My Life Monday - How Does Your Garden Grow?

I recently mentioned that we were restarting our garden this year.  Well, it is almost finished!  This post is mostly pictures, but let me just tell you that we are using organic gardening methods.  Most of the plants you see I started as seeds, and some seeds I just planted today so we will not see the sprouts for a few weeks.  Other crops (like beets, carrots, onions and spinach) I will plant every two weeks in order to have a rotating/continuous crop.  Our back yard is very small, so we decided to do a total of 5 small raised beds along the fence. 

Here is the 1.5 yards of gardening dirt we moved to the beds...my son had a blast helping with this.



One side of our yard...yes, our yard is not level.

The other side of our yard.  Eventually there will be some type of trellis on that back bed.

Cucumber, peas, strawberries, carrots, beets and onion bed.  We are using the square foot gardening method.  You get a much higher yield of produce this way.  Most everything is still seeds here, but you can see our strawberry and cucumber plants.  This bed will have a trellis along the back.

Mixed greens bed.  Various lettuces, arugula, Swiss Chard, Spinach, Kale.

See, here are two of the lettuces sprouting, one is red leaf and the other is butter bowl.

And here is a kale plant.  Tiny now, but in a few weeks it will be big.

Here is the eggplant, squash, zucchini bed.  The Zucchini will be staked to grow tall instead of trailing along the ground.  Everything else is bush variety and still seeds or seedlings.

 

 

Here is the melon bed with 2 watermelon sections and 2 cantaloupe sections.  Cabbage is planted along the front.  The melons will be trellised to grow up instead of along the ground.

 

See, this cantaloupe already has a flower!

This is the tomato, bell pepper bed (with some basil).  Some are still seedlings.

Our blueberry bush has flowers all over it! 

Our little Satsuma mandarin also has tiny flower buds.

That is it so far.  I will post pictures when everything really gets growing, and I hope to keep track of how much we produce this spring/summer season and again in the fall/winter season to see which crops do better when.  I'll keep you posted.

Do you have a garden?  What do you grow?  Any tips?

Survival Gardening

Are you Texas Ready?  According to The Seed Lady, Lucinda Bailey, being Texas Ready is the Texas model of freedom, capitalism, integrity, independence, self-sufficiency, preparedness and civic responsibility.

Texas Ready is a company that sells seed vaults.  Each vault comes with over 80 different varieties of seeds to feed a specific number of people.  So no matter if you are just two people living in an apartment, or you are a neighborhood starting a community gardening plot, they have something for you.  Not only is their variety so wide, but they also customize the seeds for your region, add seeds for fall back crops in case of crop failure, and the vault is an ammo box so the seeds are safe from light, water and vermin/pests!  Pretty great.

I actually like this concept of survival gardening (gardening to provide for your family in economic failure), but that is not why I like this company so much.  The 'survival gardening' portion is just an added bonus for me.  Due to the specific dietary needs in my family, growing our own food is just a good, smart, money saving idea. 

The seeds purchased in your local store may or may not be suitable for your region, and most likely can not be harvested for planting in future years due to being hybrids.  Most store chains purchase on a national buying market so the seeds in their New York store are the same seeds in their Texas store.  Humm?  These two places have very different growing environments.

The seeds provided by Texas Ready are regionally based, and there are a LOT of seeds.  Added bonus, this company considers them self as a one-time-purchase product because you can harvest the seeds from the plants you grow each year for sustained seed and growing potential!  Of coarse, they also have books and resources available, and some of the vaults even come with these resources.

Check them out, you might find that you want to be a survival gardener too!

This YouTube video is just a WONDERFUL yet small taste of survival gardening.  This is taken at an expo, so the sound quality is poor.

This video is a little more refined and clear to understand.  There is different information in each video, so if you have the time watch both, or watch all of her videos...there are a lot of them.

Change the World? Reach our Kids!

Our kids are the future.  Seriously, how long before you and I are gone and our kids are the Presidents, Governors, FDA leaders, teachers, police and firemen?  The fastest and most sure way to make 'change' happen is by teaching our kids from a young age so that it becomes a lifestyle.

For instance, our family is into exercise, eating healthy, gardening (again soon), juicing, essential oils, home birth, God, reading the Bible, church, family, relationships, nature, fishing and the list just goes on and on.  If we start teaching and talking to our kiddos about these things at a very young age so that it is second nature to them then hopefully they will teach their friends, future spouse, kids and the chain goes on.

