Category Archives: Garden 2017

Garden 2017 Update July

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Thought I would share some pictures from our garden projects from July.

This is part of my Garden 2017 series of posts.  You can see the earlier posts at:

Garden 2017 Update June

Garden 2017 Update February Through May

Garden 2017 Aquaponics

Garden 2017 A New Beginning

 

This has been the hottest summer we have ever seen.  The temperatures have been in the 90’s everyday and though we had a wet spring, and the plants put on a lot of stems and leaves, they didn’t produce much actual fruit.  We haven’t seen any rain for several weeks and have had intense heat and the garden isn’t producing as much fruit and vegetables as I had hoped. The heat has really taken it’s toll.

July 8, 2017

Garden Bed A

Garden Bed B

Romano tomatoes are still mostly green.

But some starting to turn orange and we have had a few of them turn red. The rest of them should be ready for harvest soon.  With the heat we are having, I don’t know how long the plants can handle the intense sun and heat and if they will put on any more blooms or not.

Butternut squash.

We think these could be a kind of pumpkins, but not sure.  We have not grown these before.

Zucchini

The sunflowers are almost ready to bloom.

July 12, 2017

Okra is on its second set of blooms.

Okra is a delicious food!

Pink petunias in the garden.

Romano tomatoes in the garden are ready to harvest. So far, only a few have been ready every couple of days.

The kids take turns mowing the grass.

July 13, 2017

Zucchini ready for harvest.

We had a cookout and grilled some of our garden veggies including zucchini, yellow squash, red onions, Romano tomatoes, okra, and we cut up fresh cucumbers and later we made smores.

All of the fresh food was delicious and it was a beautiful summer evening to enjoy spending time together.

July 27, 2017

We are still thinking these could be a kind of pumpkin.  I am used to a pumpkin that starts out green and then turns orange.  However, these start out as smooth yellow balls and then turn a peach color.

Zinnias in the garden.

Red Romano tomatoes.

Bees hiding out on the squash blossoms.

Small watermellons.  Several have already been eaten by something before they get any bigger than a baseball.  The plants are struggling in the heat and many of the leaves and stems have died.

A few of the sunflowers in Garden B have bloomed.

The sweet potatoes in the corner of Garden B are not doing much.  I think it has been too hot for them.

More of the round yellow orbs that might become pumpkins.  I have never seen a plant send out so many runners and then every foot or so it has another set of roots it sends into the ground.  Some of these runners are 30 foot long and loaded with blossoms, yet seem to only produce 1 actual fruit ball.  I don’t know if it is behaving this way because of the extreme heat or if this is normal for this plant because I have not grown this species before.

It is lovely to listen to the frogs and cicadas even though it has been so hot.

Found these wild grapes had dropped on the ground, just below the garden. They are growing 30 feet up in the trees, so I wont be able to harvest them.   We saw about 50 grapes had dropped.  Some of the grapes were green.

Some of the grapes were purple.  We accidentally stepped on some too.

Our tomato harvest!  The harvest is small, but not too bad from our small garden.

Found a cricket hiding upside down on the cucumber plants.

Harvesting cucumbers.

I am thankful we have had several cucumbers ripen daily all summer long. There hasn’t been a day go by this summer that we didn’t have lots of cucumbers on the kitchen counter and sliced up for supper.

Mint is in bloom.

The kids decided we needed to give a few plants some water.  We planted some Brandywine Heirloom tomatoes and bell peppers where the onions and lettuce used to be.  We hope they make it through this heat and put on some fruit soon before it is too late.

The kids found a baby lizard and spent some time holding it and letting it crawl up their arms before setting it free on a tree trunk.

The petunia plants in the barrel planters are almost dead.  Most of the green of the plants is gone or turned to brown.  But this week it put on new blooms almost to say to the heat, “I’m not done yet!”  A butterfly had stopped in for a drink of the nectar in this photo.

Pink lilacs that are 20 feet tall put on blooms this week at the very top.  They bloomed earlier this year and I was surprised to see them bloom again.

