Missing and Longing

I know we have been absent here on the blog but we just like many others succumbed to a busy holiday season. We enjoyed lots of special family time, birthdays, and most importantly celebrating Christ's birth. I had planned to begin blogging again by sharing our family's favorite black bean burger recipe-- but while I was searching for those pictures I kept stumbling across garden images. I have to be honest here, we are all aching to get back into the yard to garden. The produce we grew last year is still blessing us at meals, but I think that's just fueling the anticipation. We all keep peeking out windows and longing for the day when we can turn up the soil and put our first seeds in. I did find this pictures of some gardens we were able to visit last summer that I had hoped to share back then, but why not now on the eve before we are about to get some snow?

This is my parents back yard garden. My father was raised by an Italian immigrant who gardened along with many of their neighbors. I can remember helping in my grandfather and dad's garden. My dad's has always been what I call a salad garden-- lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and eggplant and squash. We are hoping to help get him going with peas and beans this summer and maybe some radishes. He has been adding compost and grass clippings to it for years and the soil is very productive.

While we were visiting my parents, they were watching a friends garden. Actually, it's way more than that. Their friend is a professor at a college and has turned some of the land there into rented plots for people to garden. All the gardens must be organic and pesticide free and it is amazing-- they are growing some really productive plants!

We helped harvest peas (which are now being enjoyed by us through out the winter) and some basil (our basil last year was a dwarf variety and not great for saving).

We love visiting Longwood Gardens and their vegetable garden is drool worthy! They have numerous gardens and this year it was neat to be able to identify the plants and see how we could incoporate some of their trellis methods (last year many of ours collapsed under the weight of the plants).

Finally, here are some from our own yard... ah how we miss you!

As we wait, the garden once again reminds me of a biblical lesson to wait upon the Lord and wait for Him. Do I anticipate Him? Long for him? Love how the garden reveals truths that God has for me. Isaiah 40:31 "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

From Lawn to Garden: Getting Rid of the Last bit of Lawn for the Spring

It's hard to believe our growing season has for the most part come to an end. We still have some potatoes that I'm experimenting with growing in a container and I'm curious to see if we will get any since it's colder now.

Just because our harvest has almost ceased doesn't mean our work has. If you would like to begin a garden next year, START NOW! That was one of our biggest regrets this year- that we hadn't had this idea to transform our yard into a vegetable garden. If we had, I believe more of our yard would have been able to be converted and more nutrients put into the soil well ahead of time. So, we are trying Back to Edens methods as much as we can. We have a large area to cover and were very grateful to our dairy farming friends for letting us come and get some au natural fertilizer-- what a huge blessing to add this into our soil! Alas, it would take me several trips to cover our entire garden, but some is much better than none. We laid down newspapers, the manure, and then a mulch. We were hoping for wood chips and despite calling tree companies and going to home improvement stores, couldn't get our hands on any. But again, we are doing more than we did last fall and hopefully we will see healthier soil next year.

Here are some pots that produced poorly so we are even strengthening the soil in them as well. I wanted to show this because even if you have a patio garden or do strictly boxed gardens, you still need to put some nourishment back into your soil. You can use rabbit, chicken, cow, or any farm animal's manure really as they are all good sources of nitrogen.

As I mentioned in the title, we are converting more of our tiny yard into growing spaces. We removed our pond and will have a nice fertile area for next spring. Very excited as once the pond was out, we saw how much more land was there than it looked like. We also brought forth a smaller box frame and some pots in the hopes that they will kill the grass under them this winter and we can grow and expand more. Moving grass is a LOT of work, but this should help us out. You could also begin to cover your lawn with cardboard and leaves NOW and that will help you convert your yard (or some of it) into growing space next year without so much back labor.

In the rear of our shed we had these boxes last summer.

They have been moved to the front of the shed to a patch of grass we never got to this summer. Our hopes are that they will once again kill off some of the grass and make it easier to clear the area this spring. If they do, they will move up to the old pond area and grow lettuces there and once again, kill off the last few areas of grass.

Now, the area that used to hold the boxes (in the rear of the shed) has been cleared with minimal work from us this week. We covered the ground with cardboard, manure, and mulch to prepare the area even more since it used to be a stone driveway! We moved the cucumber trellis over and will have our cucumbers growing in the rear of the bed and then another smaller fruit in the front-- although I think swiss chard would do awesome here! We will see.

In the old cucumber bed which was actually very small bed wise last year-- we dumped dead plants all summer under the trellis to prepare that soil (which was also a part of the former stone driveway). We just cleared out the weeds this week, turned the soil, and will be adding cardboard and some leaves soon to help prepare this large area for growing next summer. Perhaps our beans will go in this year although I need to check our crop rotation guide and see what will do best in this corner.

The blueberries are blessing us with some lovely fall foliage and the strawberry plants have grown to a nice healthy size. Hopefully next summer we will enjoy the fruits of our patience and tending. We have plans to add cantaloupe or honeydew next year and are looking forward to supplying a lot of our fruit as well as vegetables.

Now, you may be wondering if all the hard work is worth it. Yes-- so very much!! We are still pulling onions and pretty much at least two meals a day we are still enjoying at least one thing from the garden in our meals. Whether it be salsa, tomato sauce, frozen peas, vegetable broth, veggie soup-- the list really does go on, but YES it has been so worth it! It cut back on our grocery bill tremendously last year and to be honest, it was a harder year as we had to put more time in to preparing the ground and deal with lots of rain and cooler temps than what is normal. We are already looking at our seeds for next year-- and we saved lots of our own which will be exciting to see them grow and produce next summer. We are going to be using lots of Baker Creek seeds this year as man of theirs preformed super well.

