With the house being on the market a little over week, things are looking very promising here that we will sell it before we leave for Berlin. And I have to say, that will be a HUGE weight off of our minds. In fact, once we actually know where we’re moving to (which should be decided in the coming month) we might even be able to sleep well again at night. Lately we’ve realized that once we sell the house, we’ll be freed up a lot more physically and emotionally (because we’re getting rid of so many possessions) but also financially — which is an incredible feeling.

When you look at the statistics about Americans and credit card debt, it’s a bit alarming. On average, each person with a credit card owes nearly $16,000 to the credit card companies. The total U.S. revolving debt (98 percent of which is made up of credit card debt) was $801 billion, as of December 2011. And as of December 2011,  the total U.S. consumer debt was $2.5 trillion. These are not figures which should be taken lightly by anyone.

Thankfully, a decline has started in the number of people who use their credit cards and how much they put on them, probably because they realized the interest rates are eating them alive. But there are few other countries in the world where people willingly take on huge amounts of debt just so they can “keep up with the Jones’” or have the newest gadgets and gizmos.

Living Within Your Means

While I know it’s fun to have the biggest and best of everything, IMO it’s a whole lot more impressive to me when I meet someone who is living completely debt free and still has everything in life they could ever need or want. Because really, when you eliminate your debt, you free up a lot more disposable income. And so if you then want to have something new, you look at the money you have in the bank and you buy it if you can actually afford it. If you don’t have all the money, you do something really radical — you save money each month until you do have it. Or you sell something; it might be your own belongings or your services or knowledge or even just yourself — to get a promotion or a new contract for your company, I mean — not putting yourself on the street!

Living within your means does not mean you have to live in a van down by the river, but it does mean that you actually think about what you are spending, probably set a budget for yourself and don’t let yourself splurge every time you leave the house. If you’re not happy with the amount of money you are bringing in, you don’t leverage yourself and take on debt. You go out and make things happen so that your income is higher and you can therefore buy the things you want.

If you’re thinking about tackling your own debt, you don’t have to make a huge action like selling a house to get started. There’s so much simple debt advice available that if you’ve got debt, you should really be looking for ways to get it paid off however you can. You’re not doing yourself any favors by staying in bondage to the big banks — and trust me, they really do want you to pay 24% interest (or more, God forbid) for the rest of your life!

As you may have read, we were recently in Berlin and we stayed in a gorgeous hotel. We spent nearly 3 days in the hotel, so I got to know our room pretty well. And there were some design elements that were so smart, regardless of whether you’re in a big house or a tiny apartment, that I had to  share them with you today! The room was way more modern than our own house, but there’s no reason one can’t borrow a lot of these concepts and adapt them to the space you actually have.

1. Built in closet by the door — This is so simple yet practical. The closet area is essentially totally hidden and they took an otherwise useless space and made it really fantastic. In your home, you might put shoes in the shelves instead — or make other modifications to suit your needs.

2. Lights inside the closets — There were lights inside many of the closets in this room, including the one above. They usually came on automatically when you opened the closet door. It’s such a smart and efficient way to light up your closet, without having to worry about using extra electricity because you forgot to turn off the lights.

3. Practical built-in closets — It goes without saying that this closet is just gorgeous, but it had a lot of practical space in it too. Lots of shelving and places to hang clothes. Seriously one of the largest closets I’ve ever had in a hotel room and great because when you roll the door closed, you don’t see anything inside anymore.

4. Lamps at the back of the closet — The lamps at the ends of the closets I really loved. They’re much more practical for looking at yourself in the mirror than the overhead lights that always make you look a bit gaunt and as if you barely slept last night. Plus, they added a huge floor-to-ceiling mirror at the back of the closet, so you get more light reflecting back into the closet space.

