Show me the sunflowers!

The other day, Mama Pea of A Homegrown Journal asked for her readers to show her their sunflowers, so here they are! Not as many as I would like this year, I kind of forgot... but thanks to our long growing season I was able to recover and let the kids plant a few!

If any of you remember my "mud clump" that I brought home last year, here it is - the green bush with no flowers yet in center of photo! A fellow Master Gardener had divided her perennial Maximillian Sunflower last fall and was kind enough to bring a truck bed-load of "mud clumps" to class one morning to give away. I am very excited to see it bloom this fall, it has grown immensely since I planted the 1'x1' clump of mud last fall!

I think it's time for her to visit the hive, she was so loaded down with pollen she was having a hard time fighting gravity and staying on the flower when I took this!

What a great way to start the morning... FOR ME!...

When I returned from my early morning harvesting and photo taking, I walked into the house to find my two kids up and had made themselves breakfast! Of course I would prefer they wear shirts at the table, but I'll take what I can get. I think we are finally turning a corner in the child self-sufficiency department. Only days ago my morning would have been greeted by them whining out the back door at me in the garden "I'm hungry, mommmmm!, NOW!"

This morning's harvest included the 1st Roma of the season, I would prefer a little more ripe, but as I was checking it fell off into my hand! Don't think those jalapenos are all that needed picking, there are at least 200 out there but I am ignoring them, just picked a red and green for a heat check!

I want to thank all of you who posted comments yesterday, I was having "one of those days", and it was so nice to know there are others out there making it work, and I got such good advice and inspiring words, I am ready to tackle today with a clear head. It is supposed to be in the low 100's today so I will be in the kitchen all day, and instead of brooding about budgets, I will be taking action! I plan on baking bread today, and organizing my cabinets better so I won't put it off all the time (like having the bread ingredients so high I can't reach them LOL). I have a renewed energy today for being finance-challenged and embracing it rather than ignoring it hahaha! Thanks for your support, everyone!

So Mama Pea, I see your sunflowers and raise you one "Summer Fridge"! How 'bout it, everyone? Let's see pics of your "stuffed away, don't know what I'm going to do with it, help me I hate this vegetable but can't bear to throw it out, pickled" fridge contents!

Oh yeah, some of you gave me way too much credit for my "mommying": don't think I'm super-mom with my kids all the time LOL, today for instance, with the heat they will be plugged in to kid's movies on tv all day or I would never get a week's worth of bread made and kitchen cabinets organized!

I was not abducted by aliens!

Whew, it's been awhile! I will start by showing you the kids' costumes for Halloween! I am happy they chose to be "scary" and not some random cartoon character this year!

Loch recovered from the Swine Flu quickly and I managed to keep everyone else in the house healthy throughout the ordeal! Although my hands permanently smell like the bleach solution I had resorted to carrying on a holster of sorts, lol.

Our Harvest Party was a screaming success, with over 17 kids and their parents in attendance. It was a great time, and a good mix of people. I had invited my online garden club, some kids from the boys' classes at school, neighbors, and personal friends. I was nervous about mixing all those strangers, but every one seemed to enjoy conversing and meeting new people, and they kids stayed so busy we hardly noticed them, except for the noise! They had plenty to do, painting pumpkins and gourds, lining up for Sailor/Farmer/Husband and his friend to give "tattoos", roasting marshmallows, and creating general mayhem. The adults were able to be involved in "grownup talk" so much so that I commented to my husband that he should fire up a real tattoo gun just to see how long it would take the parents to notice the whirring sound coming from the deck, lol. But that's the sick sense of humor that I have, luckily it is shared by a least a couple of my friends. I sadly did not get any photos that turned out well from the party, and I really regret not taking photos of the aftermath on Sunday morning cleanup. There were forks and spoons in the bushes, plastic cockroaches that started the evening embedded in ice cubes were later floating in a bowl of punch, pieces of childrens costumes strewn all over the yard, wet potato chips to clean up (we got a thunderstorm that night too!) and just quite a wonderful mess in general!

I had a couple of harvest pictures the past week or so, nothing spectacular. Below are the 3, yes, that's 3 carrots I pulled. I might add that these are the only 3, lol! I had every intention of doing the paper mat carrot thingie so eloquently explained by Annie's Granny... but alas, lazy girl took over and I didn't do it and this is all I have to show for it:
I can still plant carrots here, so I WILL do the paper & glue thing next week. Really.... I WILL!

My lettuces are all going gangbusters now with all you want to pick every day. There is assorted mesclun, lettuces, oriental greens, Swiss Chard and spinach. Also a head of broccoli was harvested one day the past week. Worms everywhere, ugh! I think no more broccoli plantings for me - it's pretty hard to get a kid to eat it when there are worms crawling out of it!

Here's your weekly dose of garden humor! Oh, how pretty the forgotten broccoli plant is, look at all the pretty flowers, lol! Kind of takes the "Master" right outta the Master Gardener, huh? Hey, I've been busy studying about the plant, not taking care of it!!! Anyway, it's gone now... pretty cabbage moths and all, lol!

I did make a pretty good salad the other night - with the addition of some pansies I ALMOST got the kids to try it. Almost, but not quite... although they were thoroughly fascinated as my Sailor/Farmer/Husband and I ate them!

A random pic from class this week... potted weeds! Our "Weed Professor" (yes, that got a snicker from the class even though we are all "grownups" now) brought in about 50 different weeds for an identification class. It was kind of funny to see them all potted up in a cultivation status!

Here is Finnegan brewing up a batch of Homebrew the night of the Vikings/Packers game. Even though we are far away, we had to honor the day with a batch of Saint Paul/ Summit Ave Extra Pale Ale clone recipe. I actually designed some labels for our brews that should arrive any day now. I could print them at home but honestly the extra expense online is worth it when the cost of ink cartridges and pain in the butt factor is figured in.

Lastly, today was the day! Our class of Master Gardener trainees graduated this morning! I am now officially a Master Gardener Intern. I am really looking forward to getting involved in some neat projects in the future. I highly recommend this program for those of you whose states/extension services offer it. I learned so much, and the speakers that the Virginia Tech Univ/Extension Service people brought in were top-notch. I met so many wonderful people and enjoyed it so much, I was a little sad to see the classroom phase end. I know that I will get the chance to work with them in the future, so it's exciting as well and I look forward to it.

A funny note to end on: When I got home today from graduation, I brought home a clump of Maximillian Sunflower one of my classmates had divided to share (thanks Amy!). I walk in excited about graduating and at the same time holding basically a ball of mud - I tell my husband "look what I got!" You should have seen the look I got. (I could see he was thinking "should I let this slide?", "should I look excited?", "should I have her committed?"). Later, I show Lochlann my mud clump and told him it was a "Major Award" and he flatly said... "that class doesn't sound like too much fun to me". Whatever, I LOVE my mud clump and can't wait to sink it into the ground tomorrow!