Egg Carton Gardens

Whenever we buy eggs I think about how we could do something fun and creative with the cartons.

And every time I just throw them in the recycling.  

But not anymore! 

I've decided I'm going to start doing things with these wonderful little egg holders.  

So for our first project we planted seeds.

First we painted them in our jammies. {and yes, my floor often looks like this}

Meticulous painting.

Then we added some glitter because, why not? :)

Later that day we went out back and filled them with soil.

And then we quickly came inside to plant the seeds because the gnats were EATING US ALIVE.

We planted some zinnias, sunflowers, parsley, oregano and carrots.

And now we wait...

Except LOOK what I just found!!

I can't wait to show Cambria in the morning.

Borscht!

Do you like beets? Do you hate them? Are you not sure? Either way, you HAVE to try this borscht recipe I made earlier this week.  After trying borscht that was actually made with beef broth {didn't know until after, oops!} I knew I wanted to try to make a vegetarian version that was just as tasty.  So I stumbled upon this recipe on theKitchn and decided to give it a try.  It was a HUGE success!!! I'm now seriously obsessed with the recipe and will probably be making it again very soon.  I don't want to post the ingredients or the directions because I'm not sure if I can do that so just follow the links. 

It went perfect with grilled cheese on some bakery bread.

The sour cream on top makes it creamy and delicious.

The kids both gobbled it up and had second and third helpings.  The color of the soup is a little deceiving because it actually has a very rich and hearty flavor despite the reddish color caused by the beets.  Please try this recipe if you are looking for a new delicious soup in your life! And let me know what you think if you do. 

On a side note: can you guess what we attempted to do yesterday but couldn't because I forgot cash?

I had just run 3+ miles while pushing 70+ lbs of baby and stroller, please excuse my looks :)

Yep, strawberry picking season is back! Can't wait to pick a ton to freeze them for the rest of the year. Spring is here and so is the pollen, gross.  But I'm wondering what the heck happened to "winter" because I never felt it...

Recent Recipes

I wanted to share a few things I (we) have made recently that have turned out delicious.

First, this Pasta with Butternut Squash, Sage, and Pine Nuts.  It's more of a winter/fall dish, but since we got some butternut squash in our veggie box from the co-op, I found this recipe online. I've never cooked with sage before and was pleasantly surprised by the flavor it brought to this dish. 

Kyle found this awesome vegetarian stuffed pepper recipe.  It had beans and quinoa, great for us vegetarians.  I paired it with this cole slaw recipe which was also tasty and different from your usual cole slaw because it had red pepper and apples. 

I made strawberry and banana Nutella crepes on Friday for breakfast.  Yummmmmmmy!!! Any crepe recipe will do and just add the rest to enjoy this DIVINE dish. 

And yesterday evening we used our new grill  to grill a few pizzas.  The Red, White, and Green pizza was burnt on the bottom and not done enough on top, but the Balsamic, Onion, and Goat cheese one turned out perfect.  If that combination is your style please give it a try, you will enjoy it. We used onions and a tomato from our garden, twas exciting!

Soooooo tasty.

The first tomato of many.

Cute onions, freshly picked.

 Hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend!

Our Garden

 This was our garden on it's very first day of existence.

 And this is our garden today.

I've been wanting to blog about our garden for a while now, but have been putting it off for some reason.   And I had wanted Kyle to write this post since the garden has been completely his doing, but he wasn't into it.  Oh well, you'll just have to hear it from me! :)

It all started when Kyle bought this book on amazon called Square Foot Gardening.  The whole idea is basically using a lot less space for your garden by planting everything in a raised bed that is divided into 16 square foot boxes.  It uses less space and can be placed anywhere, even on a city balcony or porch, as long as the garden would get enough sunshine!  So after lots of talking about it, one Saturday we finally headed off to Home Depot to gather all the supplies. 

The first step was assembling the box. 

First he screwed 4-4 foot cedar boards together.

Then he screwed these 6 pieces of wood together to make the grid.

Pootie was a good little helper.

All finished!

It was then moved to the backyard.  And this spot was picked after lots and lots of discussion about where it should've gone..

The book explains how to create the perfect soil mixture: peat moss, vermiculite, and a few different types of compost.

He then mixed it all together on this tarp.

He lined the bottom of the box with weed-blocker-fabric and then filled it with the soil mixture.  And finally we (Kyle) got to plant everything!

The garden is filled with lots of yummy veggies: red (actually green) peppers, spinach that was replaced by corn because it was a FAIL, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, carrots, lettuce, more peppers, watermelon, basil, zucchini, more squash, and strawberries which also failed.  We also planted some marigolds to help keep the buggies away.

Baby Garden.

Now I'm gonna show you a few of the treasures that have started growing.  WARNING: I feel like a proud mother showing these photos, but if pictures of plants bore you, please do not proceed.

Our lettuce on the first day.

And the FREAK lettuce today.  It just keeps growing and growing!

Little baby basil and squash.

And the basil and squash today.  I've probably picked about 6 cups of basil off these already.  These squash have really only been successful at smothering all the plants surrounding it...

Eggplant and tomato plant.

Our b-e-a-utiful eggplant today! So proud of that thing, I think it may be my favorite :)  Kyle built a trellis to support and train the plants.

The tomatoes today.  One is even turning red!!!

Green pepper that should've been RED.  Those home depot peeps are liars.

The baby carrots today.  These started off as seeds, so this progress is very exciting.

Petite bell peppers today.

Zucchini today.

Our failure at life spinach that we recently replaced with corn.

Kyle LOVES this garden.  Everyday he comes home from work, says hello to us, and then heads out to tend to it.  What a good garden daddy he is!  I love it though because we all hang out outside for a while and Cambria has a blast watering the plants and helping Kyle.  She also likes to sneak up and steal tomotoes that aren't yet ready to be picked... But seriously, I love that she is (literally) getting down and dirty with dirt and is already able to realize where some of the food she eats actually comes from.  I know a lot of children will never have that opportunity, so I am very grateful my children can experience it. 

Cambria was feeding the garden dirt.

See :)

So far, we've eaten lettuce, basil, and onion.  Hopefully soon more of the goodness will be ready to be picked and eaten! The whole gardening thing seemed scary and intimidating at first, but it's really been fun.  Oh and we will be able to use this bed for a long time, as long as the wood holds up.  I think everyone should give gardening a try, even if it's one little plant, the satisfaction of seeing your work produce something feels fantastic!