From Seeds to Harvest
With the state of the economy the way it is, everyone is looking for ways to stretch a dollar. One of the most effective ways to do this is by gardening; granted this takes a lot of work, but it is so rewarding and educational at the same time. This is a perfect way to teach children responsibility. We have become so accustomed to convenience foods that growing and preserving anything is a topic that makes many people run the other way.
We have a challenge for you and your children!
If you do not have any experience with gardening now is the perfect time to start learning. No one starts off being real successful with gardening, but you’ve got to start somewhere! As for our family, some years we do better than other years; no matter what, it is ALWAYS a learning experience.
Don’t despise meager beginnings. Starting small is better than doing nothing at all.; even if you only plant one pot/bucket with a tomato plant for a salad. Keeping a couple 5 gallon buckets on your porch is usually pretty low maintenance yet still productive. This may be the key to inspiring some young folks in your house.
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Here is the From Seeds to Harvest Gardening Challenge:
It is as easy as 1, 2, 3!
(This will be a great unit study for you homeschoolers and a neat scrapbook/journal for anyone.)
1) PLANT SOMETHING, even if it is just one tomato plant. It must be a vegetable, fruit or herb.
2) Post a picture and blog about it on your blog, or if you don’t have a blog send us a picture of your garden, even if it is just one pot. Let us know a little about your garden. Then let the rest of us know by linking through Mr. Linky.
*Is this your first time planting, or do you have experience that you could share with the rest of us?
*Who is responsible for the garden?
*How are you fertilizing?
*What are you doing about pest?
*What do you plan on doing with the harvest besides eating it? Canning, freezing, drying, sharing, selling, etc…?
*How do you plan on using your harvest to be a blessing beyond the walls of your own home?
3) Link back to our current From Seeds to Harvest post.
We will post on Saturdays about our From Seeds to Harvest Challenge. We will use Mr. Linky so all of you can share your information and we can encourage each other. You may link through Mr. Linky at any time during the week. It would be best if we would all chime in at least a couple times a month.
We don’t want to hear just about the success stories, we need to share our failures too so we can learn from each other. You never know, someone else may have had the same problem you are currently having and they can help you. We’re all in this together.
July through August we will also discuss recipes and preserving, again posting pictures and/or your garden journal, using Mr. Linky so we can follow each others progress and be a source of encouragement.
Everyone that takes part in this From Seeds to Harvest Gardening Challenge, will have their name entered for a drawing at the end of each month beginning in April, running through August. You must post about your garden at least once a month to be entered for that month’s prize!!! Even if it was less than successful.
April’s Gardening Prize will be a FREE download of our e-books:
How to Grow and Use Culinary Herbs
and
What to Do When Your Daughter Hates Being in the Kitchen.
May’s Gardening Prize will be for:
a basket of skin care products from Southern Belle Bath.
A few beginner tips:
Check out your local coopertive extention to see what goes best in your area. Google your state/county and Cooperative Extension.
Check your soil, it may need some help, the cooperative extension can help with that too.
Talk to local farmers or older people, they usually love to share their experience with you.
Buying healthy starter plants will get you going quickly!
Herbs are SO EASY to grow, especially if you only have a small amount of room and you feel intimidated by growing vegetables.
So pass the word around and let’s get a bunch of folks excited about growing some of their own food. If hard times really hit, this will be a skill that will help provide for your family and your community. If you are able to escape economic distress, knowing how to garden is a great way to build character in your kids and to bask in the amazing glory of God through plant life!
At the end of the summer let’s all report back what the biggest lesson learned from our gardening and/or preserving was. Deal? Good! 
Read the rest of the series about our challenge HERE!
Although it is not Saturday, I am posting Mr.Linky today to get us thinking and planning, just in case you want to share your plans or what you have already done!
Comments (41)
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We would like to participate! My in-laws helped my children plant a few vegetables (tomato & pumpkin, not sure what else) when they were here in late March. We have tried gardening before, however, I always seem to be pregnant or with a newborn and it’s hard to keep at it. (This year is no different with baby due the end of August!) This time it’s small, so hopefully we can manage. The thing is, they planted in an area that I think looks like clay. Is it too late to get the soil tested even though it’s already been planted?
I would love any help for inexpensive and easy fertilizing and pest control.
Also, last year we planted a few strawberry plants and were told to pick off the blooms last year. The plants have come back this year so we are excited to hopefully have strawberries this year!
I have a blog and will link as soon as I post about the gardening challenge on it.
Thanks!