5. More closet storage — Across from the big closet was another slightly smaller one with space for knick knacks on the top (or a place to charge your phones, iPad, etc if you have a plug nearby) and more shelves underneath. This would be another good space for shoes (if you double up on the shelves) or for things like t-shirts or shorts that can be folded up small.

6. Motion sensor by the front door — When you walked into the room, certain lights would automatically come on, like the one in the entry area. We have a great motion sensor in our mudroom, a space we pass through often with tons of stuff in our hands, and it’s so fantastic. But I think putting one in an entry way for when you get home at night would be super practical.

7. Recessed shower head — This is so, so smart. If your ceilings aren’t super high, this is a great way to create a really nice rain shower effect without having a shower head hanging from nowhere (if you can knock a hole through the ceiling to recess it) — and the lower ceiling in the shower keeps your heat in.

8. Shower stall design – While we’re on the shower, I just love the design in general. The lit, recessed space for a few bottles of shower stuff is so classy stylish. And they used a big floor to ceiling frosted glass panel and door to seal it off from the rest of the bathroom. It was a very comfortable shower space and most of the water stayed where it was supposed to!

9. Dimmer switches — I think dimmer switches are one of those things that are totally underused, much like motion sensors. Having bright lights is necessary at certain times, but other times, it’s nice to just be able to turn down the lights a bit and blend out the harshness of the day.

 10. Ceiling spots to draw attention to room elements — Another thing I really liked in this room (but didn’t manage to photograph) was the use of recessing ceiling lights to highlight things in the room. In the bathrooms, it might have been the sink. In the living room, a vase on a shelf. And so on. It’s simple to do, and still lends lots of light to the rest of the space around it, but can really highlight a few key areas of the room that you love as well without adding extra lights.

And of course, once you’ve got all that in place, all your need is something stylish to sit on. If you’re making your office into an oasis, you can pick some great pieces at a place like City Office Furniture.

If you’re looking for more ideas that will make your apartment or home feel like you’re living in a hotel, check out this article from BHG.

When you visit hotels, are you checking them out for smart ideas to add to your own home as well?

Although there are several green spaces in and around Frankfurt, like the beautiful Palmengarten right in the city, or Hessenpark which is a bit further out but offers a glimpse into history, one of our favorite natural parks sits right on the edge of Frankfurt. It is called Huthpark, and it sits just off the junction of 521 and 661 — behind the Unfallklinik Frankfurt (Emergency Hospital of Frankfurt). It’s 18.2 hectares (about 45 acres) and was first established as a park in the early 1900′s. Because so many of the trees around the edge of it have grown to be quite substantial, it’s now a lush, green oasis amidst all the concrete and buildings of Frankfurt.

Things I Like About This Park

The park is really centrally located based on where we live and where many of our friends in Frankfurt live. It’s a perfect midway point to get together during the warmer months and just hang out. There are lots of wide open green spaces so you can go pick wild flowers, play at the playground with your kids, romp around with your dog, do some jogging around the circular outer path, use any of their exercise stations to get in some extra fitness steps or just relax. You can also combine a stroll or jog here with a game of tennis.

Layout of green exercise spaces -- Source: Anette Breit Landschaftsarchitektur

The playground is situated at the far end of the park in relation to the parking lot. So you have to walk a few minutes to get there, but it’s mostly a slightly downhill stroll. At the playground there are lots of things for kids of various ages to play with, from the slide to the sand pits. There’s several little houses and a boat to climb in and over, a rip-cord swing, regular swings and a few other elements to keep them occupied. Plus there are a few benches facing the playground as well for those parents who don’t need to be quite so “hands on” anymore with their kids while they play.

Every time we’ve been there, there was very little trash or riff-raff about. Lots of birds and squirrels roam arond and you really feel as if you’re out in the middle of no where, despite being so close to the city.

It’s a perfect place to bring your totes of food and drinks, a picnic blanket, your sun glasses and a few hours of time so you can sprawl out on the grass and enjoy the peace and quite. If you don’t bring it yourself, you’re not going to find it around here. There are no shopettes or kiosks around unless you go into the more developed areas of Frankfurt or Bad Vilbel.

