A Soft Landing

My Trip to California & Back Home to My Little Garden

In case you're wondering where I've been... I've not been at home!

Today and yesterday were the first days in weeks that I have been home.

Last week was especially busy and wonderful! The first part, I helped out with crafts for our churches VBS-like kids camp. Then the day after that was over, I went to the Sierra Nevada foothills of Grass Valley, California with my dad.

(I sometimes call my dad 'the crazy fruit man!' Haha! We love us some fruit!)

We picked up an RV he was given, then did some looking around the area. The highlight of my trip was doing some father-daughter gold panning. And, yes, I found gold! I don't mean little dust specks, but I found a couple of good size flakes.

I feel like this isn't the best picture of me, but it's proof I did it! Haha!

We also got to see some ghost towns and historic Nevada City as well.

An old, abandoned miner's home!

The general store in the ghost town of North Bloomfield, at Malakoff Diggins State Park

It was a really fun trip, but it's good to be home!

My husband took care of my little garden while I was gone.

He did a great job with watering, but my squash plants are having some troubles.

They use to look so much better than this, but they were starting to be like this when I left, so it's not his fault. I need to figure out what is causing it!

Okay, so it looks like I might have a type of squash disease. (Sigh)

How sad! :( If you have squash issues too, here are some great sites I found:

Michelle's Garden - they have a great picture at the bottom to help identity which issue your squash is having.

http://www.michellesgarden.com

Harvest to Table - this has an article about squash growing from beginning to end, helpful tips and possible problems that could come up. This article helped me realize I need to mulch! I feel like such a newbie at times!

http://www.harvesttotable.com/2009/05/squash_squash_growing_success/

In other garden news, my radishes came up too fast while I was away at the beach at the beginning of the month. I'm not eating them near fast enough!

Now, I'm purposefully letting them go to seed to I can plant the seeds. It's an experiment, but should be interesting. In the meantime, radishes have the prettiest little white and pink flowers! I have been using some on my kitchen table for a truly cute, country look.

I also have... a zucchini!!! YAY!!!!!

This gives me so much gardening hope, that it's still going strong!

Earlier, I had little pumpkins coming up, but I think the disease got them, as they shrivelled up. I'm glad these two plants aren't close. The zucchini should be fine, (I'm hoping with fingers crossed)

And hopefully, the rest of the garden will keep growing, so I can start really eating from it!