From Seeds to Harvest Weekly Update
May 21, 2009
Our garden is doing very well, we’ve had a good bit of rain and sunshine! Emma planted some okra our friend Missy gave her. A neighbor gave her some extra tomato plants so she planted those too.
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We have two big blueberry bushes that are doing GREAT! They are loaded with green berries, they’ll be blue in a few weeks, Lord willing. A few years ago they were doing really well, then a hail storm hit and wiped them out. So when I see all these beautiful unripe berries, I know it is all in God’s hands. 
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We have beans coming along quickly and flowers on our squash. Everything else is progressing well.
I hope you are getting your kiddos out there to share in the work load and let them appreciate where food comes from. I also hope they are learning some science. Check out some library books and let your kids spend a couple hours in them to help them understand the growing process.
Our local farmers market will start next week, I can’t wait to go! They offer free testing of pressure cookers to make sure they are in good working order. Mine is about 5-6 years old so I am going to take it and have it tested, better safe than sorry.
May’s Gardening Prize will be:
a basket of skin care products from Southern Belle Bath.
Don’t forget, you have to have linked to your garden at least once this month to be entered for our giveaway. The winner will be announced Tuesday!
For some reason Mister Linky is not working, so leave a comment here about your garden.
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Go HERE for the other post in this series for tips and video clips to help you out.
Topics: From Seeds to Harvest/Gardening Challenge | 13 Comments »
Comments (13)
Our little garden is coming along nicely. Several of the tomato plants have flowered. We harvested lettuce last week. The pumpkins are thriving. The squash still hasn’t come up. Better luck with that next year, I suppose.
Rick planted some basil in a pot for me this week. I’ve never grown any herbs, so I’m looking forward to seeing them come up.
Blessings–
Dana
I almost forgot–here’s a link to a pic of the lettuce from our garden!
http://mysimplegifts.blogspot.com/2009/05/let-us-have-some-lettuce.html
Dana
I love you blog (and cake decorating dvd!) so I am excited to post a comment for the first time! Our garden is made up of 7 Earth Box planters on our back porch. They are THRIVING and I am already topping off the tomatoes. I can’t wait to see how much yield we have!! Thanks for letting me enter!
I posted today about my garden… I LOVE being out there in the cool of the morning!
http://www.petersonclan.com/2009/05/garden-club-5-22-09.html
I have just found your blog, and have really enjoyed what I have seen so far. This is my first year to garden and so far, so good. I have corn growing well, 22 tomato plants I started from seeds, beans, squash, peas, zucchini, cucumbers and carrots. I am hoping to can a lot of the harvest.
Thanks, from a new found blog follower.
Here’s our link for the garden update. Squash looks good with flowers and we’ve transplanted the tomatoes. We’ve practiced resourcefulness this week.
I posted an update on our little garden today. We’ve had some setbacks, but compared to last year we are doing great!
Here is the direct link to my garden posting: http://www.audacitermatris.com/?p=279
Here is the link to my latest garden post: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/servingtheKingofkings/691500/.
Mrs. Brodock,
I posted twice, and I don’t see either one. Maybe you have the admin approval activated first before I can see it. If so, just post the first one and ignore these two……I am sorry to post so much, but I really wanted to get my name in!
Here is my latest update. I am working on some front yard flowers. In my garden, we have eaten carrots and green beans. we are loving our fresh food.
I, too, am eager to share our gardening progress. I think I may have to create a blog just for that purpose.
I read a book by Ruth Stout later in the summer and decided we needed to go with her method. Last fall, we got a truckload of composted manure free from friends and spread that all over the garden areas. Then we bought a few bales of straw and covered them with it. From then on, we’ve been spreading our compost all over that mulch.
We moved into this house 3 years ago. The previous residents had a garden on the SW side of the house. I was 8 mos pregnant when we moved in, so we didn’t garden whatsoever that year. However, we did enjoy a little of the blessings from the established raspberries, apples and pears.
Last year we got a LATE start. We’re in Oregon, and while we stirred up the soil before then, we didn’t get around to planting until July. We also discovered that the previous residents had put loads of sand in the garden. Needless to say, we didn’t get much out of that garden. There is a 4′x5′ planter box built into the deck that I called my ‘Salsa Box’. I planted tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, garlic and tomatillos there. They did pretty well, as it gets a fair amount of sun. We bought strawberry starts and put them in long rectangular planter boxes, but it seemed we were feeding the squirrels more than enjoying strawberries ourselves.
Around February this year, as the garden bug bit me, I started studying our garden areas. The soil in the main, large garden was VASTLY different from the previous year. Rich, dark and wormy! However, I realized that garden really didn’t get much sun. At all. (The sides & back of our lot are full of TALL pines.) So, I talked my husband into creating a brand new garden on the NE side of the house where it could get all-day sun. This meant lifting and removing sod. Our neighbors came to see what was going on and offered the use of their rototiller. We then got another truckload of manure from our friends and more bales of straw. I eagerly planted seeds in starter trays inside.
To make this story a bit shorter, let me tell you where we’re at today.
Instead of a ‘salsa box’ this year, I decided to make it my ‘salad box’. In it are 4 varieties of peppers, 3 of small (cherry/pear) tomatoes, garlic (from last year), and various greens. In various pots/planters around the deck I have parsley, cilantro, basil, chives, dill, snap peas, snow peas, tomatillos, and strawberries. So far, my greens (especially lettuces) aren’t showing up.
In the large NEW garden, we planted rows of cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, collards, spinach, kholrabi, carrots, onions, celery, beets, broccoli, brussels sprouts, sunflowers, corn and large tomatoes. We are waiting to plant the beans around the corn when the corn sprouts up. There is still plenty of space for more planting, and we are planning to plant more to stagger our harvest and hope to continue late in the year so we can have some overwintering crops.
In the large OLD garden, I decided to plant things that did well there before – squash. There are already some volunteer beets & carrots from last year’s garden that we decided to keep. Oh, and volunteer potatoes and cabbage from the compost we’d thrown out there over the year. We’ve planted watermelon, cantaloupe, zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkins, and one batch of beans (because the poles and strings were already there.) Many things have sprouted.
I can’t tell you how thrilled we are to have enough space to plant so much. My hope and desire is to grow enough to feed us throughout the year – either on fresh harvest directly from the garden, or on things we’ve preserved from the garden. We are currently a family of 8, expecting another baby boy in late September, so I know this might be a tall order, especially for our first ‘real’ year of gardening.
THANK YOU so much for your encouragement here on the site – and the tutorials!
So glad to have found you and your resources.
If it weren’t for the busy times how would we appreciate the slow down times? I have put a couple of different post on my blog today to update all on the Neal garden, and the slugs. We had to expand (again) a few rows for corn. Our spaghetti squash is taking off, and this morning I noticed that something is eating my Tennesee Sweet Potato (a squash that taste like sweet taters). I think it is birds picking the seed hull off and taking the leaves with it as there were no foot tracks in the mud around the mound. I have enjoyed your posts, and need to catch up again, and I hope to soon visit some of those that are joining in, as soon as I get my popcorn in……
Hey there, that is a really good post. Really enjoyed reading this. Thanks