Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

What to do with All the Zucchini

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Trying to figure out what to do with all the zucchini?

what to do with all the zucchini

Yum

It’s zucchini season! I didn’t grow any this year. Sad. But other people did and around this time each year people are giving them away because when a zucchini plant does well, it does well. And when it doesn’t, we all curse the vine-borer grubs in unison and praise God for grocery stores and our friends who somehow fought off the nefarious and disgusting grubs. Ah-hem. Back to the yummy part.

What to do with all the zucchini?

Zucchini might be one of our favorite versatile vegetables. Here’s what I do with it:

  1. Chop it up and pan fry with salt and pepper and other stuff to make a quick skillet dinner: a.) garlic, onions, mushrooms, shrimp. b) garlic, onions, beef, cabbage. c.) garlic, onions, tomatoes, parmesan cheese. You get the idea: cook it and eat it for dinner with some meat and garlic and onions.
  2. Shred (or use the food processor to chop) and bake it into muffins, brownies, pancakes, waffles, breads, etc. Some people freeze the shredded zucchini to use for later. I have done this and I NEVER have good luck with it later. It gets all weepy and soggy and then I get weepy and never use it. Best of luck to you if you decide to freeze it. I’d rather bake the bread and freeze that instead.
  3. Cut in half, scrape out the middle and make pizza boats. (Broil, then melt on your pizza toppings. Dip in pizza sauce.)
  4. Slice in half, or chop, and roast, broil, or grill with oil, salt, and pepper and just eat it!
  5. Use a zoodle thingy and make noodles. Easy Alfredo and shrimp used to be my favorite with this.
  6. Have I ever been tired of zucchini? No, I have not.
  7. This is my announcement: I will take your extra zucchini.

Don’t let all the zucchini go to waste, let’s start baking!

Of course, Laura already put together many of her favorite zucchini recipes, but that was ages ago and you may have forgotten about it. Click through some of those recipes or search “zucchini” on this site for more great ideas.

Are you a zucchini lover like me? I used to only be a zucchini bread (which is usually cake, let’s not kid ourselves) kind of girl. But then I grew up and realized that as a vegetable it can take on the flavor of butter and garlic and I do so love butter and garlic. Here are some great recipes for you to try as the zucchini crop comes in.

Simple Oven-Baked Pizza Nachos

Finely chopped and baked over the nachos is a great way to sneak more veggies into this meal.

Last Minute Stir-Fry

Frozen chopped zucchini will be a little soggier than fresh, but it holds up better than shredded, OR just add a few fresh ones to your frozen veggie bags.

Zucchini Waffles

This is a pumpkin recipe. I know. You can sub one squash for the other. It will be fine. Really. Many popular baked zucchini recipes have so much sugar in them they may as well be cake… try a less-sugar option and top with just a few drops of maple syrup, honey, or nut butter.

Have zucchini for breakfast!

Why have we decided that most vegetables are for lunch and dinner? Here’s a quick breakfast that I’ve made many times already this summer: In a hot skillet I melt butter, fry up a chopped summer squash (yellow or green), add in a can of chicken (because it’s breakfast and people are hungry for the food), salt and pepper and (here’s the secret ingredient), a tablespoon or so of lemon juice. You must not forget the lemon juice. Once the chicken is warmed and the lemon juice has sizzled for a few seconds, we eat and dance and go about our day warm and well-fed.

In hindsight, I will need to make that one into an actual recipe post for you. You will need to be reminded of it again because it is so delicious.

Do tell, what is your favorite way to eat this amazing and versatile vegetable?

book cover of bluebird on the prairie Tasha Hackett is a friend of Laura and author of Bluebird on the Prairie, a historical romance set in an 1879 Nebraska town. Zeke has his sights set for California, but Eloise prefers the quiet safety of her home. Is it possible they’re both searching for the same things? Find this heart-warming romance wherever books are sold.

