***FALL*** Ahhhh.

Well, my fall garden is planted and little tiny things are starting to pop up. I've never had a fall garden. This summer was so incredibly hot and unproductive that I don't really feel like I did much gardening. So I'm pretty excited! I've planted kohlrabi, beets, tatsoi, arugula, radishes and mustard greens! Healthy stuff! The weather is perfect so we've been outside a bunch. I made my fall trip out to Henry's Plant Farm to get some perennials and see Homer and the succulents and peacocks. I love it out there. Especially on a gorgeous day. Been cooking quite a bit. Below are photos of my latest favorite thing: Brussels sprout and caramelized lemon pizza. YUM.

Oh Henry.

Last week, on a gorgeous Spring day, Kendra, Josh and I went to Henry's Plant Farm to buy some plants and go behind the scenes to the succulent greenhouses. It pays to know people. Teehee. Jozie, Brian and Homer do our flowers and plants at The Merc and also work at Henry's. They own a few greenhouses at the back of the farm where they grow everything. It was a lovely little field trip.

Those darn bugs.

The garden is slowing down quite a bit. We have cucumber beetles and it's a huge bummer. They have almost completely killed my cucumber plants and we have to pick tomatoes before they are ripe or else the bugs will devour them. However, the okra just keeps on truckin' unscathed. I'd say that it's been our most bountiful crop. Brian from Henry's Plant Farm told me that after about 3-5 years of gardening I'll have those kinks (like cucumber beetles) worked out. You have to expect the unexpected and those problems are tougher to solve if you want to grow organically.

I did some canning yesterday with my friend, Josh. It's nice to have a partner there to help you. We canned 14 jars of okra and pickling cucumbers. I L-O-V-E pickled okra.

Our windowsill is lined with ripening tomatoes. Mmmmm!

My garlic chives just flowered.

Look at how tall the okra is in the background! It's almost getting hard to reach up to harvest the okra.

These peppers are called Wenk's Yellow Hots. I'm too scared to eat them. I know they are too hot for me. I think I like to grow them to give away.

That entire picture is our HUGE cherry tomato plant with NOT A SINGLE TOMATO on it. What on earth?

This is called a True Lemon Cucumber. They are so cute and delicious.

An okra flower.

There were 2 of these gorgeous butterflies drifting around the garden and I watched them for about 15 minutes. They made me so happy.

Succulent succulents.

My sister and her husband came to Lawrence this past weekend and I decided to take them to one of my favorite places, Henry’s Plant Farm. Jozie, Brian and Homer are my go-to people for gardening advice, they sell gorgeous flower bouquets and succulents at The Merc and they also work at the Plant Farm. Whenever I go out there I love to go behind the scenes and look at the thousands of succulents that they have in their greenhouses. You can imagine that I really wanted to share that with Whitney and Matt. It’s hard not to be totally blown away by the many different species of plants they grow.

That's Homer!

We went to the lookout point north of town too! It was a beautiful day!

rootin' tootin' dandy days!

Goodness, the last two weeks have been off the charts! It all started two Fridays ago with Red Lefty’s final show, which has been my husband’s band for last 5 years. It’s a sad ordeal but the farewell was sweet. Lots of dancing in a hot and sweaty bar to the hoppin’ tunes of my favorite band.

On Sunday we drove out to nowhere land with our expert fisherman friend, Justin, to catch a few white bass. It was a windy, cloudy day but the fishing was great. I brought a very “Lowen” picnic that was probably much too fancy for the occasion but what the heck? I enjoyed it. Everyone caught some fish except for me but I had a really great time. I’m thinking that now that we have our fishing licenses we will be going out with our fishing poles quite often.

On Monday (my day off) I drove outside of town about 20 minutes to Henry’s Plant Farm. My friends, Jozie and Brian, from Earth Flowers, work out there and they were kind enough to help me pick out plants for our new perennial flower bed. It’s not quite finished so I’ll post more about that later.

This photo was taken by my awesome photographer friend, Brian Goodman.

Chris with his little fish.

Justin with his BIG fish. What a pro!

Brian and Jenna go fishin'.