These photos came from another loyal NGH fan, Midwest Mom.  She wrote a fun email about her “garden” with some nice photos.  These are a couple photos of her perennial garden.

And her monstrous tomato plants…

And these next photos are, in her words, “the reason we don’t have a real garden.”

What a cute fawn!  I’m thinking it’s worth the trade-off.

- Clarissa

Amazingly, my calla lily photos inspired loyal NGH reader, Lois, to get outside and take some photos of her blooming flower garden.  She is a much better photographer than I — check out these gorgeous photos.

This is a Peruvian Lily (or daffodil, we’ve found conflicting reports) that I actually gave Lois a few years ago.  I just love how fragile they look.

And here is Lois’ cute flower garden setup.  Recognize those cannas?  Lois provided all of my canna lily bulbs from their “siblings” in her garden.  In front of the cannas are her Peruvian Lilies, Gladiolus from Denmark, and snap dragons adding some color in the front.  How creative!

Have photos of your own to show?  Leave your website in a comment, or email your photos to clarissa@nextgenerationhousewife.com.

- Clarissa

I couldn’t even make something up this good.  Just yesterday I posted the story and photos of our flower garden.  A loyal reader, Midwest Mom, asked me to post pictures when the calla lily blooms.  NGHubby read that comment yesterday afternoon and chuckled, saying, “ha – if the calla lily blooms.”  Well, you will never guess what greeted us this morning as we looked out on the garden from the breakfast table…

Can you believe it?  If you say yes, I’ll think you’re lying because I still can’t quite believe it.  Isn’t it gorgeous?

I’ll keep watching for more, but really the whole flower garden could shrivel up now and I’d call it a success.  Hopefully that doesn’t happen, though, because it would be sweet to have some more flowers.  How exciting!

And just because the calla lily bloomed, we don’t want to neglect the roses…

Do you have good flower garden photos?  I’d love to see — feel free to post a link in the comments!

- Clarissa

Remember a couple months ago when I told you about the flower garden we were building?  Of course you don’t, that was a couple months ago…

But it’s not forgotten at our house.  We finished the brick and dirt-filling, NGHubby carefully planted many (now we are learning TOO many) bulbs, and I diligently water each day (ok, so I set up the sprinklers to water each day, but that’s still diligent, right?).  Here’s how the garden looked three weeks ago…

And then just last week…

Even my calla lilies are growing.  These bulbs were my birthday present from NGHubby because I just love calla lilies.  Each year he would give me an indoor calla lily plant, and for some reason I could never keep it alive.  So, this year he decided to give me outdoor bulbs and so far they are thriving!

And, how about these orange roses?

We’re hitting the hot time of summer, so hopefully our plants can keep up with the Oklahoman temps.  For that matter, hopefully I can keep up with the Oklahoman temps.  I’ll keep ya posted.

- Clarissa

I will admit, I was once quite skeptical of the “organic” and “natural” movements.  And honestly, I still am a bit.  I saw it as a way for food producers to increase prices for picky buyers.  And, of course, that is what it does, but is there good reason behind it?  Is organic worth the extra money?  Those are questions that could, and probably will, be debated for a very long time.

I’ve always been about eating good meat and fresh vegetables, but it wasn’t really because I thought it was better than anything else, it’s just what was served to me.  Did my mom serve it to me because it’s better for me than Cheetos?  Well, probably yes, but likely for the nutrients they provide and not necessarily because of any “pureness” of the meat over Cheetos.  Although I may be wrong because growing up in a household that disallowed diet pops due to their chemicals started me at an early age to distrust artificial ingredients.  Now I wouldn’t say I’m crazy about it, but I don’t drink diet pop or coffee, I try to limit the juice, fake snacks, and frozen foods, and try to load up on good meat and fresh vegetables.  But really, everyone needs a frozen pizza every once in a while!  It seems like common sense to me to eat mostly natural foods, but then what happens when those “good for us” foods contain bad things?

I read an article yesterday on CNN.com about the “Dirty Dozen” vegetables that contain 47 to 67 chemicals each in an average serving by the time it reaches a consumer’s home.  Now we don’t know if those chemical pesticides actually hurt us, but I’m betting they don’t help.  So what do we do about it?  Buy at Farmers’ Market is a common thought, but even then we would need to clarify the pesticides used with each vendor to ensure “organic” vegetables.  Even the use of organic is unregulated – only “certified organic” comes with any government backing.  We could then grow it ourselves?  But then, who doesn’t use some kind of Miracle Grow additive at some point to get those nice, pretty tomatoes?  And if you don’t, does your uphill neighbor use it?

And then what about “good” meat?  Who knows what chemicals are in the meat we eat.  Ok, that was a trick question because I happen to be married to someone who does actually know some of the chemicals in the meat – and it’s not always pretty.  Even meat labeled “all natural” is regulated while the hog is alive, but can have pretty much anything the producers want injected in the meat post-slaughter.  NGHubby even said some producers (not Farmland, of course) inject the “all natural” meat with pork broth from hogs that may or may not have been “all natural.”  So if a piece of pork comes from an “all natural” hog but is then injected with preservatives, color and flavor additives, and non-natural pork broth, is it still “all natural” to you?  That’s the question with no real answer, I suppose.  But am I going to quit eating meat because of it?  That has a definite answer — heck no!  Then you have some companies going above and beyond to make things more natural.  Like Farmland (I use them as an example again only because that’s the only food company I really know) has a Simply Natural line of pork that comes from a very specific herd of hogs that have been given no antibiotics or hormones, and the meat is not injected before hitting our table.  That line, however, struggles to maintain sustainability because there are a lot of people like me who care, but not quite enough to pay double for my pork chop just because my pork chop cost Farmland double to produce.  Another example is Whole Foods.  We are excited to try out the new Whole Foods grocery store that is moving into my workplace.  The interesting question will be…are there enough people in the area to pay extra just for slightly more natural food?  Extending that question…am I even willing to pay extra for slightly more natural food?

I’m just starting in my casual research of the foods we eat, so I’d love your input or reading suggestions.  I have neither an argument nor solution in this organic post, but simply wanted to start the conversation that I believe needs to be started throughout our food industry.

- Clarissa