Although it sits right behind the hospital, there really isn’t that much noise from it. They typically run the emergency helicopter in and out of there, and while it’s a grave sign when you see that helicopter, the kids like pointing it out since it flies quite close to the ground.

How to get there

By car: Parking is limited but usually you’ll find someone leaving. From 521, look for the Unfallklinik signs (also via 661, there is a sign for the hospital) and turn as if you are going into the hospital itself. Turn left once you dead-end at the light and take a right into a slightly wooded narrow street. (If you reach the RV place, you’ve gone too far. You can also park out here in the area by the street.) Follow the narrow path down along the  hospital until you see the parking spaces on your left.

By public transport: Buses 30 and 69. Get out at stop “Unfallklinik/B3″. It’s about 5 minutes walk from the bus stop to the back of the hospital and into the park.

Also accessible by bike, walking, jogging, etc.

This post is part of the German Stammtisch, a roundtable of expat bloggers around Germany who love to get together each month and share our insights about a common subject. Next month (on the 15th as usual): Football (or as we Americans call it, Soccer!)

I almost didn’t get this posted today because there is so much going on in our lives right now, but I so love You Capture that I went outside and looked for some “lines” anyway. Thankfully, we have tons of them around our farm…

ISO 640 | 50mm | f5.6 | 1/50 sec.

ISO 200 | 50mm | f5.0 | 1/200 sec

ISO 200 | 50mm | f5.0 | 1/250 sec

ISO 200 | 35mm | f5.0 | 1/200 sec.

Somehow, when we’ve got a lot of pressure and deadlines to meet, we work a lot more efficiently…

Several days ago, I started transplanting the first of the many seedlings we started weeks ago — which had grown into some lovely little starter plants. I have to admit that the whiteflies are still a bit problematic and not 100% gone, but we’ve had a lot of rain lately that washed away all the neem oil I put on them, so I hope that having them a bit more isolated will help to get these pests under control.

Because we’re moving, I decided to pass many of the plants on to my inlaws, who I know will treat them beautifully. And since we’ll be out of our house before the squash melons and so forth actually start producing anything worthwhile, it seemed like the best alternative. Lucky for us, we happen to be heading to their place today (and I’m actually writing this from their house already) so in the next few days, the rest of the plants will head into the ground.

So what have we planted?

For starters, eggplants (Adria and Black Beauty). We’ve got two plants in spots with lots of afternoon sun, because last year they seemed to love that. So hopefully they’ll appreciate it again. But we do usually have to hand-pollinate them.

Cucmbers! Lemon, Gynial, Picklebush and one other variety that I can’t remember at the moment. I found out that we should be able to fit two cucumber plants per square foot, so that’s what we’re trying this year in our containers by the IBC tank. We train the cucumbers up the side of the tank, where it’s nice and warm, and they have done quite nice in the past.

Peppers are also in the ground. Many of the needs didn’t come up, or just didn’t deal well with the transition to the outside world (some dried out and others just got sickly), so we had a limited number of plants to put in the ground. But there are several jalapenos, a serrano and even a few bell peppers — and one of the bell peppers I actually remembered to isolate so that they don’t cross pollinate and become super spicy too! Hopefully they’ll be looking much happier by the time we get home…they were looking rather pekid before we left today. But the weather here is supposed to cool off a bit and rain is on its way, so at least they shouldn’t dry out before we get back home.

And the tomatoes I planted earlier are coming along well, so hopefully the new transplants will also adapt well. I’m also looking forward to seeing how things go with the square foot layout and the tomatoes. Ours have gotten so bushy in the past that I think we’ll really have to watch out about them touching and spreading any diseases or pests to each other.

What’s your garden up to?

