Garden Update

I'm just hopping on here today to give a quick photo update of the kitchen garden. It's not doing too bad.

~ Blueberries ~

~ Yellow Brandywine Tomatoes ~

~ Broccoli ~

~ Carrots ~

~ Corn ~

~ Green Beans ~

~ Mr. Stripey Tomatoes ~

~ Pole Lima Beans ~

~ Spinach ~

I hope all of your gardening plans are going well.
Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."  Genesis 8:22

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Time In The Garden

We've been so busy with baseball and soccer games that we haven't had any time in the garden, until yesterday. It was amazing that we actually had a Friday evening available. Thankfully, we took advantage of the overcast weather and got a lot accomplished.

We are still in the process of putting our garden back together. At this point we are weeding and filling the border beds. Those beds are two feet deep and run around the outside of our garden area. We don't have all the border beds installed. Hopefully that will be finished this year as well.

We started off with a short border bed, weeding it and filling it with a mixture of top soil and mushroom soil. We were able to plant two rows of Giant Stringless bush beans. In total we used 53 seeds, planted 3" apart (the seed package said to plant them 1" apart) and the rows are 6" apart. We've never had any luck with beans so we are hoping for the best.

Continuing around to the second bed in the border, we transplanted all the broccoli plants that were growing in the house. We have a nice tradition of putting milk jugs over them for protection. The bottoms of the jugs are cut off. This acts as a make shift green house as well as keeping the wild life from eating our sprouts.

The next bed that was weeded and filled was planted with Spinach and carrots. We used to grow Bloomsfield Long Standing every year but had gotten away from it. I'm excited to see how well it grows for us again. We really like spinach and I'm hoping that the weather stays cool so we can get a good crop out of it.

This is our first year trying Short 'n Sweet carrots. They look similar to the half longs that we usually grow so they should be fine. When we grow in mushroom soil, our carrots generally tend toward peppery, so we'll have to wait and see how sweet they get.

The last bed that we got to was planted with Harris Model Parsnips and Purple Top White Globe Turnips. This will be the first year that we have even tried to grow these. I have no idea what we will do with them if they do grow. I figured that since we have had these seeds since 2011, it was about time to plant them.

Of course, I can't leave out that we lined all of our border beds with walking onions. You will find that we are in the habit of always lining all of our produce beds with walking onions. The truth of the matter is that we have such an over abundance of them that they get planted everywhere. We are thankful for the blessing. They are also a great deer deterrent....... so far.

I hope all of your gardening plans are going well.
Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."  Genesis 8:22

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Garden Mulch Update

Can you believe that we are almost finished moving all of that mulch that we ordered for the garden. (See the original post here) I thought that we'd never be finished with it. What's more surprising is that it's snowed several times, as well as rained a lot, since we first had the mulch delivered.

I can tell you that I am thrilled that it's almost all in the garden.... Then we can get the 14 cubic yards of topsoil x mushroom soil mix delivered, to fill the raised beds...... once we put all of those back in the garden as well.

I'm beginning to wonder why we signed up for such a huge overhaul of our garden. However, I'm staying optimistic that all of this work at the beginning will lead to less work over the course of the season and into next year.


Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."  Genesis 8:22

More Seeds

When we did our seed inventory (here) we also made a list of the seeds that we didn't have but wanted. We were able to pick some up, locally, when we were running errands the other day.

I was happily surprised at the nice selection of organic seeds that we found at Lowe's. All are from Ferry-Morse.

New Seeds In

Organic Broccoli ~ De Cicco (1890 heirloom)

Brussels Sprouts ~ Catskill (1941 heirloom)

Cabbage ~ Copenhagen Market Early (1909 heirloom)

Organic Carrot ~ Rainbow Mix

Organic Lettuce ~ Black Seeded Simpson (1875 heirloom)

Organic Okra ~ Clemson Spineless #80 

Organic Radish ~ French Breakfast (1879 heirloom)

Organic Rosemary 

Organic Sage ~ Broadleaf

Organic Thyme ~ Common

Ultimately, I prefer organic, heirloom, regional seeds. I choose organic seeds because I don't want genetically engineered or modified seeds (GMO). I choose heirloom because I'm a history buff who loves to see and taste the old time vegetables that families have enjoyed for generations. I choose regional seeds because if people were able to grow the seeds in my growing region 100 years ago, then I should be able to grow them just as well now. 

Seeds We Still Want To Get
Hyssop
Anise Hyssop

We used to have Hyssop and Anise Hyssop just off the back porch. They self seeded and came back year after year. I'm not sure when they disappeared, but we don't have them anymore. I'd love to find more.

Root-stock We Still Need
Potato
Sweet Potato
Asparagus

We generally start our potatoes from store bought organics. We just cut them into pieces with at least 2 eyes each and plant them in the garden. We generally harvest several five gallon buckets from just a few potatoes planted this way.