The Pyles Family
We are looking forward to participating. Usually my husband does all the gardening because he LOVES it, and I really dislike getting dirty. lol But this year he is so busy and I am studying to be an Herbalist, we figure that it’s high time I start getting over my dislike of dirt. lol So who knows how this years garden will turn out… My kids are very excited to plant the strawberry plants we bought on Saturday, and I’m going to plant some nasturtiums in a hanging basket for my front porch (and for salads… YUM!). I may not yet enjoy playing in the dirt, I sure LOVE eating the fresh produce! Nothing is better than a fresh tomato sandwich with fresh homemade bread and fresh, just picked ripe tomatoes from the garden. My mouth is watering already!
Thanks for setting up this challenge.
Hello Mrs. Brodock!
My Momma introduced me to your daughter’s website last year when I was starting my garden. She gave me How to Grow and Use Culinary Herbs e-book, and she got the What to Do When Your Daughter Hates to be in the Kitchen e-book off when it was on Homeschool Freebie. So, you do not need to enter me in the April drawing. Please enter me in the rest of the drawings though!
Thank you very much for encouraging me through your blog,e-books and DVD’s.
Hello All, my son and I are working on a rather large garden but the hardest being getting soil to fill the raised garden beds!
can someone let me know HOW todo the Mister Linky thing?
I built my first two raised beds yesterday. We are starting small with about 24 square feet of garden space. I hope to expand to about triple this by next year so that there is surplus to can and freeze and dehydrate. I am so excited =)
Pls delete my #4 entry… I linked to a page of my blog instead of the index page. Sorry for the confusion. If you open them both, you will see I am the same for both.
[...] the abundant harvest?? Yes, abundant harvest are great (I’m hoping for one myself), but this blog is hosting a gardening carnival every week (woot, another carnival!). Each month, participants [...]
We had a garden last year, and expanded it this year. I do not have current pictures up, the ones at my blog are about 2-3 months old. My laptop is my camera, I will try to update pictures very soon. Thanks for doing this, it should be fun.
This is my first garden ever.:) When dh was home for R&R from Iraq he helped me get the boxes built and the fence around it to keep the dog out.:) I have tomoatoes, cucumbers, squash, zuchini, some flowers to help with companion planting, corn, green beans, some herbs.:) I do have some pictures up but not much. I already have tomatoes growing. That is making me excited.:) I don’t want to fail.:) I am glad this is here this will help.:) I am hoping and praying that I have abundance to share with my neighbors and church family. I am also learning how to can.:) I have to update my blog with some more pictures.
Sharon:)
I have gardened in different places, mainly because we move a lot! This is my first year getting serious with raised beds, so we’ll see how that goes! Our subdivision is bran new, so the soil is literally trash (nails, saw blades, beer cans from the construction workers, etc). I spent more than I needed to to establish my beds, but part of that is because I am pregnant with three small children, and sometimes I’d rather pay more for something than work harder or search farther right now! LOL!
Anyway, I am blogging pretty detailed about my garden this year on my blog, so everyone can feel free to come learn from my mistakes!! =)
We usually start planting after May 15th because of the freeze here in IN (and because we aren’t experienced enough yet to do earlier planting). But I am hoping to learn a lot about early planting. Great challenge!
It’s not Saturday, but I linked up with my garden post for this week. We’ll be busy tomorrow!
We have had an unusally cold and long winter. My chives and rhubarb are just coming up in my garden. We have an annoying spreading weed that is completely covering the soil at this time. My dh plans to apply Round Up tomorrow. We talked to a farmer and this seems to be the only answer.
I am going to do this challenge! I even had to try to make a blog! I am so thrilled to find the virtuous woman site to do a blog. Have often wanted to write about God and gardening.
We are up in the tundra- not really- but the first tulips are just opening. Most of my gardening will be in the house for a few more weeks. Good day to till. Oops, son#3 has borrowed the tiller. Ours will be a small garden anyhow.
Thanks for the encouragement.
Elida, That is GREAT! Let me know if you need any help with your blog!
Kathy
This is going to be fun ladies!!!!
Thank you, Kathy! How do I add the Challenge to my blog?
Are we to comment here each week about our gardens or blog them? I am blogging about Daily about what was done garden wise, as well as other garden related information. (The Garden planner for one) so not sure if I need to double post them?
We have just planted a garden. I have some potato plants from January hat are ready to harvest. I also planted an herb garden in a raised bed that I made out of bricks in the shape of a daisy. I will post pictures later. Only the cilantro and dill made it. I will have plenty of heirloom seeds to share if anyone wants free dill/cilantro seeds. All I need is your address. That is my gift to others. I am going to let some of each of my plants/herbs go to see(whatever grows LOL!) and share those open pollination seeds.