Want to join in the garden fun and link to your own blog or images online? You can share about anything related to gardening, old or new posts, from recipes to harvesting to grow reports to DIY projects or inspiration.

Here’s how this works:

PLEASE READ THESE GUIDELINES, especially if you have never linked up before!

That’s it! Share your garden with us by linking up below!

Hello. My name is Tiffany. And I am addicted to china & glassware.

It all started back in 1998 when I left Virginia (home after we moved from Texas), to go off to college at the University of Miami. I moved into to my very first apartment in Miami, all by myself, and ready to take on the world. One of my first orders of business was to get a job. And so I ended up working at Dadeland Mall in the Burdine’s home store. I had been working retail for a few years already, while I was in high school, and I really enjoyed it. But what I was about to experience in this place was discounting beyond belief.

Oh yes, not only do they bait you in there with an employee discount (which you can only get if you use your store credit card — what a clever little trick) but then there was the clearance stuff. Up to 50% off, plus our 15% discount. Pure. Heaven! Since I worked in the silver department (which bordered on the china & crystal departments), I decided that I would be a more attractive “catch” to a guy if I had china & glassware service for 16. I mean, why just go with 8 when you can really throw a good party with 14 people other than yourself.

Well, to date, we have NEVER had a dinner party with 16 people at it. We did do Thanksgiving dinner last year with 12 plus 2 kids — but that maxed out our seating space completely. And now that we’ll moving to an apartment in Berlin, I do not want to once again box everything up and just move it along to the next house. So I’ve been going through the cabinets, one shelf at a time, and looking to see what is actually in there.

I love our kitchen. I love the spaces we created and the roominess of it. But I am pretty sure that whatever apartment we find in Berlin will not have as much space. German houses in general do not usually have enormous kitchens, but I doubt we’ll take a place with just a single cabinet next to the oven and sink, either.

Now I’ve not gone completely overboard and gotten rid of everything. But I did get rid of a lot of things that we have not used more than once or twice in the last 6 years. Because honestly, if it’s right in front of me in the cabinet and I STILL don’t pull it out to use it, what’s the point in having it?

While I didn’t take before and after photos of every cupboard or shelf, I did take a photo of all the stuff I put together before I boxed it up. We put an offer out on Freecycle and two people were interested…one has already come and picked through the stuff a little. And the second one (who is actually an American expat who’s been here for a little over a year) is coming today and taking everything else (I hope!) plus some of the furniture which has been collecting dust in our barn for decades. The glassware and china are all wrapped and boxed for him, already, which will make it harder for him to say no. And then he and a few friends are going to split it all up, according to what they need.

While I was working on this project, I also decided to see if we were ready to let go of the china my husband had as a bachelor. It was actually pretty tasteful for a single guy, white with a silver trim, but you can’t put stuff like that in the microwave, it was a bit heavier than my everyday china in plain white and we basically just never ended up using it. So it’s going to be making the expat guy (or his friends) really happy since we have pretty much everything still. Since part of it was actually up in our attic with a few other boxes of china we never use, I decided to see what was going on there too. Found a few more things I was ready to let go of…and I totally notice the different in my cabinets which I am loving!

While I was in the attic, I also came across one box of old china I already knew about…

and another one with nearly twice as much in it that I didn’t know about (or had at least blocked from my memory.)

I’m hoping the guy and his friend need some plates to eat off of, and aren’t picky about it. The stuff in there isn’t horrible, but it definitely isn’t my style. Although I did find one thing I liked in there. Ok, I lie. It was 7 things.

Six of them where these little soup bowls which go with my plain white china and I think are super cute. There’s only 5 in the photo because I discovered this morning that they are perfect for Mack’s cereal bowls — and she loves the double handles.

The other was a little blue and white Japanese saucer (sadly no cup) which I’m going to use as a dish in my office for holding small stuff and/or a coaster.

I figure keeping 7 and getting rid of something like 70+ items from my own personal stash is more than allowed if you try to go by the “get rid of two old things when you bring one new item into your home” rule.

