It is once again time to link up with The Homeschool Village’s Garden Challenge.  Growing up, we always had a garden.  It was fun times for me, as I loved watching plants grow and produce wonderful goodies we could eat.  I am so happy that I am now able to pass my love of gardening down to my children.

This year we had a lot planned and time has just gotten away from us.  While we haven’t planted everything that we had wanted to plant, I am thankful we still have a little bit of time to get some vegetables in the ground.  Some of our seedlings have grown, while I let others die by lack of water.

Our tomatoes will be planted this weekend.  I can’t wait to pick our first tomato!

I did manage to get the green bell peppers in a bucket.  However, they do need thinning out.  I need to get a couple of more buckets to put the others in.

Our broccoli came up beautifully.  Then we left on our trip and didn’t pick it when we should have.  By the time we made it back from Denver, it had flowered and was to late to salvage.  So we are going to chopped up the plants and turn in back in the soil, hoping it will rot and help fertilize the other plants.

I am most surprised by our asparagus.  I didn’t think it was going to come up and yet I have 2 that has survived!

Our sunflowers have grown nicely.  I also need to get these in the ground this weekend, too.

What has surprised us the most this year is our herbs!  They are growing like crazy!  My husband has already clipped them back once and dried the herbs out.  We have been using them to cook with, fresh and dried.  The food just seems to taste so much better with home grown herbs.

This is my daughter’s pineapple sage that she choose to grow last year.  We couldn’t believe that it came back up!  We thought it had died during the winter.  We never used it last year, but I have read that we can make some tea from it.  We plan on trying it out this year.

Our rosemary bush has also grown since last year.  I am thankful for a warm winter, because this bush never died back.  It stayed green all winter long. I love to use fresh rosemary when I back a while chicken.  I break off a couple of small pieces and stuff it in the chicken with a lemon or an orange.  It is delicious!

I haven’t put the strawberries in the ground yet and I haven’t planted any cucumbers, squash or okra.  That is on my to-do list this weekend.  Our flowers are also growing.  The roses are blooming and the morning glory, marigolds, daisies and zinnas are all coming up as well.

It seems like our garden has changed a little since I last checked in, but we are making progress with what we have planted.

How is your garden doing?  Have you picked any fruits or vegetables yet?  Be sure to link up with The Homeschool Village and tell us about it!  you just might win a gift!