Little P and The Garden

My little P....thank goodness he is a fighter too. What a strong boy he is. It's been about 1.5 since we discovered his growth and took him to the vet. The incision made by the lousy vet is now healing up nicely, but the growth is still very prominent. He's been refusing his antibiotics too. In the beginning, he used to take it quietly without protest, but lately he's been fidgety and frantic. I guess he is "genki" again (which means well in Japanese). He has about the same amount of energy, jumps around everywhere, eats normally, drinks normally, sleeps well. He just has that weird growth on him, which I'm hoping doesn't affect him too much. I love him the way he is, and I hope he stays with us for a while.

In other news, the Garden has been thriving beautifully!!! I'm so happy to see so many green tomatoes!! And for the first time, we have PEAS!! Yay for our little veggie garden! We have 2 small pods of peas right now. I hope they continue growing. Cilantro's doing well except there's small white flowers growing on them and the squash is still growing, no flowers yet.

(small pod of peas)

(so excited to see this!! Yes peas!)

(gorgeous cluster of cherry tomatoes)

Feeling Happy,
The Lady

The garden state

Well, a week being gone and some if not most of the veggies were just destroyed by pests and insects!! The butter lettuce, gone. Absolutely obliterated. Basil, non-existent. Kale, goodbye. Cilantro is doing okay, but needed some TLC. The peas were half eaten, some are surviving but it's not looking too good! So sad!! The only thriving plants are basically the tomatoes. Lesson learned about this......there is no such thing as organic planting. One cannot grow veggies without using some form of pesticides or pest control :(

(At least my tomatoes are thriving, if nothing else)

In other news, of course I've been enjoying my grandma's company while she is here in the States, as well as her home cooking. She's the best cook ever! I love everything she makes, including her world famous (just kidding) Potato Salad, which the Man loves as well, her Kinpira Gobo (burdock roots and carrots) and Shirae (tofu mixed with spinach and sweet miso). All my favorites!

(Chikuwa brought from Japan!)

The Man also finally finished (well almost) his work table project, which we started in February. It came together quite nicely but it's heavy and sturdy as heck. It took both of us to flip this table over.

My grandma loves organizing and one of her things is cleaning up the unwanted weeds and growing plants. She basically took off all the fern on the shared fence so the tomato plants could get better sunlight.

We also planted more basil since the original ones got all eaten up. I also brought back some Shiso seeds from Japan which we also planted. Hope they come out well this time!

Green thumbing it,
The Lady

Something's eating our veggies, Japan's calling

Well........ our garden is being eaten. Not by the Lady or the Man. By something, mysteriously. I think it's a caterpillar or slugs. We have been making progress with all the veggies except the basil!! SO sad considering that fact that I was looking forward to a plethora of basil and pesto this summer!! Dude.......

Our basil leaves have been eaten up and are hole-ly :( Boo, sad face. Don't know the exact cause either and it just seems to be our basil plant. A few holes here and there in the tomato and pea plants but pretty much everyone else is healthy! What's going on........

(The peas!! So healthy!)

(Yellow summer squash for grilling)

(YES!! Finally some cilantro!!! Salsa time!)

(nice leafy lettuce)

(Our swiss cheese, eaten up basils)

(tomato plant is thriving)

(there's a bunch of black dots on these)

(on the other hand, the Man has taken upon him to start a landscaping project and rip up the front yard. He's
putting mulch where the rose bushes are, rose bushes were prune by the Lady)

(Looks like a land mine!)

As for travelling, the Lady is leaving for Japan this weekend and can't be more excited!! Japan pictures to follow!! Time to eat some really good sushi and Bachan's home cooking!

Hungry already,
The Lady

Transplanting has started!

Finally, 1 month after we started building this raised bed planter (2.14.15), we filled up the planter with a mixture of soils and we transplanted and also planted some seeds! Yay progression! And it looks pretty rad too! I can't wait for the veggies to start growing. I have to put on a netting so animals can't get it to but it is pretty much complete. Now for the sun to do its work.

(Finally filled with lots of soil and worms!)

(The Man picking out WORMS from the garden....yuck)

(Transplanting has happened)

(I'm already out of space and I have so much more to plant!)

(It was so bloody hot this weekend, found
Little P in this odd position, pressed up against
the glass. Poor baby was so hot)

Impatient for some veggies,
The Lady

Spring Is Here: Vegetable Garden & Raised Bed Planters

So it's beginning to warm up...and it's only February!! We have had really nice weather so far, this week it has been in the mid-80s!! Wonderful weather!

Which only means one thing......time to start the vegetable garden! I have a nasty habit to start something (like a fun project such as this) and then lose interest and not finish it! However, this one, I have to finish, I want to finish!! I'm tired of running out to the grocery store and paying $2-3 for a bunch of basil and about $1 for cilantro! We use it so much, it should be readily available. Hence my motivation for really getting this veggie garden started.

I also want to plant some tomatoes, lettuce, kale, green beans, and herbs........a little too optimistic and  a little much for a novice?! Yes....perhaps. I have no clue what I'm doing. They probably won't even sprout. But well, here goes. I definitely want to do tomatoes because spending summers in Japan at my grandparent's house, where my grandpa always had tomatoes, cucumbers and all kinds of veggies, I definitely want that feeling again. We ate tomatoes for days and days, breakfast, lunch and dinner. There was so much, you didn't know what to do with it. It was fantastic. I would love a garden like my grandparents'.

So here we go. I approached the Man about this, to this he scoffed a little bit mostly because he knows how I start projects and then don't finish them....which basically means, he has to take over. I drew up some plans for my raised bed planter boxes and we're going to build them this weekend!! Woohoo!! Hope it all goes well! This is how we spend out Valentine's Day, building planter boxes and getting our backyard ready to plant some veggies (as in cut some ugly trees down, mow the lawn, pull out weeds!!)......ah do we sound like a bunch of retirees now? Lol.

Inspirations {found some neat images online}

(Gorgeous! I would love multiple planter boxes and a backyard this big!)

Our designs {I'm leaning towards Option 2}

Motivated,

The Lady