I also decided to see what life would be like without the plastic IKEA mixing bowls we’ve had forever and one set of plastic measuring spoons. I got some smaller stainless steel bowls about 2 years ago (I guess) and intended to stop using the plastic ones just because they were starting to get grungy and I have no clue what sort of bacteria is breeding there. But I still had them in the drawer so I was constantly reaching for them. I mean seriously — check out the color on these things. Sure, it’s just from washing them with something that had tomato sauce in it or whatever; but ick.

The experiment was simply to remove these from the drawer for about two weeks and put the stainless ones in their place. And if I needed something bigger than those two, I either used the KitchenAid bowl (and used the KA to mix up the ingredients also) or used one of my bigger Pyrex bowls.

The result: the plastic bowls and measuring spoons hit the trash can today and will be recycled in the next pickup. And I no longer have to look at the bowls and wonder if there is something growing in them because I’ve watched one too many documentaries. Yes I could have passed them on — but really, I wouldn’t wish a plague on someone like that!

What do you really need to purge in your life, physically or emotionally? What’s holding you back from living a life full of beautiful and useful moments and things? 

We’ve been going through a lot of old boxes, papers and so on around the house as we prepare for the moving phase. Trust me, the majority of the paper sorting has yet to begin. But my paper trashcan is overflowing, I’ve got about 5 other boxes of paper trash to be taken away (lots and lots of boxes from stuff we’ve bought online in the last month or two) and the paper trash guys don’t come until tomorrow — so I’m focusing on bigger items at the moment to get rid of with Freecycle.

At any rate, I talked a while back about our local Rewe grocery store selling a lot of products (like sausage, eggs, honey, wines, smoked fish and other sorts of things) from local producers. I’m a big fan of buying local (especially versus the big chains –and I’m starting to dislike the big chains a bit more every day) but I do think what Rewe is doing it quite usefully. It allows people access to a wider variety of locally produced goods without having to make an extra trip somewhere. And many of these places are more than 30 minutes drive away — meaning you’d probably never go there otherwise. I know, I know — that kinda puts a damper on it actually being “local” — but it’s better than being ship halfway across the world!

A little while back, Rewe published a list of the producers they are working with in Hessen and I came across it again — so I thought I would share it in case you’re looking to get directly to the source — or if your Rewe isn’t offering anything through the Land Markt program. If they aren’t, maybe you should also ask them to start!

It’s no secret by now that we are moving to Berlin and that we plan to move into an apartment in the city to do the whole “city living” thing for a while. It’s clearly a pretty major change of lifestyle for us (and some probably think we’re nuts — who knows, we might be lol) but we are really looking forward to it. As much as I love our farm and the homesteading lifestyle we’ve been pursuing, I also love being close to civilization, having things to do with friends when they come visit from near or far, and not feeling like a chicken with my head cut off as I run around trying to manage the house, farm, my jobs, our family, the dog and so on. So while I enjoy the homesteading life, I also am excited to just be able to focus on family and job for a while, with only a bit of cleaning up around our place. Plus, I think after all this, all of us are going to be a lot more conscious about cleaning up after ourselves — and we’ll have a whole lot less to worry with as well.

Now since we’re moving into an apartment, there are some things we’re just not going to need. Some of the things we’re getting rid of are things we’ve had for many years but really haven’t used at all in the recent past. And other things we bought with the house (there’s a LOT of those things). And then there’s the stuff we use but aren’t really crazy about, and are just ready to part with. And for many of these things, Freecycle is the BEST!

Why? Let me explain…

1. People on eBay have gotten rather pretentious. We’ve sold quite a few things over the last few years on eBay, and it seems like about half of the sales end up in headaches. People are only looking for new things (even if your ad states that it’s used) and apparently don’t know how to read very well when it comes to listings. I think some of them also experience buyer’s remorse after the auction ends, and they either don’t send the money, or they complain after they receive the items for no proper reason — then leave bad feedback because you are a private person and don’t take refunds (again, an issue with not being able to read so well). Perhaps it’s better outside of Germany, but sadly it’s the case here.