Pink petunias in the garden are still blooming.

Sunflowers along the driveway.

Today’s harvest is small.  This is the last of the Romano tomatoes.  The plants looked brown and nearly dead from the heat when we picked these. But I was thrilled to bring in this harvest.

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Garden 2017 Update June

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This is part of my Garden 2017 series of posts.  You can see the earlier posts at:

Garden 2017 Update February Through May

Garden 2017 Aquaponics

Garden 2017 A New Beginning

 

June 2017

After tons of rain, the garden (plants and weeds) is growing like CRAZY!  The plants put on tons of growth and blossoms.  Some flowers are missing their petals and are leaning over due to too much rain.

However, many of the garden plants are finally producing fruits and vegetables!

We have two garden beds, plus a few planters growing produce and flowers. Garden Bed A is 12 x 16. We planted it with the square foot method of intense planting. It grew like crazy with all the rain. We need to tweak how we plant this garden bed next year. Though I am thankful for the abundance, we are not able to de-weed it at this stage and it looks like a mess.

Garden Bed A: Harvesting Green Beans!

The garden has been invaded by Japanese Beetle Bugs. They are quickly devouring the bean leaves.

The cucumbers have taken over the lavender. The lavender is in bloom too.

Harvesting cucumbers and green beans.

Bountiful harvest of green and yellow beans.

Dalia starting to bloom.

We often remove old blooms from petunias and they continue to produce beautiful flowers with bright colors.

Carrot tops are growing nicely.

We have had an abundance of leaf lettuce.  We had a lot of rain and the lettuce seemed to really appreciate it.

Marigolds are in bloom.

Removing dead blooms from the geraniums will encourage new blooms.

Hanging basket with leaf lettuce.

This basked of lettuce has produced several harvests already.

Heirloom tomato plants.

I started several more heirloom tomato plants in milk jugs.  Milk jugs are like mini greenhouses and it is a great way to start seedlings.

Petunias in barrel planters.

Garden Bed A: Small spinach patch is going to seed.

The spinach has produced an abundance and I have harvested it daily for several months.

Sweet potato vines and romaine lettuce growing in the aquaponics barrel. The romaine lettuce is about to go to seed.  It has produced a lot of lettuce since we transplanted them months ago from lettuce we had already used during the winter and regrew.  Lettuce is amazing!

Potato Bins are just about finished growing.  Two have stopped sending out new plants, but this one still has new growth emerging.  We can’t wait to open up these bins and see how they produced under all that straw and dirt. Hopefully we will have a nice potato harvest.

Garden Bed B

Garden bed B gets more shade than garden bed A.  We built this one because we ran out of room in the first one for plants that like to spread out. In this one we planted different kinds of squash and watermelon, sweet potatoes, and a second planting of radish, and a few flowers and sunflowers to attract pollinators and to enjoy the flowers.  So far there is nothing to harvest in this bed yet, but it is producing a lot of vines and leaves and blooms.

The cucumbers from Garden bed A are growing past the garden now.  They are traveling out into the yard and growing the nicest cucumbers.  They might think the garden bed is too crowded!

Though our garden project this year is small, the garden beds are producing some wonderful foods for our family.

I am thankful for these harvests.  Summer harvests taste delicious and have so much more flavor than food from the store.  I enjoy the beautiful flowers too and all of the variety of insects they attract that help pollinate the plants. This process of a summer garden is even more special when family spends time together planting the food, then watching it grow, and then brings in the harvest together.  Enjoying time together is the best part!

Be blessed!

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Garden Update February Through May 2017

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I can’t believe how fast this summer is going by.  I wanted to share some pictures with you of how our little garden project turned out.

February 2017

Construction of Garden Bed A

 

March 2017

Garden Bed A. Planning to use a square foot gardening method in this bed.

Planting Romaine Lettuce in aquaponics barrel from heads regrown into plants in windowsill. Harvested the lettuce several times from windowsill during the winter.

