DIY Bottle Garden Markers {and my vegetable garden}

When I planted my garden this year, I knew I wanted some bright garden markers. I began scouring Pinterest to find something fun to make. I found some brightly painted stir sticks, some wine bottle labels, those adorable engraved spoons, and so much more.

I wasn't set on any one of those, but I liked the paint sticks and the wine bottle ideas the best. Since I don't normally have 10 empty wine bottles lying around (despite the contents of my recycling bin currently), I decided to use beer bottles instead. 

After removing the labels, I spray painted each one a different color. I made the label by cutting out vinyl with my Cricut. Once I stuck all the vinyl lettering on the bottles, they were ready for the garden.

So what's in my garden you ask?
This year, we decided to switch things up a bit from last year.
+We ended up with sooo many tomatoes last year, so we decided to go from 6 plants to 4 tomato plants this year.

+We also had plenty of cucumbers last year, so we stayed with our 2 cucumber plants.

+I most certainly did not feel like we had enough peppers last year, so this year we have 4 green pepper plants and 4 jalapeno pepper plants.

+We decided to give our onions another chance this year, because I was certain it was gardener trouble lastyear. I think we planted upwards of 12 onion bulbs this year, instead of buying an onion plant.

+ We decided to try strawberries this year, and so far they are doing pretty well. I had heard not to expect any berries in the first year, but so far we have one red berry and a handful more starting to grow. We planted 3 strawberry plants.

+ Adam really wanted to try growing sweet corn this year, so we planted 3 corn stalks. So far, we have at least past the test, because our stalks were knee high by the 4th of July!

+ I couldn't do without my cilantro and parsley to use in my guacamole and salsa, so we have those growing as well. Last year, I had all kinds of cilantro at the beginning of the summer, but as I cut it, the remaining plant started to brown. I haven't had the guts to cut it yet, but ti sure is growing like crazy. Any tips to prevent this from happening again?

Well, there you have it, our 2015 Vegetable Garden! Everything has really started to take off in the last week, and I can't wait to be picking veggies from my own back yard soon enough :)

Garden Update Part Two: 2014

Ladies and gentlemen, we have vegetables! Lots and lots and lots of vegetables!

The past few weeks, our garden has been giving us so many delicious fresh veggies, and we couldn't be more excited about it! At the beginning of August, we decided the tomato plants were getting too tall and the cages weren't able to support their height. A good problem to have, but still we needed a fix. We got creative with supplies we had on hand and ended up using zip ties to tie the to tall posts in the center of the plants.

Remember when I said I was excited for a salsa garden? Well, a salsa garden I got! I whipped up three batches of salsa last week, and I am planing to make even more this weekend. 

Not too much difference in August, at least not much that you can see from a distant picture. But if you look closer, there is a whole lot of growing going on in there.

It seemed to take forever for our tomatoes to redden, but now that they have, we have tomatoes growing out of our ears!

Our cucumbers are also doing great! One day I was saying how sad I was that none were growing, and then all of a sudden 8 were ready to pick. We have not been able to keep up with the cucumbers at all. For a while, every time we ate one, we picked two more!

Our peppers are also doing really well, but I decided I may need to double the green pepper plants for next year. We have had a decent amount of them, I just feel like if we have more, we would definitely eat them right up. 

We also planted red onions, and they grew, but they are very tiny. I just purchased them at a nursery and transferred them to the ground, but I am thinking they just didn't have enough room to grow. I haven't decided if I will plant onions again, but if I do I will be sure to spread them out. 

As our first garden, we are very pleasantly surprised with how well everything grew! 

We will most definitely be planting another vegetable garden next year!

How are your gardens doing?

Does anyone else have vegetables coming out their ears? 

Garden Update: 2014

After our vacation, it seems as though everything in our garden is really starting to grow. We have vegetables popping up everywhere, and I'm definitely not complaining! I thought I'd share a little garden update with you today.

As you can see, things sure have changed since my last garden post. Everything is doing great! We have tomato plants over 4 feet tall, a green pepper that's already 3 inches long, and baby cucumbers that are just starting to grow. I am also loving have a constant source of FRESH cilantro and parsley to add into my recipes. It's hard to tell what the onion is doing since it's buried in the ground, but so far everything looks good! The only thing that really didn't do well this year was our lettuce. When we got back from vacation it appeared to be all rotted (disgusting!), so we pulled it. 

How are your gardens coming along?

Happy Men Tell All Monday Friends!

It's Mexican night at our house, so I'll be enjoying a margarita or two while I wait to see Chris and Marcus one more time.

Wine Cork Garden Markers {and our first garden}

This year, we planted our first garden! I call it my salsa garden because I have every intention to ma ke all kinds of yummy fresh garden salsa with these vegetables. We planted tomatoes, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, red onions and cilantro. We still had some extra space, so we also planted cucumbers, lettuce, and parsley. Neither of us have really ever had a garden, so we can't really be sure we will have vegetables by the end of summer. We have just been watering the plants every night and things seem to be growing quite well. 

I decided I wanted to put in some garden markers, so I pulled out my wine corks, skewers, and a permanent marker. 

I simply wrote each vegetable on a wine cork with my marker, and then stabbed a skewer into the bottom of the cork. Within minutes, I had fun garden markers ready to stick into the dirt. 

And now we wait! Hopefully we will have vegetables coming out of ears in no time. 

What do you usually grow in your garden? 

I'm kind of regretting not throwing a few strawberry plants in there. There's always next year, right?

Have a great weekend!