Werd.

I know gardening tends to pique children’s interest, not to mention keeps them away from the TV, and keeps me from having to be on a computer. Tidah loves to pull weeds and plant things, and does a good job with keeping up on watering things, and pulling off unnecessary, or dead leaves off plants. Although there are tons of outdoor activities to do in Souther California, we tend to do a lot in the backyard especially when there isn’t the want to drive anywhere.

This year we planted a few things, and came out fairly well. Tidah’s pride and joy so far has been the Strawberries and  BlueBerries. There have been a ton of strawberries this year, just about a bowl full of them each week. The blueberries,  not so much, however, the previous owner of the plant apparently didn’t take care of them very well, and with the soil  that they were in was pretty much dry and low on nutrition, we spruced it up with Miracle Grow and some Azalea  food. Blueberries love the acidic taste.

We’ve tried making shakes out of them, however, most of them get eaten on a a daily basis quickly and Adrianna can’t get enough. She has a tendency of going to pick them straight off the plant and into her mouth. Thankfully we don’t use an pesticides, just some garlic to scare the Rollie Pollies away.

Our biggest success was the Basil family. Both Sweet and Thai got humongous, and are still getting bigger. The Thai  basil has been especially large. That is however, a good thing in terms for our family. My wife makes an awesome pot  of Pho, amongst other uses, and we are constantly kicking around the idea of opening a small restaurant. The type of  noodles she makes isn’t really near a Vietnamese type of recipe, but much closer to a Thai boat noodle recipe.

While this is deviating from my normal non profit and code posts, it is something we like to do, just to get our minds  off everything else. Plus it not only helps our daughter’s understand the basics of growing and nurturing something,  they also literally get to see the fruits of their labor.

A few other plants that was grown was Green Onion, Parsley, Oregano, Sweet Peas, Bell Peppers, and Tomatoes.  Although it took nearly 2 months for the tomato plant to sprout from seed, it is doing fairly well now. It is in  a large  container but once we can get some more room freed up, we will give it more space to flourish.

The Jalopeno’s pictured to the left have been finally bearing a ton of items. These are another huge necessity in  Piseth’s recipes, although I can’t handle as much as she can. However, again Tidah loves to be the one to pick these  things off as they have been probably the quickest growing vegetables thus far. I suspect the tomatoes will be catching  up shortly.

Of course we do have other things around the backyard. Recently, I’ve been on a mission to build our recently adopted  turtles a small pond, which is raised in the middle of our backyard. I still need to get the liner and pump set up, but  once it’s done, the turtles that are named Kobe (Boy), and Zero (Female, and named by Tidah, so I have no idea why)  will have a much bigger place to play around. Although I know that turtles tend to eat  lot of vegetation in site, we will  probably toss a few Water Lettuce plants in as well, and I hear we may be getting a few large Koi fish donated (bigger  than the  turtle’s so hopefully won’t be eaten). I will do a little write-up detailing more on it later, and its construction.  We want to make sure the little reptiles have plenty of space, not to mention some hiding places from a few critters  that may want to bug them around here. Should be a fun project to watch completed, not necessarily an oasis, but kinda nice to have some sort of water feature in back. Other plants that are in the backyard that I will mention are a few Aloe Vera plants that have started growing after being replanted from an original Aloe Vera tree that I had received from my Grandmother’s house. Also, I believe we have 3 types of plumeria growing throughout, there are a total of 4 plants, and have been getting larger, really quick.

Again, something different from my normal posts, but it’s something we like to do, as its nice to get out of the house and just sit outside, even if it is the backyard.