We've tried sweet potatoes once before. They grew well and developed very nice sized roots. However, the mice got to them before we did. We were very disappointed in our luck, to say that least.

As for the asparagus, we should have planted a bed of them when we first moved into this house. We could have been enjoying them for several years now. Unfortunately, that didn't happen and we have yet to start a plot. Crossing my fingers that we get it started this year.

Next up, we have to set aside time to get these new seeds planted so they will be ready to go out into the kitchen garden, once it's warm enough. We've already planted our nightshade vegetables. Here's the link to that post, if you are interested.

I hope all of your gardening plans are going well.
Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."  Genesis 8:22

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We Have Mulch!!!

We have 11 cubic yards of mulch, to be exact. This is part of our new garden plan. And these are my three crazy helpers...... doing what they do best, being silly.

~ 11 cubic yard of mulch & 3 crazy kids ~

The method of gardening that has worked best for us goes by several names but we simply call it intensive, raised bed gardening. We decided that we wanted to make life easier on ourselves and mulch the walkways between the beds so that we don't have to mow. Sounded great..... until the mulch arrived. Now comes all the work in moving the mulch into the garden. Somehow this didn't seem nearly that big of a job when we were talking about it. Is it just me or do others make more work for themselves by trying to make life easier?


I hope all of your gardening plans are going well.
Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."  Genesis 8:22

Starting Seeds ~ 2018 Kitchen Garden

~ Starting Seeds In Yogurt Cups ~

I've never had much luck with the seed starting kits that you can buy at the garden supply store. Instead I opt to re-use single serve yogurt cups and potting soil. I'm really liking these clear Stonyfield yogurt cups because the paper label isn't glued down.

~ Big Boy Starting Seeds ~

I had planned on starting seeds at the beginning to middle of March but we have gotten a little behind. Here's what we were supposed to have finished already:

Seeds To Start Indoors 5-6 Weeks Before Last Frost (March 6-13)

Broccoli

Brussels Sprouts

Cabbage

Cauliflower

Eggplant

Peppers

Sweet Potatos

Tomatoes

So far we've started Yellow Brandywine tomatoes, Red Brandywine tomatoes, Mr. Stripey tomatoes, Sugar Lump tomatoes, Pepperocini peppers, Red Cherry peppers, and Black Beauty eggplant. With 9 varieties of peppers, 2 varieties of eggplant and 7 varieties of tomatoes in our seed inventory, we have some decisions to make. Should we plant a few of each variety or a lot of a few varieties? We are currently leaning hard on planting only a few varieties. 

Seeds To Plant In The Garden 2-4 Weeks Before Last Frost (March 20 - April 3)

Beets

Carrots

Celery

Peas

Potatoe

Radish

We are squarely in the middle of this time frame. However, I'm not sure when we will get to planting seeds outside as we took down the garden a few weeks ago and haven't set it back up yet. What I mean by that is that we took all the raised beds out of the garden area and spread out the small amount of soil that was left in them.

We had a load, 11 cubic yards, of mulch delivered and then it snowed. We are currently waiting for the 13" of snow to melt so we can get to the mulch. It will be moved to the garden area and spread out as a base, so we don't have to worry about mowing between the beds. Once the mulch is spread out, we can put the beds where we want them and have a load of topsoil and mushroom soil delivered...... and moved to fill up the beds.

Our new time frame is to have the garden put back together and everything planted, as listed on this page, by the end of April. Wish us luck!!

Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."  Genesis 8:22

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Favorite Gardening Books

Over the years I have come to lean heavily on the great information found in my gardening books. I'd like to share my all time favorites with you today. I have been using these books for years and they are compilation books covering enormous amounts of knowledge.

Vegetable Gardening by Robert J. Dolezal

This first book is the first gardening book that I ever owned. I purchased it at Ollie's years ago for just a couple of dollars. At the time I knew nothing at all about gardening and had never grown anything except some spider plant clippings. I read this book from cover to cover and it has stayed my go-to gardening book ever since. It's called Vegetable Gardening, Your Ultimate Guide by Robert J. Dolezal. 

This book gave me a general look at everything gardening related. It covers types of gardens (like raised bed, intensive, and row gardening), provides charts for growing zones, site location, soil preparation, pests and diseases, and so on. The part that I keep using over and over again is the extensive vegetable encyclopedia at the end. This was the first book I grabbed when I started my garden plans for this year.

Seed To Seed by Suzanne Ashworth

This second book is an amazing encyclopedia type book. This alphabetical book covers, in great detail, every vegetable that you could ever want to grow. Each listing gives information about botanical classifications, pollination and crossing, seed production and harvest, seed statistics, how to grow from seed, and regional growing recommendations. This is a must have book for anyone wanting to harvest their own seed for future planting. I can not recommend Seed To Seed by Suzanne Ashworth enough. 