Hi Everybody,
I’m so excited about my garden and this site of us homeschoolers! This is not my first time gardening, grew up gardening, canning, and freezing. It is my first time gardening at this house and in this way. My backyard is a hill, so I need terracing or a raised bed, right? I wanted to use landscaping blocks, so it’d be beautiful….well, the wall alone would have cost my entire budget,so back to researching.
I found out about straw bale gardening, it did fit my budget and had the added benefit of not involving mdh much.
Responsible? I and my 8yr old daughter. Me mostly
Fertilizing? horse manure at first. It’s the ‘purest’ manure in that horses digest weed seeds-cows do not. Chicken manure can be way too high in nitrogen and ‘burn’ your plants. Rabbit manure is great also. Later, I may use some 4month pellets.
Pest Control? I like companion gardening–no chemicals that I need to worry about hurting anything. I did add slug bait around the strawberries.
What after harvesting? Well, my budget was pretty small this year, so I may only have enough for the table. If there are ‘extras,’ they’ll be canned or frozen or given to family, friends and neighbors.
Beyond our home? Well, as above there probably won’t be enough, but my coworkers also have gardens and we all share foodstuffs yearlong.
Sorry, it took me so long to post. When I did the mister linky thing, all it kept was where I’d lived in the past?!
Moisture? I live in Tennessee where we’ve had severe drought for a few years now, so today I bought a soaker hose for some of my plants. For my broccoli and tomatoes, I’ve buried milk jugs. Here’s how they’ll work. With a box cutter, cut off the top of the jugs so they’ll have a large opening. Then poke holes in the bottom of the jug with a knife…~8. Bury them up to the top of the jug in between your tomatoes and other plants needing more space. The holes in the bottom allow water to drain below the surface which deters evaporation, encourages root growth, and provides the water right where its needed. Thanks for that one, Mom and Dad.
Weeds? We always laid down newspaper sections between the rows when I was a kid. My parents used grass clippings, they tell me. I’m trying it again with this garden. Instead of using grass clippings though, I bought inexpensive garden staples. Another benefit of the paper barriers is water retention.
Milenda,
You post about your garden at your blog then let us know about it by using Mr.Linky.
) I’d LOVE for you to check in one=ce a week, but once a month is good too!
Kathy
Thank you Deana for such good info!
I hope that I am doing this correctly! I am still sooooo computer unsavy! I am looking forward to the challenge and know that I will learn so much from all you folks. Thanks for including me,
Blessings,
Robin Mureiko
We’ve been growing gardens for the past 20 years or so, but I’m constantly learning new things. We grow a lot of herbs, also and our garlic is coming up,now. We live in Northern Minnesota and so we have a short growing season. I have tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, herbs and peppers started in the house for planting towards the end of May. We put in about an acre of vegetables and I’m going to try to put in an acre of wheat this spring, also. I have four children who help with the garden. Some more than others.
I think this is going to be fun. I can’t wait to learn and see all of the great gardens that will be showing up here.
From Glory Farm,
Rhonda
[...] forget, you can still participate in the Seeds to Harvest Gardening Challenge over at Teaching Good Things! [...]
I don’t kwo how to set up a blog and have looked at several of the ones listed here. Is there a template or site that can walk me through setting one up?
I got my first strawberry today! My lettuce, green beans, broccoli, tomatoes, stevia, elephant garlic, rosemary, loofah and zucchini are up and growing. Haven’t seen any chives, dill, oregano or basil yet. Put them in abt a week ago, I think.
Deana, I suggest using Blogger. It is the easiest! Can’t wait to see your pictures! Where did you buy your stevia plant?
I would love to participate. We are trying the Square Foot Gardening method this year and gathering “layers” to try the Lasagna Gardening method next year along with the Square Foot Gardening. I have always loved to garden. It is so calming. Definitly my preferred method of therapy:) Since having children I always seem to start and then halfway through the summer the beds are full of weeds which is why I am so excited about the Square Foot method. I am starting small, just two boxes.
Excited to see how everyone does and learn more about others gardening “tricks”.
We have attempted gardens in the past but with my love of weeding and exuberant helpers we never quite made it all summer. We have taken a break the past few years and now my hands are itching to get in the dirt! We are trying SFG like many others. Also, I have a couple of helpers that are now old enough to truly be a big help
Excited to watch our gardens grow!
We are having a family garden where everyone can be a part. The work seems less daunting if everyone is on board!!
What a fun idea! I’m a first-time gardener, and I’m really excited about this summer! The kids and I have selected a lot of veggies we’re eager to grow (probably too many for a first garden).
We live at an altitude of 7700 ft (in CO), so we’re viewing every aspect of this garden as an experiment. If the hot sun, elk, deer, bears, short growing season, and dry air don’t cause too much trouble, we’ll have a great harvest!