April 5, 2017

Romaine Lettuce In Aquaponics Barrel

These lettuce heads are regrowing after harvest from store bought lettuce.

They send out new roots and will continue to reproduce for several more harvests.

Romaine Lettuce in Aquaponics Barrel

Garden Bed A

Garden Bed A: Leaf Lettuce seedlings have sprouted.

April 10, 2017

Potato Bins Construction

Potato Bins: Planting Sprouted Potatoes

April 17, 2017

Garden Bed A

Green Onion Tops from Red and Yellow Onions

Garden Bed A: Spinach, Beets, Basil, Lavender, Marjoram, Cucumber

Cucumber

Planting Marigolds and Petunias and a few little decorations in Garden Bed A

Petunias in Barrel Planters

Garden Bed A: Petunias

Garden Bed B: Construction & Potato Bins Construction

April 23, 2017

Lots of rainy days.

April 29, 2017

Leaf lettuce

Radish

Beets

Spinach

 

May 20,  2017

 

Garden Bed A

Starting seeds in milk jugs.

Hanging basket with leaf lettuce after two harvests.

Garden Bed B

Garden Bed B

Potato Bins: They are really growing fast!  We layer them with additional straw and dirt about every week or so.  

The potato plants keep growing up through the additional straw and are almost grown above the top of the bin.

 

Aquaponics Barrel still producing Romaine lettuce after 4 harvests. Now added sweet potato starts too.

Harvesting leaf lettuce cuttings from hanging basket.

Romaine Lettuce from barrel, leaf lettuce from basket, beet tops from garden bed A.

Lunch main salad with romaine and leaf lettuces, green onion, and radishes.

Dinner side salad with turkey bacon.

May 30, 2017

Garden Bed A

Garden Bed A

Garden Bed A: Green Onion

Garden Bed A: Spinach & Beets

Garden Bed A: Potatoes

Garden Bed A: Cucumbers

Daily Lunch Harvest

Garden Bed A: daily harvest of green onion, beet tops, spinach, and leaf lettuce.

June 2017

It is getting hot outside!  Thankfully we had a lot of rain and that is helping to keep the plants alive.  The rain has made it difficult to weed the garden beds as they are in a constant state of mud.  Some of the plants and blossoms are beat down and blossom petals have been knocked off.  But is a blessing they are well watered and will bloom again.

I will post June’s Garden update in a future post.  I hope you enjoyed watching our garden grow.

 

 

 

 

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Garden 2017 Aquaponics

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Another Garden Project:

While we were building the garden beds for the 2017 garden season, we also got our aquaponics system up and running.   We currently have a small system that consists of one barrel cut into two parts, with a bell siphon, an outlet pipe, an inlet pipe, and a pump.  This simple aquaponics set up is called “barelponics”.

Setting up the barrel-ponics for 2017 growing season. Picture taken before all of the grow bed stone was added.

We have had this system for several years now and it has done a great job of producing salads and greens for us.   This small system can produce quite a bit of lettuce because lettuce is ready to harvest about every three weeks or so. It recirculates water that both nourishes the plants and raises fish.  The plants clean the water for the fish and the fish provide the nutrients for the plants.

Barrel-ponics set up a few years ago when it was new.

It used to looks a lot nicer when it was new. A few years in the sunshine has taken a toll on it.

I wasn’t able to set up the barrel last summer because the pump broke at the end of the growing season the summer before and we did not replace it when we moved.  However I did set it out on my back porch and it filled with rain water and we had the most fun growing tadpoles and watching them mature into frogs last summer.

For my birthday this year, my husband got me a new pump.  So as soon as the weather stayed above freezing during the day,  we got it up and running. We also had some stone leftover from when we gardened with it before to fill the growing bed on top, so the only thing we had to do was install the new pump.  My son built a stand to hold the growing tub above the barrel and this will make accessing the pump much easier than before when we had the growing bed sitting on the barrel.

