Garden goings-on

Things are really starting to shape up out in the garden. We were concerned about some of our seedlings because they sort of looked puny once we put them out into the garden. Apparently they just needed some time to recover though because now they look great. Our potatos are two feet high and they amazed us with how quickly they shot up. Once putting them in the ground they grew in around two weeks. We planted four types this year, none of which can be bought at the grocery. I can't wait to try them all out and we plan to shred and freeze some for hash browns throughout the winter.

Our corn is also doing well, it's about mid-calf height so I think we will easily make it to the "knee high by the Fourth of July" height that Ohioans talk about. The cabbages are nice and the brussels sprouts recovered well. They looked bad when we planted them out. This picture is of what we are referring to as our "tasty greens" plot. We had beets here but the rabbits and groundhogs ate them. We got critter fencing to protect our bibb lettuce, arugula, carrots, parsnips, peas, and the other plants I named. We have a few pea pods already on the plants!

Our last plot with any major growth is our tomato, bell pepper, and cucumber plot. We planted 24 tomato plants this year-a mixture of Roma tomatos, persimmon orange tomatos, and two heirloom varieties which are Brandywine Pink and Cherokee Purple. I'm not really sure what we will do with them all once they get their fruit but I see a lot of canning in our futures. We want to make pasta sauce, tomato juice, salsa, etc. I'm also really looking forward to making our own pickles. We still have four cucumber plants to get out there that we bought at the farmer's market.


In other knitting news, I finally have my knitting mojo back and completed my first project for the baby. It is the Rippled Baby Blanket from http://morethanonewaytoknitahat.blogspot.com/.

I'm back

Finally I feel more like a human being again than some sort of alien incubator. There were a few times in the first few weeks since I found out I was pregnant that I felt like the people in Aliens and that some sort of parasitic creature would come bursting from my stomach. Don't get me wrong, we are both so excited to be parents but man-I could do without some of the symptoms. The main two are the lack of sleep and constant need to go to the bathroom. I also would like to be able to enjoy food again.

We had our first appointment about a week and a half ago and the nurse said I need to eat at least 1800 calories a day. Ideally she wants me to get 2200 calories a day. Just to give you an idea of how nuts that is for me-I kept a food diary for a few weeks just out of curiousity to see how much I ate. Even with having a Twix bar on a few occasions, I averaged about 900 calories a day. 900! So, even though most people only need to eat 200-300 calories more than normal during pregnancy, I somehow have to double or ideally triple my caloric intake. Josh and I are at a loss of how to do it. Right now I'm focusing on just keeping things down. Once I get into the second trimester I will start cracking down on shoveling food in. sigh

The baby has also totally stolen my knitting mojo. I can usually finish a few pairs of socks a month plus work on something larger. So far since I started feeling sick I have knit two inches on a baby sock and a four inch square of a baby blanket. Most of that was also only accomplished this week when I finally stopped feeling like I was dying. I did at least favorite a ton of patterns on Ravelry and can't wait to get started on them all. I'm waiting until Knitters' Connection to shop for yarn though. Hopefully by then we will know what we are having.