My kiddos already know which essential oils to use under several circumstances.  When they get a bump or bruise they immediately ask for lavender.  If they sneeze or cough they ask for RC.  If they know they are going somewhere that germs spread like wildfire they ask for Thieves.  Sure, we keep teaching and telling them for further learning and reinforcement, but they already get it and know it and use it!

The same goes for our food.  Mackenzie (my 4-year old) almost always asks if an item is all natural or organic.  She also asks about ingredients and food color (she can not tolerate artificial food color).  So she is learning now, and has a basic understanding of what we should and should not put into our bodies.  She even goes so far as to teach her little brother.

A big thing I hear from Mom's and Dad's is that their kids don't like good food; all they will eat is junk.  I feel that one of the easiest and biggest ways to get kids to know about healthy eating as a lifestyle (not diets, not fads) is to get them involved.  (And get the junk out of the house.  Out of sight, out of mind....eventually out of mind.  Hey, a few missed snacks or meals won't hurt them, they will eat what you give them if they have no other choice.)

One way to do this is to let them help you make breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks.  Give them age appropriate tasks under supervision.  My daughter loves to hand shred the lettuce and greens for a salad.  She also enjoys mixing dishes that require a good stir.  My son (age 2) loves to peel soft skin off oranges or bananas for lunch or snack.  Both of the kids like to help me make fresh juice with the juicer by taking turns putting the produce into the juicer and watching the liquid gold come out!  See, it can be just that easy and fun to begin building the foundations of a healthy life at a young age. 

Recently I had an easy learning experience with the kiddos when we bought old fashioned (organic) popping corn kernels.  We needed a snack so I decided to pop the corn the old fashioned way...on the stove top.  They loved it.  While I was popping the corn I explained to them the health benefits of NOT using prepackaged popping corn because of some of the hidden ingredients, and showed them how we can flavor our own corn to fit whatever craving we were having.  Oh, and when I pop corn this way ALL the kernels pop!  So as parents we have to look for opportunities in our every day lives to teach our kids.  Even if they act like they are not listening, guess what?  They are.

If you want to dig even further to help your kids like healthy food then try your hand at gardening.  It doesn't have to be a big, full sized garden, but just a few herbs and tomatoes.  I have found that cucumbers and peas are easy to grow, start with that.  Kids love to watch the seed grow into big plants, flowers start to set, bees pollinate, ladybugs do their thing, fruit begin to set, grow and harvest.  It intrigues them and they learn a lot.  Then when it is time to eat they get really excited that they grew the food them self and they actually want to eat it, and want you to eat it too.  If you want information on how to do a garden in a small space I recommend the book All New Square Foot Gardening.

My Old Garden

Zucchini Flowering

 

My little tomatoes

Anyway, whatever you are hoping your kids will do in the future, or maybe the dreams you have for generations to come, begin small with the little people in your life.  The time will be well invested, and you just may have some fun along the way!

Gardening

Many of you may or may not know this, but I LOVE to have a vegetable garden. I am by no means very good at this type of gardening, as my plants don't seem to ever produce much fruit (except the cucumbers and cherry tomatoes), but the fruit they do produce always tastes WONDERFUL.

I have not had my garden in two years and have decided to have one this year. I am soooo excited. I already have various seeds in the ground and 6 tomato plants planted. Now I am just waiting to finish off our other garden bed with dirt, peppers, squash and zucchini.

This year I am doing things differently than in years past. I am planning and researching. A LOT of research. I have studied the various plants I am wanting to grow (light, water, soil type, how to stake or not stake the plant, harvesting...). I have also done research on how to get rid of pests in the garden without using chemicals that are so bad for us. And considering I have a baby I do not want to be using harmful chemicals anyway.

I have learned that planting marigolds in with the garden keeps certain pests away; like the dreaded tomato horn caterpillar. I have also discovered that having petunias, geranium and the like near the garden attract ladybugs that eat the pest and bees that help pollinate. Oh, and the dreaded bird. Well, simply having a birdbath with clean water nearby keeps the birds off the veggies. Who knew? Now I just need to figure out a way to buy marigolds, a hanging basket of petunias, a hanging basket of geraniums and a birdbath.

Oh, and this year I am adding tons of prayer to my garden. Afterall, God created all of these things in the first place. He is the best 'gardener' I know.

As my garden takes shape and begins to produce I will post pictures.