Gardening Question!

I promise we have been working on the garden this year!! Our okra is producing, the zinnias are beautiful, and the pepper plants have lost their mind!!

However, I do have a question. Does anyone have advice on carrots? What do they like to grow in? And when are they through? This was my first year to get my carrots to grow, but we let them go a little to long for fear of picking to early. How can you tell?

Preparing the Garden!

As fall draws to a close and the days get colder and colder the garden dies back. Slow at first then faster, till nothing is left. Where your tall green plants where but a short time before there is merely soil. Dirt. Nothing. But beneath the crust of the cold soil, it is not quite as dead as you think. Of course the plants are dead, but the earthworms, the bugs, and the bacteria are alive and happy. They need food and warmth. The are decomposing your dead tomato plants and any other substance they find. To work with them to enrich your garden before spring follow some basic steps...


One. When tilling your garden turn the dead plants into the soil.

Two. Do NOT over till. This is VERY important. Over tilling kills the bugs and worms you need!

Three. Collect Leaves!!! All over your town people are raking leaves. We hitch up our trailer to the 12 passenger and go leaf hunting. It really is thrilling!

Four. Compost through the winter.

More Later...


Jess

"all 'da sweet tators'"

Here we are harvesting all our sweet tators! We got about 150. Maybe more? I am not sure, but it was wonderful! Who has enjoyed the harvesting this year?

Garden post

Well I was planning to go out and photograph our garden today, but the rain came in and put stop to that idea!!! Our garden however is doing really well! Our okra and tomatoes right now are the strongest, but everything else is doing well! Okra loves the heat so it has taken off! This is our first year to have eggplant and cantaloupe in our garden. The years before this we have always tried but never succeeded! However this year both of those plants are doing really well. We have already eaten quite a few melons and the eggplant is coming in! We have learned quite a few facts on cantaloupe. Here is one... All the books we have read say to harvest your watermelon when it falls off the vine. However we have found to harvest it just before it falls off. This is a little risky because you can't be sure, but over all the fruit will taste ten times better!!!

What we are up to!!!

Just to let you all know what we are doing! We are filming a movie. It is set in the American Revolution! We are having so much fun! We are having a family reunion this weekend, but after that there will be photos on the garden and all the canning we have done! See ya then!

Garden Snacks!!

My dad got this idea from a man he works with...

When your out in your garden and you are feeling rather hungry, you can have a quick, easy, healthy, and tasty snack right then! First take a cherry tomato, then pick a basil leaf, wrap the tomato in the leaf, and pop it in your mouth! I do this all the time and it its so good!

Also something we do for dinner is put cherry tomatoes, basil leaves, and feta cheese in bowls on the table. Everyone gets a toothpick and the spear the different "toppings". This is a great way to taste your garden fresh! No added things. No corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup. Just you and the garden!!!

Green Gardening Girl's Family!

Our Family Garden

Where souls are gardened with the plants.

Our mom has a love of the outdoors and she married a man with the same love so... the kids love the outdoors! We love working in our garden and our yard. We love the bugs and nature. But the best part is being with your family outside! So heres to being a Green Gardening Family!

Our Garden Update!!! - Part Two

Wheat from our backyard. It really is wheat! And we really can eat it. And we really don't know where it came from!

Our bulbs we had to dig up to make room for the strawberries!

One giant sunflower.

Our Rudbeckia garden. It is so beautiful in the fall when it blooms.

Note: The tilled land in the photo above is our neighbor's garden!

Zinnias

Little Zinnias

A long row of flowers ready to burst into bloom.

My (Jessica) herb garden-off to a rocky start, but doing OK now.

More herbs

Onions - soon to be through

Erin's sweet "taters" and "normal taters"

Bean plant and bean pod

 Tomatoes...

And more tomatoes!

Here is the rest of our garden in photos. It is having a hard time right now in the heat, but it's trying! It is a lot of fun to go out in our yard and see all the little plants growing up. Very exciting! We have two banana peppers, cucumbers, and squash. We also have zinnias and bush beans.

Our Garden Update!!! - Part One

Our Tomatoes!!!

Corn and okra

Okra!

Peppers, Marigolds, and Tomatoes

Cucumber bloom

Cucumber

Rachel's Garden

More of Rachel's Garden

Rachel's Beautiful flower!

I don't know what it is!

Ryan's Garden - tomatoes, beans, and corn!

Our lettuce - it is usually bigger, we just picked.

Our broccoli is soon to die in the heat. So Emily is planting tomatoes underneath.

Sweet Emily in her garden. Working hard!

This is our garden update! We have been outside all morning weeding, watering, and planting. I planted another batch of corn and watermelons. They all are doing really well! We have eaten snow peas, broccoli, lettuce, and herbs so far. And tomatoes are not far behind! 

We are working hard at NOT letting the weeds in. It is hard, but we must keep at it.

A Grandmother's Gift!!!

This past week our maternal grandmother (GG) came down from Tennessee to celebrate my mom's birthday. Happy Birthday!!! :) Anyway as her gift she helped us make container gardens. We went to Lowes and after an hour of talking with the lady from Lowes we came home with all our stuff. We also made hanging baskets for the porch. In the hanging baskets are some Calibrachoa. And as soon as I find the tags that they came with I will tell you what the other plants are! :) So... let's hear it for a fun gift from GG!

This is our grandmother. It was taken at Christmas, but I forgot to take a picture of her this trip!