To find out more about Tasha and her world of historical fiction, connect with her at www.TashaHackett.com.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

About Our Garden and Our Cat. Wait. We Have a Cat?

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Did I just say our cat?

I don’t even know where to start.

Mostly I want to tell you about our garden, but what I have to share isn’t terribly exciting because most of our garden produce isn’t ready yet. (Yes I know it’s almost August. It’s a Nebraska thing. It’s also a Coppinger thing as we got our garden planted a little bit late this year. We blame this on the Nebraska thing.) So just pretend to be interested when I say, oh look – it’s a picture of green tomatoes that aren’t ready to eat yet.

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We do have a single yellow squash that appears to be an over-achiever. It got nice and big while we were away at camp, and while we wish it wasn’t so big and stringy, it will taste nice sliced and grilled along with some barbecue chicken. Otherwise though, there are no more squash ready.

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As you can hopefully see below, we have two tiny zucchini which will be ready soon. All the squash plants are full of flowers, so in a couple weeks I’ll be begging you to come take some off my hands. At the very least, you should share your favorite squash recipes with me.

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While we are lacking in abundant produce from our garden so far this year, there is one thing we are not lacking:

Bunnies.

I am here to tell you that bunnies are not cute. Bunnies are naughty. Like wag your finger and tsk like your great aunt naughty. Would you look at this?

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What is that in the picture, pray tell? That is a nothing. It was a green bean plant. But now it is a nothing. We have two whole rows of nothings. That is because all the bunnies (every single one of them in the whole wide neighborhood) held a meeting to announce that the Coppinger fam was doing this thing called church camp which means that they were not around to say “scat bunny!” for 14 whole days. They decided to get their party on. In our garden. Within our rows of green beans. Naughty, naughty, naughty.

We have about 1.5 green bean plants that just might survive, which of course will feed our family of six for two bites each. This leads me to tell about our cat.

I can’t believe any of what I am about to write, mostly because we don’t have a cat, nor do we want a cat, nor do we want any pet at all because do I or do I not have enough mouths to feed said the mother of many, many teenage boys.

So this cat. It showed up in our yard over the weekend all hungry and meowy and stuff. Before I knew it, my husband – my husband – was outside giving it some milk. Wha??? We know better than to feed stray cats, do we not? I think we do. “Why are you doing that?” asked the mother of many, many teenage boys.

He was doing it because he was mad at the bunnies.

Oh, well in that case.

Wait. Wha???

No, but really. Matt explained to me (and I’m assuming he’s done hours of research on this) that bunnies do not like cats. Having a cat around might make the bunnies run the other way.

Being quite mad at the bunnies myself, I suddenly joined my husband in liking and wanting the cat.

Seriously, who is writing this? Like, want, cat, same sentence – I don’t even know who I am anymore. But I weighed the benefits. Bunnies eating all my bean plants or a cat rubbing its back against my porch rail? It’s a no brainer.

By the next morning, our ten year old had named the cat Wiggams (or Wigs for short) (or Wiggie if it’s being especially cute). He asked for string to play with it, and made it a home out of a cardboard box (because cats love this).

Then somebody else – who shall remain nameless – found herself scooping some pieces of chicken and tuna from the fridge onto a little plastic lid to put into the cat’s house, calling “here Wiggams” while doing so, because poor little Wiggie looked hungry and oh my goodness what in the world and who even am I??

So are you missing this cat? If so, call 555-BUNNIESARENAUGHTY. Trust that your cat is well fed but now answers to the name Wiggams. If you take the cat, you have to also take all of the bunnies.

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I learned that if you say “look at the camera” to a cat, the cat will not respond accordingly. It’s like he doesn’t even appreciate the tuna. Dude. Wiggams. Just look up for a second.

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Okay, then.

I suppose this story is “to be continued.” Stay tuned to hear more about garden produce and a camera shy cat named Wiggams. But not about fresh green beans -because bunnies are naughty.

