Fall Garden

The kids and I spend at least an hour a day out in the backyard and we love to garden together. What kid wouldn't love playing in the dirt?! We get on playclothes (most times, Lincoln is in a diaper only...I've learned my lesson!) and play shoes and head out back to conquer the unknown. :) We love chasing lizards, catching bugs and frogs, catching butterflies for our butterfly garden and we especially love gardening. Here is what's growing this fall:
strawberries, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, spinach, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, cucumbers, bib lettuce, pineapple (they take two years to produce though), rosemary (herb that I love to use in my chicken dishes or pasta), thyme, sweet basil, blueberries (they bloom in the summer though), blackberries, lemons, oranges, banana tree (won't produce this fall), mango tree (won't produce this fall) and some aloe. Here are a few pics...

Our new East Indian Mango tree. It's still too young to produce fruit, but maybe in a few years. It's supposed to have a sweet, yellow fruit that's good to eat. Rob and I love mangos and so do the kids. When we went to Mexico this past summer, the trees were just everywhere. I actually brought (more like smuggled!) back a few seeds and had luck planting them and they did sprout. Thanks to the pesky squirrels in our backyard, they ate them!!! I need to get a sling shot and begin some target practice if you know what I mean. These squirrels eat EVERYTHING in our backyard that we are trying to grow...new seeds, fruit and veggies from our trees and our garden, they eat from our compost pile, you name it.

Baby Navel oranges...I just got this tree from a local nursery a few weeks ago and was a little doubtful that it would produce fruit this fall, but none the less, it blossomed (nothing beats the smell of orange blossoms!) and we have a couple little babies on their way.

All different kinds of tomatoes

Our new baby banana tree

beans, cucumbers and lettuce

broccoli, peas and spinach