I loved using this barrel in the past.  It was so easy to grow delicious greens for most of the year.  I had so much lettuce, celery, green onions, and sweet potato greens from this one barrel that it was unbelievable.

Summer 2015

We put fish in the bottom barrel of water and the pump sends the water to the plants in the top.  Then the water returns back down to the fish and the process repeats.  The nutrients feed the plants and the plants help clean the water.

I am excited to have the aquaponics up and running again.  I plan to raise romaine lettuce, sweet potato vines, and other leafy greens as well as fish for the table.

Lettuce growing in my window February 2017

The lettuce in this picture is from my kitchen window in February 2017.  I re-grow lettuce after making a salad by placing the base of the head of lettuce in some water and set it in the window.  Within a week or so, new roots shoot out from the base and new leaves grow and within a couple of weeks they are ready to harvest.  You can repeat this process several times.

I have used different containers to regrow lettuce from leftover lids, leftover water bottles, to basic dishes.  As long as the base of the head has access to water, it will regrow roots and as long as those roots have access to water the plant will provide harvest after harvest of fresh lettuce leaves.  It grows even better in an aquapoinics setup.

But to make a simple system for your window, just cut the top off a used water or soda bottle.  Turn the top upside down in the bottom and fill the bottom with water.  Set you plant in the top with the base of the plant touching the water. Set it in the window or under a grow lamp.  It will soon show signs of new growth and send out new roots and new leaves.

So after harvesting the new leaves off the plants from my window sill, I put the rest of the lettuce heads and the plants I had already grown to the seed stage into the top of the barrel garden bed and will grow them outside now that the weather is warming up. Besides lettuce leaves, I hope to harvest some seeds once they have gone to seed heads too.

First lettuce harvest of the year!  March 2017

The first harvest for 2017 of lettuce from the window sill provided enough greens for 4 delicious fresh salads.  This is a wonderful way to increase nutrition and because you are re-using the lettuce heads you would have otherwise thrown away, it is basically for free.  It is amazing how much additional lettuce it will still grow!  The harvest just keeps going and going!

Do You Love Me?

Someday I would love to have a bigger aquaponics set up and grow more food to give away.  For a small investment, you can grow hundreds to even thousands of pounds of food including fish in your aquaponics gardens and recoup your initial investment the first growing season.    Churches, coops, clubs, etc could set these up too, and if easily accessible to the public like at food pantries, parks, libraries and other places around town,  simple food gardens, food forests, and aquaponics would be great way to increase nutrition for the homeless, the needy, and an entire community of people too.

When we stand before the Lord on judgement day, he is going to look at a couple of things.  He doesn’t care about your house, car, job, education, income, vacations, clothes, etc.   But there is something he deeply cares about.

The first question that will be answered is do we love Jesus as our savior and believe he is the son of God who died for us and his blood cleanses us from our sins.  If we are his, then he will separate us who love him (his sheep) from those who are not his  and did not believe (the goats).

The second question he has for us is “did we obey him and give him food when he was  hungry?”.  This may sound confusing, but he is in the midst of us and he said what we do for others we do for him.  So he will ask us: “Did you feed me when I was hungry?  Did you give me drink when I was thirsty? Did you visit me when I was lonely?  etc.”

“ When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.”  

“Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:  for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in;  I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.”

“ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” Matthew 25:31-40

What will be your answer to his question?  What will be my answer?

Will he find us faithful stewards who fed him when he was hungry?

I hope each person reading this note today will someday soon hear him say “Well done good and faithful servant, enter in to the joy of the Lord”.

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Garden 2017 A New Beginning

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Garden Season 2017 Has Begun!

We moved last year just before planting season and didn’t put in a garden in our new location.  Moving is a big job, and it takes a while to get resettled.  It was a quiet summer, and we missed our big garden and fruit trees that kept us busy and well fed.  We didn’t want to go through another summer without a garden and thinking about all those delicious fresh fruits and veggies got us excited! We couldn’t hardly wait to get started for 2017!

