In my Garden

Well, with the frost here in upstate New York, the garden season is quickly coming to an end. My daughter had some fun pulling up some carrots that I have been freezing for stews and soups. I cannot believe how good our garden has been to us. I thank the Lord each day as I look at that beautiful site in my front yard. These are only some of the carrots we have. You can see that some look quite normal, and others.... well, not so much. And the taste of a fresh carrot... out of this world!!!

My freezer is so full of produce to get us through the winter. It is exciting.

In my Garden

I haven't written about my garden in so long... And it has been so good to me. We have tomatoes coming out of everywhere. I also have zucc, eggplants, carrots, peppers, etc still coming up/out. Plus, I hope that you all have planted your fall crops. I wanted to mention this weeks ago, but fall is a great time for lettuce, spinach, garlic, broccoli.... I planted some new plants a little while ago for some fresh crops. I hope they come up!

In the Garden

We continue to be blessed with a plethora of goodies coming from our garden. My hubby even commented on how we might be filling our bellies with veggies, but at least we were able to fill our bellies. I thought that was well put. Although, I have a deep love for eating veggies, and I am still having to talk him into eating his.

What is popping up in your garden?

In my Garden

I finally got a picture of the peppers. It is so glorious to be making dinner and just be able to walk outside and grab the items that I need fresh from the garden. Even if you don't have a big yard (or a yard at all) you too can grow your own food. There are many dwarf versions of plants that are great in pots that can be grown outside on patios or porches or even inside under special lights.

I used these to make our chicken kabobs last night. They are delicious raw too.

What's growing in your garden?

In my Garden

Here is some of the goodies that we have been bringing in from the garden. Everything you see here was picked in one afternoon. So you can just imagine what we bring/share in a weeks worth of time. We barely have spent any money on the garden... we don't even have a fence. So I have been really pleased with all the food God has blessed us with through the garden!


You'll see here some small watermelons - making my hubby look like Mickey Mouse.
More cucumbers and zucchini.
Finally Broccoli and eggplant are ready too.
We have been picking green peppers and cherry tomatoes... but these get eaten before I ever get a picture.

What's in your garden???

Yellow Cucumbers

So my husband is obsessed with trying to get the produce as big as possible. There are several problems with this. First of all, for many plants, the more you pick, the more they produce. So if my hubby leaves the produce on the plant it isn't making more...

Second, if you leave it too long it is no longer good to eat. You can see that this cucumber was left too long which gave it the yellow color.

The yellow color can be caused by other things as well such as a virus, watering too much, or an imbalance in nutrients. Checking on you plants daily will give you an idea of the problem. Is the plant growing and looking a nice deep green, but after a few days turns yellow? Most likely you didn't pick it in time and cannot eat it now. Is your plant small and just started and already growing yellow? This means that something else is wrong... You'll have to evaluate how much you've been watering and go from there.

Green Peppers

Here are some of my green peppers. When you get ready to pick these beauties there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

1.) Pick when they are bigger than a baseball but smaller than a softball.
2.) Green peppers will turn red if you let them stay on the plant longer
3.) Unlike squash and cucumbers, you may want to use clippes or a knife to detach so that you do not harm plant
4.) Peppers stop producing flowers when they reach their maximum weight. So the plant can tell how much it can hold. If you want the plant to continue to produce flowers, don't let it get too heavy.

I actually used some of my peppers in a yummy meal tonight and hope to get pictures and recipe posted tomorrow.

What's growing in your garden?

In my Garden

Well, the garden is going crazy with activity. My produce seems to be coming in later than everyone else, but we'll just have to start earlier inside next year.

We have peppers ready to pick, eggplant growing larger everyday, watermelons that look good enough to eat, more and more beans, cucumbers, and squash, tomatoes getting ready to turn red soon, broccoli finally showing up, and red kidney beans that have begun to change color. We have saved so much money this year. We have also learned quite a bit. This was only the second year of having a garden in our own yard. So I have a few tips that I'll be sharing soon.

In my Garden

I know that if anyone is reading this, you are probably sick of looking at my garden. But I love it so.

Here you can see that our second round of roses are blooming now. We have a plethora of delicious green beans that I have been munching on. Our watermelons are just the cutest. This is our first year planting these, so they have been exciting to watch grow. Cucumbers and squash are coming in by the arm fulls. The neighbors love it, and so do we. Cucumbers make great snacks and I cannot believe all the things I have been able to make with the squash (green and yellow).
The tomatoes seem to be taking their time, but I am happy to see the little green balls finally appearing. We will have to start them earlier next year!!

What's growing in your garden? I'd love to hear...

In my Garden

Here are the latest pics from the garden. We continue to get great squash and cucumbers. The lettuce is still yummy too. Unfortunately our spinach has started to flower. So we pulled them and are trying to start more. I had no idea it would do this so fast, being the first time we tried planting it ourselves. We'll know more next time. I think we'll keep growing it inside during the colder months too.

I am excited about the many flowers on everythihg. We have flowers on our tomatoes, eggplant, pumpkins, watermelon, etc.

And the peppers are finally starting to take shape as well.

I am so excited to be getting real food from them now.

In my Garden

It is zucchini time. Zucchini can grow inches over night. Here are pics from Monday and then on Thursday.

When it comes time to pick check that the zucchini is between 6 and 12 inches. Don't wait for them to get really big. The more you pick the more the plant will produce. Twist the zucchini gently to release it from the plant. Don't pull too hard. It should come off fairly easy.

I like to put zucchini in pasta dishes, on the grill by itself, on kabobs,....

We have an entire row of green and yellow squash. So pretty soon the house will be filled with squash. We can't possibly use it all right now. So you can freeze it.

