Blooming!

So I woke up Saturday morning bright eyed and bushy tailed - ready to plant a little herb garden. I had talked to Chad about planting a vegtable garden several weeks ago, but he told me that we should probably wait a year. We have too much else to do around the house.

So we go to Lowes to get a few gardening supplies, and I pick out the herbs I want to start with - sweet basil, curly parsley, cilantro and dill. Then I see Chad walking to the cart with a tomato, red chili pepper and cucumber plant.

The garden bug got him. And me too. Next thing you know, we have two big pull carts full of plants, herbs, soils, fertilizers, shovels, spades and more! Then we head to the plywood section so Chad can get the proper materials to make a raised garden bed.

And he did so good.

Chad is so handy. I wouldn't have known where to begin - but Chad had a vision in his head and we made it happen. Take a look!

In our garden to start we have better boy tomatoes, sweet 100 tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, green bell pepper, orange bell pepper, red chili peppers, leeks and radishes! I want to pick out a few other things at the farmer's market this weekend.
We went back to Lowes to get some pretty stone to line the garden walls with, but our wallets couldn't bear any more for the day. We decided to put it on hold - since there is a good chance that the veggie vines will overtake it anyway.

Sidenote: Pleaseeeee grass grow. You can't tell from the above picture but we do have some areas around the backyard where some grass is finally sprouting. We need a couple more good rains (since we haven't had any in like 2 weeks), to get it gonig.

In our separate herb garden we have the basil, parsley, cilantro and dill. I still need to get Italian parsley, tarragon and thyme... and probably more basil and cilantro. I use a lot of basil and cilantro.



We also bought two flats of petunias to line the front walkway. I think it looks so bright and cheerful.



After three weeks of barricading myself inside due to horrible allergies- I'm glad I decided to throw caution to the wind and spend ALL weekend outside getting my hands dirty with my husband. We had so much fun accomplishing this big task together.

Then, as a reward for my husband's handywork and letting us plant a garden even when we had a billion other things to do - I decided to make him PW's Lasagna. And it is a man-lasagna if I've ever seen one.

Here it is before putting it in the oven.


Here is what my kitchen REALLY looks like in the midst of my cooking. Don't ask about the random chair and flipflops. This is why Chad stays out of the kitchen - he is OCD with cleaniness and would have a hissy fit if he saw it like this.



The finished product.
If you have a meat-loving man in your life, make this lasagna. As PW says in her cookbook: her husband tells her: "If it wasn't for your bronzed skin (she is a pale red head) and cattle herding abilities (she doesn't herd cattle), I'd marry you for your lasagna." In other words, he married her for her lasagna.