Spring is in the Air!

orange blossoms (below)...nothing beats this smell! We have two Navel orange trees just now producing blossoms.

Spring is in the air here where we live. This weekend was just GORGEOUS! We were going to hit up the Strawberry Festival in Plant City, but decided to hang out at home and were inspired to plant some spring flowers outside. Of coarse, Rob had an even grander idea. Instead of just 'planting some flowers', he made a flower bed out back. He totally owned this project too. I didn't plant one thing. We used to have a butterfly house complete with flowers and a feeder, etc. We actaully grew Monarch caterpillars in it and had a successful summer where they were actually reproducing and laying eggs, allowing the cycle to continue. However, it wasn't as productive due to the fact that they were reproducing TOO MUCH and there wasn't enough food for these caterpillars. They all up and died in one week. Boo whoo. :( They were really interesting to watch and the kids loved going in our butterfly house and watching them, touching them and catching other species outside to add to our butterfly family. Of coarse, we would let them go after a bit, but they were fun to watch while we had them.

Now, our beloved butterfly house is a chicken coop and thus, we needed to move a spot for butterflies to come and dwell. :) Hence, our new butterfly garden built by Rob. It'll be interesting to see what visitors we get.

I have yet to plant some sunflowers this spring. I'm going to order my seeds (they're about $3.00 for a pack of 50 seeds) and hopefully, they'll come soon. Every year, I've tried planting the Mammoth Greystripes, but they never grow. (?) These babies are supposed to reach height of around 13 feet or something. You can plant them in a circle to provide a fun tee-pee effect for kids to play in. We'll see if this is my lucky year!

Here's some Elderberry I planted yesterday. Elderberry is a bush that grows berries which probably have the greatest amount of antioxidants you can find. They are SUPER healthy for you and have been proven to help fight colds and sickness. To plant them, it requires that you store them in the fridge for 4-6 weeks to get them to sprout. You have to keep them in a bag with damp cotton or moss, then plant them in soil. I have mine on our windowsill now. Also, my peas are sprouting!!! I'm super excited about that. They grow HUGE pods and produce around 10 peas per pod. That's great. My kids love going out to the garden and picking the peas we already planted, splitting them open and eating them. Norah is especially excited to eat them. There's such a difference between store-bough peas and fresh ones, just picked. Yummo!!!