This year we did a little experiment and tried growing some strawberry popcorn. From past experience with growing sweet corn, I really didn’t expect it to do that great. In fact, I really didn’t want to mess with it because I figured it’d get full of worms and bugs like sweet corn does, and we wouldn’t get anything out of it. My husband talked me into trying it, so he planted small patch on the side of the garden.
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Well… as you can see, between the heavy rains and the business of summer my garden kinda got out of control.
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Well, as you can tell, I took a little break from here. It wasn’t an intentional break, it just kinda happened. Things got busy, life happened, and before I knew it days had passed by before I even had a chance to finish a sentence, let alone a whole post. It’s been one of those crazy summers where no matter how hard I work it just seems like I can’t get ahead. We’ve had some big changes happen with my son moving out and my older daughter working more hours. With them both not around as much and not being able to help out with chores like they used to, we’ve had to make some adjustments and get into a new routine. It’s been a fun, exciting, yet challenging time as we start this new chapter of our life.
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It’s getting to be that time where the garden’s finally starting to produce a lot. We’re in that in between stage where we get too much to keep up with eating it, but yet not quite enough to make it worth getting the canner out. There are a few things we’ve gotten a lot of, like cucumbers for example, that I probably could have made made and canned some pickles with. Instead of canning, I’ve been fermenting them and making refrigerator pickles. Next week is the fair, and we’ve been busy getting ready for that, so I just haven’t had enough time to do it. I’m hoping after the fair there will still be plenty of cucumbers to can some pickles. If not, I’ll just plant a fall crop and hope to get more in a few months. The tomatoes are also really starting to ripen. There is a lot out there, so I’m just holding my breath that most of them won’t start turning until after the fair. I really wish there was a magical button I could push to pause the garden until after the fair.
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Got Squash Bugs? Just Vacuum ‘Em!
Squash bugs have to be one of the most annoying garden pests of all times. And, next to spiders and tomato hornworms, they have to be the creepiest, most disgusting things ever! Last year squash bugs ruined the entire pumpkin patch and then they moved on to the zucchini and ruined that too. I tried a lot of things to get rid of them, starting with organic methods, from spraying neem oil, dish soap, and raw goat milk; to breaking out the insecticide sprays, like Seven. Nothing worked. Those things just. don’t. die. That’s what makes them so creepy.
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Here it is July already and I’m just now getting around to doing an update on what all has been happening in my garden in June. Oh well, better late than never, right?
When I started out the year, I had two goals I wanted to work towards. My first goal was to have a neater garden. I’ve always dreamed of having one that’s more appealing to the eyes, you know… with neat little walk ways and flowers growing, bees buzzing and butterflies fluttering around. One that when you walk into it, gives you a calm, relaxed feeling…
But then I walk into my garden and reality hits…
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Over the years that I’ve had a garden, I haven’t ever been that interested in companion planting. I’ve always liked everything to have its own space in neat little rows, or semi-neat crooked rows in my case. Planting certain plants together to benefit each other never really crossed my mind, up until last year. I was having problems with bugs invading some crops in my garden so I started researching organic ways to control them and ran across an article on companion planting. I found it really interesting and wanted to try it to see if it would really work. Since I had already planted my garden, I mostly focused on planting various flowers and herbs that would help to control the bugs. The kids really got into it and had so much fun buying different herbs and flowers and then researching too find the best companions to plant them next to.
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When we first moved here, we burned down an old chicken coop that was falling down. There was a cement foundation under it and as soon as we cleared out all the debris we instantly decided it would make a perfect strawberry bed. Due to lack of time, resources and other projects taking priority over it, our strawberry patch ended up growing weeds and was used as a place to store tomato cages.
This year all that changed because our compost pile was finally ready to use so we were able to fill it up with compost and dirt without having to buy any.
It’s always an exciting time when you get your first harvest from the garden. All the hard work and effort finally starts to pay off and you can finally start to enjoy all your efforts!
Well the other day we got our first harvest…
Humble Little Homestead 