Train potty

I thought I do an update on our Garden! 

I can't believe how much it has grown so much in a little over a month.

Click {HERE} to see what it looked like when we first planted.

And, now here it is:

Here is Box #1:

 My favorite part of this box is all my lettuce:

 So fun to go out to my garden before dinner time and pick some lettuce for our dinner salad!

Box #2:

 This box is 4 varieties of cherry tomatoes, a yellow squash plant & zucchini plant.

 I was shocked last week when I went out to water my garden. I couldn't believe that my zucchini and squash were growing & ready to pick!

And, some cherry tomatoes growing!

Box #3 is 5 Early Girl Tomato Plants

 Excited to see some green tomaotes growing!

 They probably won't turn red for another month or so. Can't wait!

 Here is my first harvest from the 2014 Garden at 1 month:

 I have tons of Zucchini recipes, but I don't have any yellow squash recipes, so last night I just cut some up, tossed them with olive oil, salt, pepper & Italian seasoning and roasted them at 425 for about 20 minutes.

 Then, I tossed them with some angel hair pasta, basil from my garden, and cut up some cherry tomatoes and tossed that with more olive oil.

It was a perfect & light Summertime Dinner last night (paired with a glass of Chardonnay, of course!)

 Other recipes I make with zucchini are:

Your pickles will keep for 4 months in the fridge. 

Enjoy!

So far, everything in our 2014 Garden has produced except the strawberries (I think something is eating them). I ripped out all the lettuce last week because it had reached it's peak and when the weather hits 100 + degrees, lettuce is not happy. I was thrilled with how my lettuce had been doing and I loved going out to my garden each day to grab some lettuce. I will miss that!
You can read more Garden Updates {HERE}

And, as a reminder, my Rodan + Fields Christmas in July Special ends on Thursday!
 !
Read more about it {HERE}

One of our {many} backyard projects has been to re-vamp our side yard and put in a garden.

When we bought our house last May, the backyard was in rough shape. Really rough shape.
Kevin has been working so hard the past year getting our backyard taken care of.
Last summer was spent ripping out all the dead & overgrown plants.
This Spring we are planting new things & getting our backyard ready for summer.
Here is what the side yard looked like last May:

It was overgrown with weeds, rocks & plum trees (that didn't produce plums)
The area gets a lot of afternoon sun, so we knew it would be perfect for a garden!
Here is another view:
Kevin ripped out all the plum trees last summer & then a few weeks ago he built me 3 garden boxes (that are each 8 feet by 4 feet)
We still have some work to do around the perimeter of the garden
(finishing up weeding, laying ground cover, putting in a stepping stone pathway & planting an apple tree & lime tree)
Last week I got the garden planted!
Because it is our inaugural year for a garden, I planted TONS of veggies in hopes that some of them will produce! I went a little crazy!
Here are the contents for Garden Box #1:

Here is Garden Box #2:

{I have 2 of each of these tomato plants}

Garden Box #3

This box contains 5 Early Girl Tomato plants. Best tomato EVER.
I will be making ridiculous amounts of Caprese Salad with these tomatoes!

I can't wait for our plants to grow & produce home grown veggies!
I have always wanted a vegetable garden of my own.
Here's hoping I have a green thumb & not a black thumb!
Do you have a veggie garden? Any tips for this rookie gardener?

P.S. Be sure to check out some of the amazing Cupcake Recipes posted in my Cupcake Carnival.
The linky will be open for another week, so be sure to add your cupcake recipes!