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Pictures of Last Week’s Food – and Why We Had Ice Cream Cones For Breakfast

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Before we talk about ice cream for breakfast, we should probably talk about lettuce. Spoiler alert: the ice cream we ate is the same color as the lettuce, which means that one of them has food coloring in it and the other doesn’t, yet I still let my family eat both.

Hahaha, I let them eat lettuce. As if they had to beg me for it. “Please Mom can’t we just have more salad?!” said none of my children ever.

I mean, they don’t dislike salad. They just like other parts of the meal better. But whatever. They are good eaters and they eat a wide variety of fruits and veggies and so what if they ate green ice cream for breakfast last Wednesday?

So lettuce. Let-us talk about that already. (get it? lettuce=let-us. that is so amazingly funny) Look what came out of our garden last week!

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We’ll be enjoying meal after meal of this lettuce from our garden as the rain has made our lettuce go crazy. (I won’t even tell you that none of the rest of our garden is even planted yet. Hello graduation preparation and bathroom remodel. You are cramping our gardening style.)

See what a pretty lunch we had the first day we picked lettuce? Creamy Mac and Cheese with peas and salad is the easiest lunch ever, by the way. (Can you actually call it a salad if you don’t add anything but Ranch Dressing? We were out of other salad veggies that day.)

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Now, about that green ice cream. First the back story:

About four years ago I surprised the boys by making Homemade Ice Cream for breakfast on our very last day of school. The following year, they declared that we had always had ice cream on the last day of school and that it was a tradition and that we simply must do it again. I believe they told me this at bedtime the night before our last day of school, which of course meant that while I loved the idea, I did not love the idea making homemade ice cream at midnight or 6:00 am. So I told them no, and then I decided on a splurge of all splurges and surprised them the next morning with not only store-bought ice cream – but a box of ice cream cones too.

(The “Best Mom Ever” Award went to me that day. But then I made them do their living room and bathroom chores so I immediately went back to “Best Mom Ever” status after breakfast.)

Anyway, the Last Day of School Ice Cream tradition has continued (which I only do because we home school because it would truly be wrong of me to feed my kids sugar cones filled with drippy sugar and then send them to be instructed by other adults). The three younger boys finished their school work last Friday, but patiently waited for Asa to finish his last college final on Tuesday (he’s been getting dual credits for high school/college this year – woot!) so that we could celebrate by having ice cream for breakfast.

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It was grand. But now we should probably talk about vegetables again.

I hit some great price matching deals on berries this week. 99¢ for blackberries? Yes, please. Plus I got great prices on strawberries and raspberries. We’ve been eating these delicious fruits with just about every meal, so these are already almost gone. (We put the food away at our house, I’m telling you.)

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Don’t ask me why I bought mixed greens this week. Hello, Laura. Your garden is kicking out lettuce right now, remember??

Have any of you ever tried that Hormel Natural Choice Bacon? I was excited to see it at the store since it is a “better for you” brand. It was quite tasty!

Friday night I experimented with another new recipe we all loved: Sloppy Salsa Chicken. Don’t tell, but I’m almost finished with a project I’ve been working on for several months in an effort to simplify our (yours and mine!) evening meal time. Later this week, I plan to reveal some packets I’ve been putting together which include recipes, complete grocery lists, and instructions for creating five meals that can be made ahead all at once, then frozen for fast real-food meals for your family. Details coming!!

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Here’s a little sneak peek at one of the packet cover pages:

Eat Right Away Beef Edition 50

There’s also a Chicken Edition, and then I’ll be working on several additional editions (I couldn’t resist) for the future like breakfast, lunch box, ground turkey, and others!

So back to last week’s food details. It was a Bountiful Basket week for me, and I almost bought the whole truck. Man, we get some good deals from BB!

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Along with all you see here, I also got a huge box of sweet corn. Which leads me to Mother’s Day.

I wanted grilled burgers with watermelon and sweet corn. So that is what my men made me. As you can see, I worked on my corn and melon before my burger. Ooh, and Matt put some fresh asparagus from our garden on the grill too. So yum.

