Garden Progress...

We've been working (well, Pete does work, I try to keep cool) to keep the garden going even though we're in waiting mode for little Lukas to show up. Things are going pretty well around here...

Remember this?

 This was the picture I posted on the 23rd (though I think the pics were from closer to the 17th). The tomato and cucumber garden's looking a little different these days...

And this is that same tomato. It's baseballs-sized now! I can't wait until it turns red and we can EAT it.

Our cucumber plants FINALLY took off. It took them forever.

We think we've finally got the salad table figured out, too. We added some more potting soil to it, and then I sprinkled an organic vegetable food on it. All those bare spots have little lettuce, spinach, and basil sprouts in them.

Finally, this is a bit of an accidental gardening win. Last year, I had a bunch of tomato plants in buckets (you can see them in this pic). At the end of the summer, we just emptied the buckets into a compost pile. This spring, we made a little flower bed for tulip bulbs along the side of the house and filled it with compost from that pile. Apparently, one of the tomato seeds survived and we have a little volunteer tomato plant hanging out in there now.I think we'll keep him.

And this is what happens when you leave your doggy inside while you go outside to go take pictures of the garden.

2 1/2 cm and 50%...

So any day now. Or possibly 2 weeks. Either way. Sigh.

That said, we found out it's our doctor who's on call on the 4th of July, so if he decides to make a dramatic entrance on a national holiday, it should be our doc helping him do it. Little bit of a relief, I guess.

Finished!

Lukas' room is done! Well, as done as it's going to get before we install a baby in there and figure out what we're missing. I know we need to put a lamp in there that's not as bright as the overhead light (so he doesn't get overstimulated when up in the middle of the night for a diaper change) and I think we're probably going to need a table near the chair and changing station to hold extra things and things I need while nursing. Pete's going to paint a nightstand he made last year for that purpose.

The room also features a toybox that Pete made for Lukas (Pete would like me to note that it's tongue-and-groove construction and he used a very old Stanley tools...he'll have to update you on this one). Right now it's half full of receiving blankets and half full of toys. I'm glad to have somewhere to store his stuff, and also to have somewhere to train him to put his things away-- kind of a "help Mommy clean up at the end of the day" type thing. Also, Pete built a cubby for books and 3 more display shelves for more books. What can I say, the kid has a librarian for a mother. And they make excellent wall art that can always be switched out!

Bowling Ball in a Sandwich Bag...

That's the metaphor I've decided to go with to describe what is happening in my poor pregnant body nowadays. It's how I've felt for a while, but it was confirmed to us yesterday at the OBGYN's office.

I had been consistantly measuring small at my doctor's appointments. This is pretty much in accordance with everyone I know telling me I look small for how far along I am (including strangers, but that's what happens when you work with the public). Dr. Small finally decided to send us for an unscheduled ultrasound to monitor Lukas' size and make sure he was growing the way he is supposed to. She said she wasn't really worried and just wanted to check in; being the worrywart that I am, I was worried. Good thing there were only 4 days between our appointments, because I barely slept at all Friday night knowing that he needed monitoring.

Silly me for worrying. The ultrasound tech said right away that she didn't think I looked small. The sonogram confirmed her thoughts; little kiddo is measuring 7 lbs. and 13 oz., give or take about 12 oz...so he's somewhere between 7 and 8.5 pounds right now. And 12 days ahead of schedule, given his size. So with 3 and a half weeks to go, we've got ourselves a little butterball, and I'm still little.
Things could get interesting...  

Gardening Win!

Well, I'm still trying to figure out this blog thing...I think the blog style we added to the site only allows one photo at a time...which stinks...maybe I'll try to change that. (UPDATE: We've since moved to a Blogger Feed. We'll see how that works...)

In the meantime, here is a picture of one of quite a few tomatoes we have growing in our tomato and cucumber garden this year. We decided to do a small raised bed for tomatoes and cucumbers. With me being pregnant, and the crappiest part of pregnancy coming at the same time as gardening season, we figured a full-blow traditional garden might be more than either of us could handle this year. Most things we can buy at the farmer's market, but tomatoes and cucumbers are kind of daily staples in the summer. Pete rigged up a great little system for tying up tomatoes; thus, we managed to pack 8 plants into a 4X8 space! The varieties, all indeterminates, offer a wide range of tomato types. We're growing Beam's Yellow Pear tomatoes, Italian Heirlooms, Ukranian Purples, and Cherokee Purples, along with two types of cucumbers, Japanese Climbing and Edmonson Whites. We'll see how it all does; it took a long while to get established, but now everything is growing like gangbusters.

Our attempts at a salad table were a bit more of a fail than a win. We're working on the right mixture of planting medium and fertilizer to grow things in it. 

Hop over to the garden gallery for more pictures of that project. We'll get there, and I'm still grateful for a spot to cut lettuce without bending over and suffocating myself with a child in the ribs!