Garden 2015

Growing a garden helps families in many ways.  It gives you ample opportunity to move and get some exercise, and it can improve your nutrition depending on what you grow.  If you enjoy watching plants grow, and spice up the garden with some flowers to attract butterflies and bees, and birds, then there is a good chance a garden will improve your mental health and outlook too.

Orchard 2015

With our large family, growing a garden helps reduce the costs of the weekly grocery trips. Though the initial cost of planting a garden can be expensive, you see a return when you are able to harvest during the summer and fall.

Berry Harvest 2015

Starting Over

The homestead we moved to is a quiet lovely location, with tall trees and rolling hills.  But it is a much different environment from where we lived before where we had mature fruit trees and rich soil for a huge garden.   Where we live now, it is hard for grass to grow and it goes dormant very early in the growing season.

We are basically starting over.  One of the biggest needs in this yard is to rebuild the soil.  That can take a while and requires a lot of input of compost. Our current home is surrounded by pine trees, the soil is dry and hard and there is less rainfall here, and it also has has a high clay content .  The soil is quite acidic and there is not much top soil to grow in.  The previous residents had built a few raised beds to overcome these disadvantages, but it has been many years since they were used and the wood has rotted and fallen down and the beds were full of weeds, moss, and small volunteer trees.

Old garden beds

Old garden beds in disrepair

As soon as the weather cooperated in March we got busy mending and expanding a couple of the old broken down raised beds and made them into our new garden.   The one advantage these beds do have is some depth of soil piled on top of the clay that will give room for the roots of plants.  With a few new longer boards put around the sides, and some nutrients added, we will be ready to grow.

I’m going to be honest.  I was discouraged at first.  It was hard to wrap my mind around relying on the broken raised beds when I was used to gardening in a large tilled garden with 100+ foot long rows in rich soils, abundant rain, and fertile crop land.  That garden and orchard was quite large and produced a lot of great fruits and vegetables for our family for several years.  Last summer it was hard for me to wrap my mind around how I was going to grow a garden here in this poor clay soil and in a small space. But now I am excited now that I have some new inspiration with these raised beds to help address these issues.

We put in some new longer boards expanding the size of the beds from 10 x 10  to about 12 x 16 feet.  We will make a second bed not far from this one.   Due to the small size of these beds, we plan to grow more intensively.  In the past we used long long rows with walking paths, but in the raised beds there is not enough room for that method.  Instead we are going to plant the garden with the “square foot” gardening method and not have well defined rows.  We will use as much space as we can in a square foot.  This method allows you to plant a lot of produce in a small amount of space. 

It was a big job to pull off the rotted boards, pull out metal rods and nails, and the heavy shredded matting.  These beds were neglected for many years and in poor condition.  We started off with a shovel to break open the dirt across the entire bed.  We also bucketed many many loads of dirt to the garden. We didn’t have a wheel barrow for this project so my son used my mop bucket and our dolly.  It worked very well, but took him about 100 trips over a few days to get enough dirt to the bed.  We plan to get a wheel barrel soon!

My son took the lead in this garden re-building project, and his younger siblings helped out a lot too.  He is interested in landscaping and loves working outdoors.  He added in some bagged compost to enrich the soil.  He also added ashes from our campfire pit, and dead leaves and mixed this all into the soil very well with a shovel, a rake, and a tiller.  Then he marked off each square foot and divided the entire garden with cord so we can plant with the square foot gardening method.

The garden sits on a small hill, so we only put boards on three sides for now to hold the soil in.  We may add a row of boards to the top side at a later date.  For now, we are trying to keep the expenses of putting in a raised bed garden down as much as we can.

One advantage to leaving off the boards on the top side, is to collect more rain water runoff from the hill when it does rain.  If it had boards across the top side, it would divert the rain runnoff away from the garden.  By leaving this open to the upside of the hill, we hope to maximise the opportunity for more water to run down the hill and end up in the garden.

The soil is prepped!  This garden is ready!

We are ready for our new beginning!

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