Amber Smith- May- Plant a Garden, Train for a Triathlon

With the exception of cherry tomatoes, I've only been able to grow vegetables accidentally.  One year, I had one measly zucchini plant survive only because it was being watered by the neighbor's sprinklers!  The next year, a plant mysteriously started growing in our front flower beds.  We hadn't planted something there, but it didn't look like a weed, so we decided to let it grow to see what it was.  Turns out it was a pumpkin plant!   The previous Halloween, we'd had a jack-o-lantern on the porch "throwing up" it's own seeds.  Some of the seeds must have gotten swept into the flower bed and mother nature worked her magic!  The plant produced a couple of small pumpkins, not big or orange enough for us to use.

  

                                (The chubby two year behind the plant is now a tall, skinny 8 year old!)

So when we moved to our new house with pre-made garden beds ideally located on the south side of our yard, I knew this was the year to finally have a garden.  We started by weeding and tilling the soil, and waited till after Mother's day to buy and plant the veggies.  

I wanted to keep the garden small in case it failed, and in case it succeeded.  I planted zucchini from seeds, and bought starts for cucumber, squash, tomatoes, jalapenos, and cilantro (my hubby loves salsa and I'd love to make it all from my garden!)  I used the "Square-Foot Gardening" method to space the plants, and to learn how much water each plant needed every day.

Two of my helpers getting the garden ready.

After everything was planted:

The zucchini started popping up at the end of May and is still growing!  And all of the other plants are surviving!  My husband and I plan to add a drip line "sometime".  In the meantime, caring for the garden has become a family project, with the kids OFFERING to water the garden as a chore!  I've loved watching the plants grow, and I love spending time outside with my kids taking care of the garden.

I was also training for a triathlon in May.  Triathlon training is fun (I think) because I get to train in three sports, and don't spend so much time on one sport that I get sick of it.  In order to be ready for the tri, I trained 4 days a week and also did block training, like swim-then-bike, bike-then-run, or swim-then-run.  The triathlon was June 7th, and next month I'll report on how it went!