June Garden

It's been one month and my garden had grown SO MUCH. I think June will be the garden sweet-spot for us. Almost all of the plants have started producing but the lettuce and peas haven't entirely dried out yet. Next month there will be lots more peppers and tomatoes, though, so I definitely have more to look forward to! Here's a peek at where we started. Now, let's see how much the garden has grown!


Peas! Cucumbers! Squash! All of these things are producing now and I'm so excited! The beans I planted this year were all duds, but the peas popped up nicely. In addition to these things, I have tons of kale, one HUGE zucchini, and our arugula is still going strong. Oh yeah, and I have a baby pumpkin! Remember those pink pumpkin seeds I mentioned in the May post? One of my plants has a baby!


In my second box, I have tomatoes that are ripening, tons of hot banana and cubanelle peppers, some poblano and anaheim peppers, and small bell and jalapeño peppers. There's an asparagus plant that I haven't paid much attention to and the sweet potatoes and onions are doing great!

While I was out at the boxes today, I noticed that I have squash bugs. These pests are flat bugs (they look a lot like stink bugs) that inject a toxin into a plant and suck the sap out. They are super annoying and can really mess with squash/zucchini plants and pumpkins. I'll let you know how getting rid of them goes.

 
Otherwise, June was great to us! I look forward to seeing all that July holds. Now-- off to make some salsa!

Styling Plants Around the Home

I think at this point most of us can agree that plants bring a fresh and calming element into the home... not to mention the fact that they're extremely addictive.  I enjoy seeing how others style plants around the house, so I thought I'd share some of my favorite green spots!


My favorite way to display smaller plants is in a fun grouping.  I love collecting fun planters and mugs and mixing them in with more traditional pots.  Throwing in little unexpected touches like this wooden bonsai tree from Under the Shade of a Bonsai Tree and the vintage kid's "chow chow train" are so much fun to me!

 
Since my living room is starting to feel like full on crazy plant lady status, I like to balance out my quirky vignettes with some more uniform and traditional groupings.  Basically, that's just so I can add allllll of the fun displays my vintage loving heart desires!


I do tend to keep the dining room and bedroom a little more traditional, so I guess I go a little extra overboard in the living room.  😉


I get asked a lot where I find a lot of my planters, baskets, etc. and the answer is almost always SECOND HAND SHOPS.  Places in your town like Goodwill or smaller thrift shops are usually great for $0.25 baskets and fun mugs.

Oh, and there are some places in my house where I'm not above styling with fake plants.  If there are places where I continue to kill plants over and over, I'll get some plastic guys to round out the bare spots.

I hope this was a fun read!  I just love seeing other people's home decor style, so if you have any links to yours, please leave them in the comments.

Also!  One more thing: one of our future projects might be white washing our bedroom floor.  You can see how rough it is in the photo above-- we have quite a bit of that happening.  Have any of you had good experiences with a project like this?  I need a good push!

Plants and Propagating Progress

I hosted a plant swap recently (you know I love gatherings) and it was such a fun night.  All of the ladies that came seemed to have knowledge of different plants and I feel like we all got to learn something.  I've struggled with succulents in the past (I know, I know... they're easy) and I'm having my first bit of success with propagation.  It's a small success, but exciting just the same!


Can you see the baby roots sprouting out?  I've become a little obsessive and probably check them everyday, but like I said-- this is the first time I haven't killed the babies immediately!  Yay! Basically, I just needed to stop "taking care of" the leaves and just let them be.  When they would start to shrivel, I was certain they needed water.  Nope!  They were forming roots and new babies.  Dry soil is your best friend here.  Thanks to all my IG friends who have answered a million of my questions!


I also learned that you can propagate Pothos cuttings in water.  It's recommended to plant them in soil after they start sprouting roots so they can adapt to soil a little more easily.  I have a ton of this plant around my house, so I'm excited to start sharing babies with friends!

I'm testing out some other propagation methods on various plants, so I'll let you know how they go in the coming months.  Do you have favorite plants to grow indoors?  I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of the trickier (for me) plants.  It's all a learning process, right?  xo.

June Garden

Whew.  Summer has officially gotten busy!  We've been traveling a bunch while trying to still keep up with all the things.  I took a small blogging break to give my mind a little break from one more responsibility.  It was seriously hard not to beat myself up about it, but it was a good exercise in self-forgiveness and self-love.  Now, here I am back at it and feeling good!  Shall we take a peek at the garden in July?

June has been my biggest produce month so far!  We are getting lots of peas and beans, the tomatoes are ripening (in big batches), and the sweet banana peppers and jalapeños are growing in!

The kale is officially a LOT to keep up with, the peas are getting to the point where they are drying out and probably won't produce much longer, and we don't have any squash or cucumber babies, but there are a lot of blossoms.  It's been a rainy June, so the head lettuce ended up starting to rot and I cut it all out.  If I do lettuce again I'll definitely do leaf lettuce so I can keep a better handle on it.  The broccoli, brussels sprouts, and bell pepper plants are getting bigger, but I haven't gotten any veggies from them yet.


My cilantro and basil are both bolting big time at this point, but the strawberries are shooting more and more and getting really big!  The squash is growing and reaching so much that it's starting to wrap all the way around the trellis.  I've made two batches of homemade salsa so far with the garden offerings and I'm certain there's more to come in July!

June was definitely good to us in the garden department!  xo.

May Garden

Guys!  My garden is shaping up quite nicely!  We've had a lot of rain this spring, so the plants are happy and perky.  Johnny and I finally finished the trellis and the climbers are really going after it.  You can peep my first garden post to see where we started.  Here is what the garden looked like in May:


I harvested my first bit of lettuce this week!  I've never tried lettuce and I'm pumped over how easy it's been so far.  My jalapeños and bell peppers are flowering, I have small green tomatoes on my plants, and the broccoli and kale have pretty much doubled in size since planting them.  My brussels sprouts are getting really tall and, after hours of separating them, my peas and beans are on the up and up (literally).  May was a good month for the garden and I seriously can't wait to see what June brings!