Organic Gardening by Geoff Hamilton

Organic Gardening, The Essential Guide To Growing Flowers, Fruit, and Vegetables the Natural Way by Geoff Hamilton is the third book to share today. This book seriously covers so much that it would be impossible to mention it all in one or two paragraphs. Each page is filled with color photographs of everything gardening related. I grab this book the most when I want an organic way to deal with garden pests, diseases and weeds. There are also amazing sections on garden design spanning ornamental, container, vegetable, fruit, herb, and greenhouse gardening. 

Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening by Louise Riotte

This well worn gardening book was picked up for $.25 at a book sale and well worth much more. This Gardenway book is another encyclopedia style book with very few pictures and those that it does have are in the form of sketches. Companion planting is a major part of my gardening. This is the practice of planting different vegetables, herbs, and flowers together in the same plot. In some cases one plant will add a needed element into the soil that will be used by it's companion plant. In other cases, one plant will repel insects from it's neighbor. 

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my favorite gardening books. 

I'd love to hear about yours.

Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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"The thoughts of the diligent [tend] only to plenteousness; but of every one [that is] hasty only to want." Proverbs 21:5

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2018 Seed Inventory

In the past I made huge, online seed orders. However, for the last few years we haven't been doing this. Instead, I've just been going to my local shops and grabbing some heirloom tomato and pepper plants and a few packages of seeds that I wanted to plant.

We have decided to put a lot of emphases, as a family project, on our garden this year. Before going online and purchasing to our hearts' content, I decided to see what we had left over from previous years. As it turns out, we have quite a lot. 

Since these are all old seeds, I'm not expecting miracles in germination. Most are from the order I made to Pinetree Garden Seeds in 2012. I was surprised to see that a few were actually from 1994. I have no idea where those came from or how they became part of my seed collection.

In addition to those pictured above, we also have a good bit of seed that we saved from heirloom tomatoes. We haven't tried to start those, so I'm interested to see how it goes.

Here's what I cataloged:

~ Beans, Lima - King of the Garden
~ Beans, Snap - Giant Stringless Bush, Kentucky Wonder Pole
~ Beets - Chioggia, Lutz Winter Keeper
~ Cauliflower - Early Snowball
~ Celery - Golden Pascal
~ Collard - Vates
~ Corn - Six Shooter, Golden Bantam
~ Cucumber - Early Cluster or Russian, Homemade Pickles
~ Eggplant - Rosa Bianca, Black Beauty
~ Flowers - Forget-Me-Not, Baby's Breath, Mammoth Sunflower, Hollyhock, Merigold, Chamomile
~ Herbs - Single Italian Plain-Leafed Parsley, Oregano, Italian Large Leaf Sweet Basil, Greek Miniature Basil, Lettuce Leaf Basil, Cilantro, Catnip, Dill
~ Parsnips - Harris Model
~ Peas - Knights, Tall Telephone
~ Peppers - Sweet Banana, Long Red Cayenne, Poblano, Anaheim Chili, Red Cherry Sweet Pepper, Marconi Red, Aconcagua, Golden Treasure
~ Pumpkin - Small Sugar
~ Spinach - Viroflay
~ Squash - Black Zucchini, Waltham Butternut, Bennings Green-Tint Pattypan, Zapallo Zucchini
~ Strawberry - Ruegen Alpine
~ Tomato - Polish Linguisa, Brandywine Red, Brandywine Black, Brandywine Yellow, Brandywine Pink, Mr. Stripey, Sugar Lump, Fireball, Aunt Ruby's German Green
~ Turnip - Purple Top White Globe
~ Watermelon - Sugar Baby

I will still need to pick up the following seeds; radish, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, hyssop, thyme sage, rosemary, and okra. Also, I'm hoping to do potatoes, sweet potatoes and start an asparagus bed this year.

I hope your garden is coming along nicely,
Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." Genesis 8:22

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PA Farm Show ~ Horticultural Miniatures

Since I took off blogging for the month of January, I'm a bit behind in sharing all the fun and exciting things that we've been up to. This week I want to take the time to share the pictures we took while at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg Pa. It may, however, take longer than a week since we took so many pictures.

The Horticulture display was the first exhibit that we took pictures of when we first walked into the farm show complex. These miniature landscapes are fantastic.

These little scenes, planted and arranged in clay saucers were the first thing that caught my eye. I've always loved miniatures and when the kids were little I would frequently put their toy soldiers in our potted house plants, hoping that they would like the idea too.

There were so many creative arrangements and interesting containers. What a fun way for children to be introduced to gardening and landscape design.

As we moved on down the isle, the displays became more advanced. I love the use of toy cars and other things utilized in creating the designs.

Each of these large projects had an accompanying sketch depicting the original design ideas.

I really enjoyed this category and would have loved to take longer in this section of the Farm Show alone. Unfortunately, my children got bored and so we continued on. I'll share more in tomorrows post.

Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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 "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed in itself, upon the earth: and it was so." Genesis 1:11-12