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After we digested, we played our traditional game of three-on-three Mother’s Day soccer. I so stink at soccer. But it sure was fun.

One final bit about last week…

Some sweet friends gave me a basket full of thank-you gifts and look what was included!

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Yes, it is a coffee mug that is almost as big as my head. Almost. As you see here, I filled it just about to the top. This meant that after I finished drinking it on Saturday morning, I absolutely did conquer the world and solve all of earth’s biggest challenges (it’s a caffeine miracle).

So there you have it. Berries, vegetables, ice cream, and a huge mug of coffee. That about sums up last week for me. (I also did laundry and cleaned, but who wants the boring details on that? No one.)

Tell me about your week in food! Find great deals? Make yummy meals? Drink giant-sized mugs of coffee? Splurge on ice cream? Share, share, share!!!

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Gratituesday: God is Stronger Than a Hail Storm

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In early June, our garden looked like this:

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Full of plants protected by buckets looked like this:

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A few days later, a hail storm came through, and our garden looked like this:

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It seemed as if we had lost everything. Our rows and rows of green bean plants had no leaves left. Our pepper and tomato plants were completely broken down. It looked like nothing had survived. We decided to replant a few green bean seeds, and consider the rest of the garden to be a loss. It would be a small garden this year, and we would just make do.

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But guess what? God is bigger than any of our gardening efforts, and He is most certainly bigger than a hail storm!! We left our broken, leafless plants alone. Within a few weeks, they had turned back into thriving plants again. Amazing!!!!!!!!!!!

Not only that, we had a lot of rain this summer and fall – so much so that our garden and all the fruit trees around this area have been kicking out the produce like I’ve never seen before. So now, our garden looks like this:

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So many beautiful peppers!

Our green bean plants have provided bucket after bucket of green beans. We’ve eaten them to our heart’s content – 4 months of fresh-from-the-garden green beans!!! And we’ve frozen many gallon-sized bags of beans too. We’ll be enjoying them all winter!

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Our tomato plants are still giving us many tomatoes every day. Plus we’re picking spaghetti squash and honey dew melon.

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An orchard nearby has had the best “apple year” I’ve ever seen. These bags keep making their way into my kitchen (and the kitchens of my friends). We’re eating all we can hold, and making jar after jar of Homemade Applesauce.

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All this to say – we thought we’d be done enjoying garden produce by June after the hail storm was so destructive. The joke’s on us.  We started canning and freezing produce in July. Here it is the end of October and we are still going strong. I usually have my canning supplies packed away by now. Not this year. There’s still applesauce to make and green beans to pick. I am amazed! I shouldn’t be though. Isn’t it just like God to show us in such mighty ways of His love and care for us?

Here’s a fun peek into our pantry and freezers. We have over 50 jars of applesauce, and I’ll be making more this week and next. This batch turned out so pink, it looks like I added food coloring! Nope, just straight empire apples. So pretty!

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Some friends gave us cucumbers, so I made about 40 jars of dill pickles. It was a fun experiment and they turned out great!

dill pickles

We bought sweet corn at a road-side stand in August, and froze about a dozen quart-sized bags. Pay no attention to the fact that I desperately need to defrost my freezers. I would if I wasn’t so busy canning and freezing produce.

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I’ve stuffed bags of green beans in our freezers as I’ve found room. Pay no attention to the fact that I desperately need to re-organize my freezers. I would if I wasn’t so busy canning and freezing produce.

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Our peach tree did pretty well this year, so we canned about a dozen quarts, and froze several bags of sliced peaches for smoothies.

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Next you see a mixture of Sweet Pickle Relish (from the cucumbers our friends shared with us), Homemade Salsa, and more Applesauce.

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As you can see from the above picture, I’m no longer organizing the jars as I fit them into my pantry. I’m at a point of simply trying to find room for it all. Dozens and dozens of full jars of produce! It is so exciting!!

