Category Archives: The Garden

Rainy Day in the Garden

Last Saturday we had all these big plans to get a lot of stuff done outside… but then it rained, and you know what happens sometimes when it rains… it pours. And poured, it did… literally. While the rain was nice and much needed, it wasn’t so nice when it came to getting stuff done outside. So instead my husband and I went to town and ran a few errands. On our way home we decided to stop by the local green house, Mulberry Lane, which is only several miles from where we live. If you’re local, I highly recommend stopping by there, they have a great selection and are so helpful! They were running a special on their cooler weather plants, and since the lettuce is growing so well in my garden, I decided to get more. Well, we can’t ever stop in there for just one thing, so we ended up leaving with a lot more than just lettuce….

Continue reading →

Indoor Garden Update

May Garden Update

8 Replies

It’s that busy time of the year where there’s lots of work to be done in the garden. I love this time of the year but I do find it very exhausting. Everything from planning it all out to planting and mulching, takes time and is a lot of hard work. I always breathe a sigh of relief once it’s all in and mulched.

Pictured above is a chive plant that came back from last year. I think the purple flowers are so pretty and they actually smell good… never knew they could bloom so pretty or smell so good!
Continue reading →

What Types of Tomatoes Are Best to Plant?

4 Replies

I’ve had several people ask me what types of tomatoes I think are best to plant. There are several factors that you have to take into account when choosing the best type of tomato to plant. First you need to choose a type that grows well in the area you live. The best way to find out what grows best in your area is to ask other gardeners what’s worked for them. Just from experience, I’m guessing you’ll probably get a lot of different answers which could become a little confusing. Things like soil type, sunny or shady location, and growing conditions that change from year to year can vary a lot, even for gardeners that are all in the same area. What I suggest is to make a list of all types recommended and then do some research. You’ll want to think about what you plan to use the tomatoes for, whether it’s canning and making sauces or slicing them for salads and sandwiches, different types of tomatoes vary on how they’re best used. Once you figure out what you plan to do with them, choose the types that best fit your needs from the varieties that do best in your area.
Continue reading →

Garden Planting Time

5 Replies

Yes it’s my favorite time of the year again, time to plant the garden! Greenhouses open up, full of all sorts of flowers and vegetable plants just waiting to be bought and planted. I love roaming up and down the aisles looking at all the different varieties of plants while mentally planning what I want to try growing for the year. I like researching new things I haven’t tried before and choosing a few of them to grow.

Continue reading →

Tour of Our Little Homestead

2 Replies

I haven’t had a chance to get any posts done this week because Miley and I have been working on a special project. When we started this project, we thought it would be an easy, quick, simple one… but there wasn’t one thing easy, quick or simple about it. We decided to make a video of a tour of our place to share with all of you. Sounds easy, right? Well… let’s just say it was way more time consuming and complicated than I thought it would be. But then you have to take into consideration, I’m not a very techy person, so maybe it is easy, just not for the technically challenged person like me. Either way, we managed to get it recorded, edited and finally uploaded.

Now that it’s uploaded, the frustration is gone and I now know what to do, Miley and I decided it might be fun to make videos to share here on occasion. If you enjoyed the video and would like to see more, be sure to like the video and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

All Work, No Play, No Fun!

Preparing a Raised Row Garden

6 Replies

Have you ever started a project with plans of doing it a certain way only to end up changing it up and making it into a huge project that made you wonder what in the heck you were thinking? Well, over the weekend we had one of those projects.

Last year I decided I wanted to make raised beds in the garden. With the size of our garden, it’s impossible to keep up with the weeding and upkeep of it so I figured having raised beds would make things a lot easier. The problem I ran in to was the expense of it. Buying the wood or other material to make the boxes, and then buying dirt to fill them just wasn’t in the budget. Even if we did have the money to do it, I still would have had a hard time spending money on that because one of the biggest reasons we’re raising a garden is to cut back on our food expense.
Continue reading →

Indoor Garden Update

2 Replies

Things have been so busy lately that I’ve been kind of neglecting our little indoor garden we started a while back. The seedlings have grown lately and are pretty root bound. Plus I’ve been bad at remembering to water them so I’m actually surprised they’re doing as well as they are.

I had planned on getting them transplanted to pots a few weeks ago but my potting soil was outside. At that time, it was snowing and blowing out, so it was one big frozen blob. I brought it in to thaw out but I’ve never had a chance to get it done. My niece is out of school on spring break, so she’s hanging with us some this week. I decided transplanting the tomatoes and cucumbers would be a good project to keep her and Miley busy for the afternoon.

Continue reading →

Surprise in the Garden

2 Replies

Last year when we planned our garden, Miley told me she really wanted to try to grow carrots. I have tried growing them, without luck, once a long time ago and I don’t know why, but I never tried growing them again. So when Miley asked to grow carrots, I said, “Sure, why not!” Along with carrots, we also decided to grow radishes, spinach and lettuce.

I bought several bags each of compost and top soil, hoping that if we made a thick heaped row of it we wouldn’t have so many weeds. She and I worked hard dumping the dirt and forming it into a nice heaped up row. Then we planted our seeds and watered them in. The next day we went out to the garden and discovered our nicely mounded up row leveled and scattered everywhere. The chickens had gotten into the garden and totally ruined the whole thing. Miley was upset and I… well let’s just say those chickens were lucky they could out run me otherwise we would have had lots of chicken stew to eat… and I don’t butcher chickens… but that day I sure would have!
Continue reading →