I don’t have a blog going, but look forward to checking in every now and then.
Right now, we have our seeds started indoors. We can anticipate frosts ’til mid-June, so we have a while ’til we can plant outside.
I would love to hear any advice from other high altitude gardeners!
This is really my first time gardening, and I needed a contest like this to really motivate me to get started, so thank you! I’ve purchased a pot or two of flowers a couple of times in the past, but I never really grew anything before… and certainly not anything really useful!
I’m growing tomatoes, strawberries, lavender, and assorted flowers. I’m doing it by myself, however my first baby is due very soon, and I’ll probably have my husband do the watering for a week or two after the baby is born, you know?
From what I’ve looked up, it says I should fertilize after the seeds have sprouted and I have several leaves. When that happens.. honestly, I’ll ask my gardening friend what kind she’d use, and go with that!
There’s really very few bugs out here, and I’d rather avoid putting anything on the plants unless really necessary, so I’ll wait for any problem to start to show before deciding what to do about possible pests.
I plan on possibly canning the edibles if I get enough growing, and I plan on using the lavender to make the bath stuff I make smell better! Other than that, I hope that the people who pass by find my garden pretty eventually!
I wish I could do more, but all I have is my apartment’s little porch to work with! But at least I’m doing what I can, right??
What a great way to get someone interested in gardening. I have been organic gardening for many years in S Alabama and it is always a challenge. Whether it is the weeds, weather or lack thereof!! and the many critters that visit and nibble it is rewarding. I always marvel at God’s handy work. I have been enjoying sharing the joys and hard work of gardening with our 3 great nephews. Nothing beats getting them to eat their veggies better than letting them help with the gardening and teaching them about the plants and the bugs good and bad that live in the garden. They love to catch the lizards!!!
As for what I grow: asparagus, carrots, lettuce, green beans, butter beans, okra, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, eggplant, summer and winter squash, potatoes and various herbs.
I have a blog but haven’t done anything with it, guess now it the time.
I will try to tell this story concisely – for more information see our website http://www.missionmenchville.com
My church is going to Central Mexico to build greenhouses. We are working with a Dr. who is a Mexican national; Dr. Marrero’s goal is to improve the nutrition of the entire village. Our goal is to build five greenhouses in a week.
Our team wanted to build a prototype of the greenhouse on the church property and so we did! Then came the great idea to plant in the greenhouse, we had hoped we could get a garden growing in early spring. Unfortunately, God didn’t work the details out until just recently when we made a connection with an intern Master Gardener. We modified the greenhouse by removing the sides, made raised beds and planted our vegetables this last Tuesday. We planted carrots, peas, cucumbers, radish, tomatoes, green beans and banana peppers.
The intern master Gardener is teaching the families at our home school co-op how to plant, tend and harvest vegetables. The harvest will go to the food pantry at the intern Master Gardener’s church. This whole garden is a by-product of our mission trip out of the country to help improve the nutrition of the Mexican people.
I don’t know the answers to the fertilizer and pest-control . . . . . . . YET! It’s great to share the learning and the labor with other home schoolers and bless our community at the same time.
This is our second year planting tomatoes and our first with other veggies. My girls and I planted this garden so that we can have fresh veggies and also (if our harvest is big enough) preserve some for the winter. I let the girls pick out plants that they wanted. I am doing a modified version of square foot gardening. We are using an old turtle sandbox and planters/containers that I had around the yard. I used Miracle Grow potting soil. Since the weather is so hot here, I split my watering to part in morning and part in evening. We don’t really have a weed problem and so far the bugs haven’t attacked my plants. My oldest checks the plants every day to make sure they are doing O.K. My youngest is waiting for the harvest.
My daughters, Kendra and Vannan are trying to participate, but between a slow computer and limited time online, we keep missing the posts or getting the pictures up on time. Oh well, they are having such a great time growing their plants. Today they were so excited about the number of tomatoes on the plants and flowers on the squashes. Their enthusiasm is fun to watch.
OK my blog has been updated with pictures and info on the garden. So far I have had my pop corn NOT come up yet, same for Sweet Corn! Guess corn just isn’t in my realm this year.
I will have to rethink what to plant into those planters now.
Banana pepper and leaf lettuce did the same so waiting to see if the 2nd set up plants (that I started from seed) will take or if I need to replant AGAIN!
I would love to win the basket I do not have a blog. Thank you
Hey, everybody, I’m back finally. My son got married this past weekend and needless to say, I have been just a little busy. I am looking forward to seeing what everyone has been up to.
Blessings on you all,
Robin
We have finally gotten something out of our garden besides weeds! Radishes and lettuce! Yum!!
http://6blessings.blogspot.com/2009/06/garden-of-weedn.html