I’m so grateful for the bounty and for God’s sense of humor. There may have been a hail storm, but that didn’t stop God from giving us one of our best garden years ever! Go God!

What are you celebrating this Gratituesday? Leave a comment to share what you’re grateful for!

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Menu Plan For the Week (Have I Told You How Much I Love Food?)

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We were in the kitchen putting dirty dishes into the dishwasher together after lunch. As is common after a meal, we were all discussing what we needed to do the rest of the day and how it was all going to get done. Beyond our normal “at home” work, we had two outside commitments to keep: 1) Pick up our food co-op order and 2) Elias, age 12, had soccer practice in the evening.

When Elias realized he may be at soccer practice when the Azure order was brought into the house, without thinking he said, “Wait. Can you maybe not put it away until after I get home so I can look at it first?” Quickly, he grinned at himself for requesting something so silly.

I think this kid is a lot like his mama. There is nothin’ silly about wanting to stare at food. Right? Right???

I see food and I’m like, “Oh my goodness! Look at the beautiful green beans and all the deliciously juicy grilled meat! The canned peaches are sooooo pretty and see these great potatoes that I just got at the farmer’s market?!” But then there are those of you who are like, “there. is. a. watermelon. and. some. other. food. please. pass. the. salt.” Do you mean to tell me I haven’t yet convinced you all of the joy of staring at food? I’ll keep trying.

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EEEHHEEEE!!! IT’S SEVERAL DOZEN SWEET CORN FALLING OUT OF BAGS!!!!!!!!

Well anyway, it seems that Elias and I are very similar when it comes to our love of food. He loves going to the grocery store with me – just to look at all the food (and, of course, to smell the pineapple’s bottom). He loves seeing our Azure orders and our Amazon Subscribe and Save orders come in. He likes looking into the pantry to see all the goodies. He loves looking through cookbooks to get new ideas. He loves chocolate and desserts. Hopefully, eventually, he’ll love eating vegetables. We’re working on that one.

So…food. This time of year is so rockin’ with all of the amazing FOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!! Who’s with me on this? Peaches and nectarines dripping with sweet juice. Sweet corn dripping with butter. Watermelon dripping down my chin. I’m not ashamed. I love this time of year. 

We got home from our anniversary trip and had to get to work right away putting up fresh garden produce. It’s hard work! But the bounty and the goodness of this food?! There’s so much to be grateful for. We’ve been picking, snapping, blanching, and freezing (or eating!) green beans. We found a great price on sweet corn (see beautiful picture above) and got several dozen shucked, blanched, cut off the cob, and frozen. This week, we’ll be making fresh salsa with tomatoes and peppers from our garden. We’re frying okra from our garden and eating it like it’s candy.

Meat off the grill with all these fresh fruits and vegetables on our table? Well, it is just incredible.

I’ll take the hard work. I’ll step around overflowing compost buckets and stand over a steaming pot of boiling water in a hot kitchen. Then Elias and I will stare at it all and imagine how great it will be this winter when we can pull this goodness out of our pantry and out of our freezer to eat.

Having said all of that, you can imagine how much fun I have making a meal plan this time of year. With all the fresh variety available – healthy menu planning is awesome.

Speaking of menu planning, I’ll let you in on a little secret. This weekend, we finished a project we’ve been working on! Watch for details of how you can get this resource for free. :)

123 Meal Planning Cover sm

Here’s our menu for this week. (Won’t that food be fun to look at??!!?!)

