Tag Archives: Harvest

Garden 2017 Update June

 

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

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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Fall Tile Art At Homeschool Coop

Creating personalized seasonal art is a great activity to do as a homeschool project. We participated in this project for homeschool coop. My kids had a blast learning how to make Fall Tile Art and will treasure these creations for many years to come.

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To make the Fall Tile Art project, you will need to cut out pictures with a fall theme. This is fun for kids to do and gives the project a personal touch because they chose their own special pictures. We cut out our pictures from fall themed paper bags, but you could also use magazines, wrapping paper, or print them off the internet, etc. You will also need ceramic tiles, modpoge, small felt cushions that stick on one side and are soft on the other, and a sealant.

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Next have the kids place a rough draft of their pictures on their tile so they can see where they want to place them or if they want to change the arrangement. Once it is stuck in place, they won’t be able to change their mind, so now is the time to decide where they want to place their pictures.

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Next have the kids remove the pictures from the tile and place them in the same arrangement on the table. Then have the kids brush modpodge all over the tile. Next place the pictures back in place. Then they need to brush the tiles again a second time, with modpodge and gently brush over the top of the pictures. Set the tiles somewhere to dry. It took our tiles about an hour for the modpodge to dry. We let the kids play games in the gym and exercise while the tiles dried.

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When the tiles were dry, we added small cushions to the four corners of the back side. The cushions are made of felt and are very soft.  If you don’t have cushions, you could glue or stick on a piece of felt too.  Finally we applied a clear spray sealant over the tile. For safety (breathing, etc), the sealant was sprayed onto the tiles by an adult outside in an open area. The sealant will help these masterpieces resist moisture and last a long time.

The tiles are lovely to display, and could be given away as wonderful homemade gifts too.   They can be used to decorate your home for whatever season you chose as your theme.  You can display them flat, or hung up.  The cushions on the bottom should help protect your furniture from scratches, or you could display these in a picture easle, plate display holder, or hang them on the wall.  To hang them on the wall you will need to ad a picture mount of some kind.  If you wanted to keep your expenses down, you could hotglue on a soda can tab as a picture mount and it wouldn’t cost but a few pennies for the hot glue you use.

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