So, can I encourage you to try and grow more? Expand and produce more of your own food? It is such a rewarding experience! Do you have questions? We'd love to help-- or do you want to share what you do in the fall to prepare for the next spring?

From Lawn to Garden: Post 13-- Beginning to see the Fruits of all our Labor

We have been insanely busy with summer and the garden and its been awesome because we've been together for the ride and loving (almost) every minute of it! I did take pictures of our garden two weeks ago that I meant to share but then our computer was being funny and I couldn't share them, but to give you an idea of what was going on then here we are.. or were...or whatever:

Now, we picked our first batch of onions about three weeks ago and they have been curing and drying. I just snipped the tops off and they are drying out for the last week or so and then will be stored. We have a second batch going and soon we will be planting more for the fall. We did sets for the white and red onions and I'm happy with how they turned out. Our green onions we did from seeds and they are almost ready to be enjoyed fresh!

We are harvesting carrots, peas, and swiss chard on an almost daily basis. Every time I think, "This will be the last week of the snow peas for sure..." I am pleasantly surprised when they just keep on producing. I am almost soooooo happy we did the swiss chard since our spinach was a bust so far and the swiss chard just keeps on producing!

Our pickling cucumbers are doing really well and we have about 8-10 cukes that will be picked by the end of the week to be made into our first jar of refrigerator pickles.

I am positively giddy over the tomatoes and cannot wait for the first red one to be enjoyed. For now though the plants just keep growing and producing more fruit which is very exciting in and of itself.

Our pole beans are flowering and in august hopefully we will be swamped with beans! I can't wait since fresh beans from the garden taste unbelievably yummy! I love how some of the beans and grape vine have started to intertwine-- it gives it such a wild earthy feel.

Our zucchini is coming along-- although some of them are turning yellow which is odd since we planted black zucchini. Hmmm.

Our corn was knee high and then some by the fourth of july so we are excited to see if we get any from this sometimes tricky and finicky crop. Keep on praying!

And there you have it-- some of the highlights of whats growing. One of the nice things is we planted herbs throughout the garden so now as I weed I am delightfully intoxicated by different aromas which adds a slight delight to a never ending task. What's growing in your garden? What's your favorite recipe for pickles?

What Type of Seed--- What Type of Plant-- What Type of Produce to Buy for Clean Eating

I always hear people say, "But why buy organic? Its so much more money and they use some sprays and pesticides too!" This is all true. Organic produce is more money and they do sometimes use sprays. So, what should you buy?

First, Let's start with your seed. Ideally, this is the best way to go. Order your own heirloom organic seeds and grow them yourself with no pesticides or chemicals. To be truly at its best, you need to bring the plant up right and that begins with it's seed. A GMO seed has it's DNA interlaced with pesticides. That means even if you buy seeds from the store and grow them organically, the GMO seed will still most likely contain pesticides and genetic modifications already. So your best bet is heirloom seeds which have been passed down for at least 50 years (or before GMOs became so widespread and abundant), your second option is to buy organic seeds and raise them organically, and your third best option is to buy any old seed and raise the plant organic (although this should be a last resort-- but it's still a step in the right direction). We have ordered seeds from Incredible Seeds and Baker Creek seeds and been very happy with everything we've grown from them. It does take more preparation and planning, but if you're not quite that committed or perhaps some of your seeds didn't do so well then we can now look at what type of plants to buy...

So buying a plant you want to ask the grower about its seed and growing conditions. What type of seed-- heirloom? Organic? was it GMO? If you are buying your plants from any big box stores then we can just assume it was a gmo seed. These plants will grow bigger and faster but that's not always a good thing. Sometimes though, this is your only option so now that you have your plant, raise it organically. Try not to treat the plants and use organic compost and manure to help it grow rather then something like miracle grow. Better yet, look around on craigslist or ask some gardening friends if they have any extra you can purchase for them. Another option is to look for an organic nursery.

Now, let's say you didn't plant seeds or grow plants and let's be honest, even if you did those two things, you may still need to purchase some produce whether in the summer or throughout the year. So what do you look for and where do you go? You might think I'd say the farmer's market but I know many farmers who sell there and have no issue with Monsanto. So even though your food is growing closer to home, if it's being grown under the same conditions they are using hundreds of miles away it doesn't matter. So, no matter where you buy you are looking for non GMO organic produce. This means their seeds were not genetically modified and their plants have been raised as organically as possible and your produce is now the best it can be and as close to what God had in mind.

Okay, so you just took all that in and you might still be thinking-- but why GMO free and why heirloom anyway? Why shouldn't farmers use these methods in order to produce more food to meet the needs of our society? And I'm here to say if more people grew even some of their own food then these farmers would perhaps not need to mass produce and modify plants to produce these outrageously large plants and produce. Also, and this is kind of blunt, America has an obesity issue-- bigger plants that are modified contributes to people having more and eating more and it's not better for you. Corn is one of the most GM crops and is used for corn flakes, corn chips, cereals, etc. and do people really need to eat that many corn products in such crazy abundance? Probably not.

Now, lets talk price tags again. Organic is the most expensive but in order to save: grow your own, eat seasonally, and preserve it while it's at it's peak. And in the end, any fruit or vegetable is still better than a bag of candy so at least start there and then continue to educate yourself and make decisions that help bring growing conditions and seed quality back to what it was once designed to be.