Sunday, August 17
Creamy orange cooler, granola, blueberries
Italian cream cheese chicken, tossed salad, cherry tomatoes, green beans
Grilled burgers, tomatoes, lettuce, homemade pickles, watermelon

Monday, August 18
Green machine milkshakes, giant breakfast cookies, raspberries
Pasta salad bar, cantaloupe
Grilled barbeque chicken, corn on the cob, fried okra, peas, grapes

Tuesday, August 19
Crock pot breakfast casserole, nectarines
Hamburger sauerkraut dip with tortilla chips, cherries, kiwi
Grilled Italian chicken, baked potatoes in the crock pot, green beans, tossed salad

Wednesday, August 20
Pancake and sausage muffins, cantaloupe
Spanish rice with taco meat, spicy avocado dip, fresh pineapple
BLT wraps, sweet peppers, carrot sticks, strawberries

Thursday, August 21
Pineapple mango smoothies, fried eggs
Black bean chicken nachos, olives, pineapple
Beefy enchilada bake, tossed salad, strawberry/peach/apple fruit salad

Friday, August 22
Instant oatmeal packets, blueberries and strawberries
Cheddar ranch burgers, cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, watermelon
Chicken salad with crispy cheese crackers, sweet peppers, honey glazed carrots, peaches

Saturday, August 23
Cheesy scrambled eggs, strawberry-peach-orange smoothies
Leftovers
Taco salad, nectarines

I’ve asked before but I’ll ask again:  Who likes staring at food?

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Here Today, Gone Tomorrow.

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Remember all the lovely pictures of our garden that I took on Monday and shared for Gratituesday? Those pictures are all we have left of our garden.

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Here’s what our spinach and lettuce looked like on Monday.

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Here’s what our spinach and lettuce looked like the very next day.

Tuesday night (yes, the very Gratituesday I had shared those happy garden pictures), a huge hail storm hit our town. It smashed our garden all to bits.  Seeing how this hail storm effected all of our garden areas, we sure hate to think what the farmers around here may have lost.

Can we replant? Probably. Will we? Yes, it’s not too late to replant some of it. Is this the end of the world for us? No, but it is a huge disappointment. It was a lot of work, many hours, and quite a few dollars worth of plants and seeds – down the drain. I know this loss could have been a million times worse. Our home is fine. Our children are fine. Nobody was hurt. Still, waking up to a sad garden mess was disheartening.

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Most of the leaves on our pepper, okra, and tomato plants were broken off.

The moral of the story:  We can make plans, work toward a goal, and look forward to something – but the end result is never really up to us. We just get to sit back and trust God.

We’re thankful that God knows what we need and that He will provide – even if it might look a little different this year. We’ll be grateful for the handful of plants that seem to maybe be surviving. We’ll get back out there and put more seeds and plants into the ground. Who knows but that “Garden…round 2” may be better than ever?!

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Gratituesday: Our 2014 Garden

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gratituesday[2]

It’s that exciting time of year when we start to see little plants popping up in our garden. Want to see how my garden grows? Here, I’ll show you my garden plot(s), then I hope you’ll tell me about your garden if you’re growing one this year too!

We’ve already enjoyed lots of spinach and green leaf lettuce. See the jungle of spinach behind the lettuce? It looks terrible – but we’ve actually let it go on purpose. It will re-seed all by itself this way, then give us another crop in the fall. Then, it will come up again on its own next spring. It’s a pretty nice system. (We do the same with the green leaf lettuce.)

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It doesn’t seem like much to look at yet, but we have several rows of green beans. We see some gaps in there that tell us we’ll need to replant a few.

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This year, we’re trying okra again. It takes a lot of heat and sun for okra to grow well, so it doesn’t always work here in Nebraska. Here’s hoping!

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Here’s a close-up of one okra plant:

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Notice how we have plastic buckets and such around many of our plants? (And by we I mean Matt and the boys. I can take no credit for all this work!)  The protection around our plants is an effort to keep the bunnies from getting to them. Those “cute wittle wabbits” are sooooo stinkin’ not cute when they nibble and kill our plants. ;)

Matt uses our raised garden bed area for a variety of sweet peppers. These are his babies. :)

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Here’s a sweet pepper close-up. Surely the rabbits won’t be able to climb up the slippery tin surrounding the plants!

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Our back yard “L” shaped garden plot has all of our tomato plants this year. If we get a good crop, I’ll be able to make a year’s supply of tomato sauce, tomato soup, and some salsa.