Here's how:

First you'll want to wash it.
Then slice it up into chunks.
Cook the squash for about 3-4 minutes in boiling hot water (blanch).
Quickly cool the squash in ice water for about 5 minutes.
Now place the squash in freezer bags. Be sure to get out as much air as possible.

I wouldn't recomment using these for anything other than cooking. The thawed veggies will be pretty mushy. However, this is great for pasta sauces and casseroles in the middle of winter. And they were free from your garden. Yum

In my Garden

When going out to check our beautiful plants we noticed that the broccoli had holes all over the leaves. With further inspection we found cabbage worms or a worm from that family secretly hiding out on the leaves. I say secretly because these worms or caterpillars are the exact same color as the plant itself and weren't more than an inch long, making them hard to spot when looking quickly. My husband and I quickly started pulling them off, which made my poor daughter cry. She just loves all creatures. She spends her summer days carrying around toads, grasshoppers, and any other living creature she can find. So the thought of us "removing" the worms just broke her heart. Anyways, I became curious to see whether or not there were other natural and cheap ways to get rid of these not so nice creatures. I found several methods:

1.) pick them off your self
2.) leave them as long as there aren't too many and hope that natural enemies will eat them
3.) get a bacteria product from LoweS or Home Depot that will only kill the worms and is safe for everything else (Dipel, bT, thuricide)
4.) spray with canned or powdered milk
5.) I've even heard some tale about leaving a cigarette in water all night and then spraying that water.... hmmmm....
6.) for prevention have floating row covers and you could place broccoli head in pantyhose

Do you have any tips? We are looking for anything safe that might work...

In the Garden

Our garden really looks fantastic. Almost everything is growing well. It seems that anything we started ourselves from seeds is doing fine, but a few of the items that we bought already growing have a fungus or something. It is a good thing that we grew 90% of the garden from our own seeds.

My husband and I have been reading about canning and jarring to help us try some new things this year with some of our produce. As it gets closer to the harvest season I'll share any tips or recipes that we find and enjoy!

Below are some pictures of the flowers that have started to appear on our plants. I love to watch them grow, but I am always so nervous that we won't get any food from them. These flowers help me chill out. I took them a few days ago and actually am already seeing baby cucumbers and little green beans on some of the plants.

In the Garden - Lettuce & Spinach

I just love that our garden is already producing food that we can pick and eat. I am not sure if any of you have eaten fresh spinach or lettuce, but it has flavors that you would never know existed if you only ate the kind you can buy at a store.

Last night we had chicken kabobs, salt potatoes, and fresh salad.

Side note: I think kabobs are a great way to stretch meat. It can turn just a couple pieces of chicken into a meal for an entire family. Just load up with veggies and pick a good marinade!

Here are some tips to help get your leafy greens looking just as good if not better than mine:

* Lettuce should be started in the early spring. It is a cool weather veggie.

* When picking a spot, keep in mind that lettuce does well in partial shade. You can plant in a regular garden or use some sort of container or pot. Lettuce really does well in either.

* Water lettuce lightly throughout the day every few hours to help keep it fresh and keep the tips from burning.

Now when it comes time to pick remember:

- It is always best to pick when it is cooler out - cloudy days, early morning, or maybe the evening (We are usually eveing pickers and morning weeders...)

- For lettuce and spinach you'll want to pick while the leaves are still tender.

- I usually pick as soon as it looks big enough to eat. The plants respond well and make more right away. We always have lettuce to eat.
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In the Garden

Last night we made BLTs for dinner. It was glorious to walk out to the garden and pick fresh lettuce and spinach for our sandwiches. And I think it tastes so much better when you are getting it fresh.

(The above pictures are the latest changes in our beautiful garden. It is really flourishing!)

In my Garden

I wanted to share some pics of my beautiful rose bushes.

Here are a few tips to help yours do well:
- make sure to plant your roses in a sunny area
We have ours planted on the east side of our house. Whenever I check it seems that there is sun just pouring on them.
- we chop the bushes down
Each year we chop it down and it seems to grow higher and higher
- get rid of old dead flowers
I make sure to cut them off as soon as they start to look sad and we always have flowers blooming from spring to fall

In the Garden

Around here, Memorial Day usually marks the time to finally, and safely, put in your garden. Ours is half done. When finished I'll share some updated pictures. Theses pictures are from the past couple weeks so that you can see the difference. I wonder if I could see them grow if I just sat and watched. It seems to happen so fast.

Here is your gardening tip of the day: Plant taller plants on the North side of your garden so that they do not hog all the sunlight!

Happy Gardening to all.

Gardening on a Smaller Scale

So I now have black and blue legs from smashing the pick some many times as I got tired gardening. We have a fairly large garden. It is actually 20 feet by 30 feet. It requires lots of work. We have a nice yard and some space we were willing to give up or use in a more economical way.

So now you're saying to yourself, "But I don't have that kind of space..." If you don't have a yard it does not mean that you can't grow some of your own food. There are tons of plants that can and will grow in pots or containers of some sort.

You may want to try:

Tomatoes
Peppers
Carrots
Radishes
Lettuce

If there are others that you would like, then I offer one suggestion. When picking out your seeds look for dwarf or bush varieties. These types also grow well in smaller places. Most veggies now come in a dwarf or bush version, so your options are without limits.

In the picture you'll see a terra cotta planter. You can usually get containers fairly cheap. The great thing about terra cotta is that you can paint it. So now it is an art project the kids can enjoy and a beautiful container to hold free produce.

saving green by being green

It is garden time again. With my husband hurt I will be doing most of the work. But I don't care. I love our garden and the gifts it brings us at harvest time. Here is step one: