meant that not every one of the kids in the 4-7 group got a ball. Hyrum was one of them. :( He was so bummed. When they were giving the bikes away they made sure to mention that if you didn't win you still could redeem your ball in for a prize... but not if you didn't have a ball though. So sad. And yes they gave away probably 25 bikes that night! We didn't have room in the car anyway.

After all the bikes were awarded, the main entertainment began.

Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband. A pretty well known band in the state. They weren't bad. Noah particularly liked it.


While they played we tried our own fireworks. We brought along some sparklers for the boys to do while they waited.


Hyrum is a little more wary of them this year. He kept talking about how it was going to burn him. We didn't attempt more than one. Hope he enjoys them more next year.

We also got some glow sticks out to share. And it's a good thing we did because our neighbor's daughter wandered off after the fireworks and had she not had a glowy necklace on she might have not been found so quickly.

The firworks started around 10:30 but we were none the wiser. We were having fun and the boys were champs. And when they started we were in awe. We had been worried about getting a good spot and which way to face since we didn't know which direction they'd be coming from. As it turned out we had nothing to worry about...they were directly over our heads. This is the way Noah watched them.


There's nothing that can really let you know how it was. I tried to capture a visual with a video clip starting with Noah and panning up to where they were


Not sure if you can really tell. They were soo close. You felt every explosion and at one point I looked down and saw ash on the white shirt I was wearing. Pretty intense.


The music wasn't as coordinated to the fireworks as the Idaho Falls ones but there is no comparing the small venue and close proximity. At the end of the finale sparkling golden ash hung in the air for seriously two full minutes. It was amazing.

Best of all it took us probably 15 minutes to get home. And that was probably only four or five minutes more than it took us to get there. We are definitely going back next year.

What was funny is that a couple of days later ( the day after Pioneer day ) we heard noises and went outside to see this


This year aerial fireworks are legal in Utah and our neighbors have been taking full advantage of the opportunity. Not too bad! That's Noah screaming from excitement at the end. I was surprised that there were relatively few wild fires. The law might just stay. :)


10 years ago today...July 22
Friday, July 22, 2011 - Posted by Sunny - 0 comments
It was Sunday and after church he came over for dinner as he usually did. Then afterwards we went for a walk. I could tell he was wanting to have the dreaded "DTR" ( define the relationship ) talk and I didn't want to define it in words. I didn't want the heaviness of the conversation. He of course just wanted to know what in the world was going on and didn't want to be jerked around or waste anymore time.

We walked up Carterville road in Provo. Every time he began to get the courage up to broach the subject I'd make a joke or change the subject. I didn't want him to date anyone else and I didn't want to date anyone else either but I just wasn't ready to say that we were exclusive. By the time we decided we should turn around it was an hour and a half after we started and we were two and a half miles away in Orem. Right before we turned around though I felt the subject edging it's way towards the conversation and decided to try to avoid it with a different tack and took his hand. We walked the rest of the way back hand in hand.

When we got closer to our apartments we stopped and he finally got some information in a round about way. There was an understanding that neither of us really wanted to date anyone else. But we didn't hold hands when we got close to ward prayer...that was a bit too public yet.