cedar log raised garden bed

I have been gardening at my inlaws house and have a rather large area but they live about 20 minutes away. I love to garden and would enjoy having something here at our home so my dear husband got busy. We have some land that he cut a few cedar logs off of and brought them home to build me raised beds. I am so excited!! I have two so far but the plan is to put one more in. They are 4x10 foot beds and with them being raised beds I am able to plant so much more in them compared to a traditional garden.

                                                                                               (cell phone picture)

My dear husband put so much work into these and I truly love them. They are easy to work around and I told him the other day that I didn’t know if I ever wanted to go back to the traditional large garden area. I am loving the ease of raised beds. Our cost to build them…free….other than the sweat and labor we put into them.

I was also very blessed to get two large truckloads of compost for free. Our town offers free compost twice a year from all the tree limbs and such that they compost all year. I mixed the compost with some garden soil and I now have a very soft loose dirt mixture. It didn’t take long for me to get busy planting vegetables.

Of course my garden area here is getting a much later start than most people already have but there was a plus side to that as well. I bought my tomato and pepper plants at a huge discount compared to what they originally were. Everything has been in the ground 5 days and has really taken off.

I planted this summer squash on Tuesday the 5th of June and it is already all poking up through the ground. I also have several green beans just below the dirt surface. I found it so interesting this morning that only one of these squash plants were poking through the ground this morning. We left to go to do some work at the farm and when we came back all of them had come up. I guess they all appreciated the drink of water that they received this morning. I have seen on pinterest where they grow squash in an upside down tomato cage and that is what I will be trying with ours this year. I am hoping for great success.

Happy gardening!
Sarah

in the garden

Sunday evening and Monday morning we were blessed with rain. I love being in the garden after a good rain when the soil is still moist and weeds are easy to pull. Yesterday I was excited to find vegetables that loved the rain and proved that by growing taller. So I took the time to snap shots of what it is going on in the garden.

Sugar Snap Peas were planted March 17 and are doing very well considering we had some very hot days so early on in the year. This weeks weather is looking much cooler so I am hoping that they will take off and really start growing. I planted the bush variety of peas that said they didn’t need to be staked. However after watching the peas try to grab each other and vine around the mulch I finally decided to just go ahead and stake them. A little ladybug at work is always a welcoming sign. I love her bright red color against the greens and browns.

Myself and one of sweet little bug lookers picked the fewest potato beetles that we ever have this season. When we first started hand picking them it took quite awhile to get them all. This is the 5th time to have hand picked them and thankfully they weren’t on every plant and we only got about 20 of them. I think handpicking them is working!

Blue Lake bush beans were planted April 29. They have all come up out of the ground and look good other than the few that have some little holes where something has started munching on them. I will be investigating and watching closely to see if I can figure out who the guilty party is. I couldn’t find any little bugs yesterday when I looked. I have three rows of beans planted right now and plan to put out three more next weekend. I didn’t want them all coming up at the same time. :) Lettuce is up in abundance. I cut some off and it grows right back. Onions are all growing tall and some are starting to bloom.

and it never hurts to have a beautiful surrounding while gardening. We are blessed to have such a gorgeous location for our garden. So what’s left? Tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers and more beans. I think that will be all I tackle this year. I am looking to go even bigger next year and my ultimate dream? Grow enough to sell at the farmers market.

Have a blessed day!
Sarah

lettuce harvest

It’s my first year growing lettuce and I just cut my first large batch out of the garden. I can’t tell you what a rewarding experience that is. After buying it as the store for so long it felt great to walk out to the garden and know that what I was eating was 100% organic. The seeds cost less than one bunch of lettuce from the store. :)

Bringing it home and washing it all up knowing that I planted the seeds and God made them grow is just the beginning of my garden love. There is just something so rewarding about bringing in the first harvest from the garden. I really am not sure what kind of lettuce is on the top but it is an organic kind from Seeds of Change. The beautiful purple color is mustard greens and this was my first year to eat them. I love them! They add a wonderful flavor to whatever I am eating.

So how do I enjoy the lettuce and mustard greens? Just one of the ways is on a very tasty sandwich for lunch. Pile the lettuce high, add some cheese and ham along with a slice of tomato and enjoy. Don’t forget the sweet tea!

Are you gardening? What do you have planted? I went today and purchased 48 Arkansas Traveler tomato plants so that means I will be one busy lady for the next several days. I think I am hooked on gardening!

Have a blessed day.
Sarah

in the garden

I got a good taste of gardening last year when I put out just a few raised beds around my home. I live in town and we aren’t real keen on the idea of digging up our yard to plant a large garden. So this year we decided to put a garden at my in-laws home in the country. We spent almost all day Saturday preparing the ground. Lots of plowing and lots of tilling. It has been awhile since this garden spot has been used. It has a lot of family history as it is the spot that my husbands grandfather grew up growing a garden in.

Our children enjoy being outside and seemed to have a lot of fun running around in the freshly tilled ground. There were wild onions or garlic growing in the garden spot and our oldest son enjoyed spending time picking up all of those.

Over all it was a beautiful day to be outside and be working. I am excited about having a large garden this year. There is something wonderful about knowing that you worked hard all summer for those vegetables that we can enjoy throughout the fall and winter.

Have a blessed day!
Sarah