2. The fees on eBay are getting out of hand. Ok, yes, they bring the traffic. But 9% of the sale? Seriously? Versus 2-3% that is used to be…that’s a pretty steep increase. And now they are apparently trying to hold money for 9 days after certain sales… that’s just not going to fly with us.

3. Using Freecycle lets us get rid of the stuff QUICKLY!  It is astounding how quickly stuff gets grabbed up on Freecycle around here. With eBay you have to wait a week to sell the thing, hope that it sells, wait for the payment, wait to schedule a pickup or go mail it out, etc. Sure you don’t get any money using Freecycle, but you do get tons of good Karma points. And think about how much your time is really worth. No taking super great photos, writing a big description, answering a bunch of questions, waiting and waiting — for about $3 or $8 or even $15. And people on Freecycle will usually come pick it up within the 3-4 days of listing it.

4. The joy you can bring to someone’s life with Freecycle is the BEST! People will take nearly anything and love you for sharing it. Even the things that we don’t have a clue what we’d do with them, people want them. Most of the stuff we’re putting on there now we got (more or less) for free with the farm, or we have used (or at least had) for quite a while. So we’re just happy to see it move on to someone else who will enjoy having it.

5. You get to meet fascinating people. In the past, we’d only used Freecycle a few times. Now, we’re just overloading their system with stuff to give away. And so far we have met people from all walks of life. It’s fascinating to see who you end up running into, from expats to house wives to hippies, everyone has been super nice and extremely thankful for our generosity.

6. You’re not paying to get rid of the stuff. If we ordered trash containers to get rid of this stuff, we’d be paying about €6,500 in trash containers (and hours of hard labor) to get rid of it all. This way, we don’t spend a dime. In fact, we don’t even waste gas. And many of the people are taking multiple things from us, which means they’re not wasting gas either!

7. It’s not going to a landfill. It makes me sick to think that if we throw away useful stuff, it’s going to end up in a landfill. We had a company come out that would have cleaned out our whole barn (and charged us at least €6,000) and they might have sold a few things — but mostly, they were going to trash a lot of stuff. Using sites like Freecycle helps the environment massively when you’re not just dumping everything out.

8. You can rest easy at night knowing you’re doing something great for others. Honestly, the people who have been taking our stuff have said thanks so many times — it’s amazing. And you also start feeling better and somehow lighter as all the clutter leaves your house!

9. It’s super easy to do. Just write up a few words about what you are listing, follow the few Freecycle rules that exist (like usually putting BIETE (offering) or SUCHE (searching for) here in Germany) and get ready for the responses. I do recommend putting up an image if you can with your listings, so people know what they are getting and don’t waste your time. I jut upload the images into the media section of NOH, and link to them in my Freecycle posts but you could use another free photo hosting service also. Sometimes I just put in one photo, sometimes more…but they should be a good representation of what you are giving away. You’ll get a LOT more responses this way too. Here in Germany, it’s run via Yahoo Groups so it’s pretty easy to keep track of what is going on.

10. It’s FUN! Yes, there’s a bit of work involved. But there’s definitely a thrill every time you put something on there, wondering if there will be any interest at all and how quickly it gets reserved. And yes, you have to have a flexible schedule to get everything picked up — but in our case, where I work from home, it’s a super easy task. Plus a lot of people work so they have a similar schedule to your own.

So if you’re thinking about getting rid of a few things around your house and feel like you’ve gotten all the use of it you can and don’t really want to sell it, consider using Freecycle. No, you won’t get a tax write-off for it, but you can only deduct up to a certain amount on write-offs anyway…and you’ll be doing something great for others!