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Somewhere in one of those plots, we also have a couple hills of spaghetti squash planted. We never plant cucumbers, summer squash, or zucchini because everyone around here always has plenty to share!

So how about you? Do you have a garden this year? If so, what are you growing? And what else would you like to share about this Gratituesday? What are you thankful for?

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Putting Up Green Beans From Our Garden

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Our green bean plants are beautiful this year. Matt and the boys have been picking beans like crazy. I guarantee that when they bring a bucket of green beans in to me, I display a much more excited reaction than if they were to bring me a bouquet of flowers. Garden produce makes my heart flutter. :)

Here was our counter-full of beans last week once we picked, snapped, and blanched them for the freezer. (Don’t you worry. We ate a bunch of them too.)  :)

You can learn more about how we prepare green beans from the garden here. Even if you don’t grow your own beans, I’d recommend looking into purchasing fresh beans from your local farmer’s market or another resource near you. They are soooooo good!

If you have any fun homemaking tips, we’d love for you to share them in the comments section or link them up here today. Feel free to share kitchen tips, cleaning solutions, recipe ideas, cooking short-cuts, household money-saving suggestions, decorating ideas, gardening tips, or anything else you feel fits this category. (No product reviews or giveaways – thanks!) As always, when linking your blog post, please post a link back to this blog so that your readers will know where to find more Homemaking Hints.

 

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Gratituesday: Garden Beauty

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Several have requested to see pictures of our garden this year. I figured what better day to share them than Gratituesday?!

I can take very little credit for our beautiful plants this year. Matt and the boys have been working hard with little help from me out in the garden. Matt does such a good job keeping up with it and has some great veggies planted. 

He planted quite a bit of okra, so we’re hoping to get a nice crop so we can eat a bunch and freeze a bunch. Okra sliced and fried in a little olive oil is the best!

Here’s a shot of part of our peach tree, which is loaded with fruit this year.

Our tomato plants aren’t very big yet, but they are starting to get little yellow flowers all over them, and you know what little yellow flowers means on a tomato plant right? (BLTs – of course.)  ;)

Here are Matt’s babies, the sweet bell peppers, which he planted in a raised garden bed that he built. We can’t wait until these are ready to pick and eat!

This is kind of a funny shot, so let me explain. Matt planted four long rows of green beans. For whatever reason, one row is doing awesome, as you can see. The other three rows decided to be rebellious. However, we ate our first picking a few nights ago and they were so delicious I thought I might pass out. Here’s hoping the one long row that actually grew will continue to provide lots of beans!

Malachi planted one pumpkin plant, and is very excited to see a yellow blossom growing. He has plans to grow the biggest pumpkin ever, but hopefully he’ll settle for a regular ol’ pumpkin when the time comes. :)

I’m so grateful for my family’s hard work in the garden, and so very grateful for God’s goodness in how he always provides for us!

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Gratituesday: Gardening Season Begins

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I know it doesn’t look like it yet, but there will soon be lettuce and spinach in this garden plot you see here…

Talk about exciting! I didn’t even know Matt was planning to get started on our garden until he already had this space dug up and some seeds planted. With the weather being unseasonably warm for days on end, we are starting a little earlier this year.

We’ve begun making plans for the rest of our garden. Matt even found some asparagus to plant, which will be a fun new addition this year. Now we just have to work on not getting too hungry for the fresh produce while we wait for it to grow!

I’m so thankful that we have space to plant a garden – and that we were able to get started with our growing season already. Bring on the fresh salads!

Share how God is working in your life on your blog, then come link up with us here. If you don’t have a blog, be sure to leave a comment letting us know what you’re grateful for! Please read through the Gratituesday Guidelines so that you understand what kinds of posts you can link up to share here. Posts that are linked but do not fit our Gratituesday theme will be deleted.

If you are linking up a blog post for Gratituesday,
please copy and paste the following sentence into your post! Thanks!

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

 

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!