We have had a couple of extremely productive days around here. We’ve built shutters for the guest house (which we’ve been meaning to do for a couple of years), we closed off part of the outdoor patio to make it look nicer (almost something we’ve talked about for a while) and now have a lot of painting to do. We’re in full on downsizing mode — and the YouCapture theme of simplicity could not be more fitting for our lives right now.

Since we haven’t really gotten rid of much in the last 10 years (probably because we always seemed to be upgrading in space, instead of going down — like now), there is a lot to be done. And to be honest, although we trashed about 15 cubic tons of stuff when we first moved in (I so wish we’d be into Freecycle then, knowing what I know now) but there was just so, so, SO much more to be done. One day soon, I’m going to share to some photos of our barn. It’s the polar opposite of simplicity!

It’s a bit sad to us to realize that many of the projects we are doing and things we are cleaning out really don’t take much time. And why we never got around to doing them for ourselves is beyond us…I guess we just got complacent and lacked the motivation to get it done. It’s so much easier and productive when both of us are around to do things, instead of just one plowing along.

We are welcoming the upcoming simplicity which will (hopefully) soon fill our lives with open arms. The thought of being surrounded with only the things we love and use often (a la the William Morris Project) makes us all quite joyful. I think even Mackenzie is liking the fact of getting rid of the boring toys, repurposing some to bath toys so they get some new attention, and letting other kids that don’t have toys get her other stuff. It’s amazing how perceptive a 3 1/2 year old is! Ayla is inspecting every thing that leaves our property and making sure to stay close by so we don’t forget her in the move. She definitely knows something is going on.

By the way, if you are in the Frankfurt area and would love to snag some awesome free stuff (from old furniture to Singer sewing machines to old farmer stuff to whatever else we decide isn’t worth the hassle of putting on eBay), please be sure to join the Freecycle Hanau group. Our stuff goes live on there first  since Frankfurt delays the posts after manual approval. But if you want something, you need to act quickly. Most things are promised to someone within a few minutes. We couldn’t have imagined that we could get rid of so many random things so quickly! But you will need to come pick them up at our place! We’re also going to be putting a bunch of stuff on eBay (especially Mack’s clothes) so I’ll let everyone know where to watch out for those as well (if you’re living in Germany — unfortunately the shipping to the US would just be insane!)

I haven’t taken many pictures of our progress or simplicity lately — but I think the new shutters my wonderful husband just built fit the bill of simplicity — not to mention they just make things look more finished and perfect.

Happy Friday to you!

I finally got around to spraying my seedlings with neem oil yesterday and the whiteflies definitely seem to be retreating a bit. I’m extremely happy about that, and hoping to get a lot of the seedlings in the ground in the coming weekend. I’ve been hardening them up for the last few days, and it’s been warm enough to even leave them outside. So far none of the plants seem to have been affected, so I’m pretty thrilled about that.

We also bought some pretty flowers to go in our flower beds and window boxes on the front of the house, which means it’s getting to be that time of year when our rain barrels and watering cans will be put to good use. As wet as our winters are, the summers here tend to be the absolute opposite. Thankfully, Mackenzie is a huge fan of watering stuff. So at least I’ll have a good support team there. As long as I can keep her from over-watering things, all will go well.

I am a bit curious about what exactly this funky fungi is, though. Anyone ever seen anything quite like it? It popped up about two weeks ago in one of the seedling beds. I’m figuring the spores were in the soil we bought and they’re enjoying being watered with the seedlings. But I also don’t really want to transplant it into my garden beds either. I gave it a good spraying with the neem oil, and we’ll see what happens.

What’s your garden up to? Want to join in the garden fun and link to your own blog or images online? You can share about anything related to gardening, old or new posts, from recipes to harvesting to grow reports to DIY projects or inspiration.

Here’s how this works:

PLEASE READ THESE GUIDELINES, especially if you have never linked up before!

That’s it! Share your garden with us by linking up below!