Blog
Garden Check In
Back in April I wrote a blog about good places to find free garden seeds. I also shared about how, in the summer of 2024, deer ate everything in our garden except the marigolds and zucchini. This year, we made some changes to our garden and we are feeling successful. We used a deer repellent spray around the outside of our garden, and we placed dog hair in and around our garden.
Free Garden Seeds
Have you noticed the displays with garden seeds going up in the stores in your community? Those displays are a sign to me that it is time to start thinking about our garden for the summer. We do not plant our garden until after the middle of May to avoid freezing, but it is fun to start planning what we want to plant. For us, the garden is a family project that gives us tasty fresh vegetables, but it can feel like a risk. What if the seeds do not grow? What if an animal eats the plants? What if we do not like what we grow?
How do you like your zucchini?
My kids love zucchini…in cake that is! And their grandma (my mom!) enjoys making it for them when zucchini is in season. A couple of weeks ago Parker got to help grandma make zucchini cake for us. It was quite delicious with cream cheese frosting!
Gardening Starts With the Seeds
Each year, as the days get longer and temperatures rise, garden catalogs begin to fill our mailbox and planning for our garden begins once again. My husband and I each grew up in homes with large vegetable gardens. His mom had a separate potato garden and my family sold sweet corn and tomatoes at our farm. I remember dad putting the sign up at the end of our driveway each summer. My family used the money we made selling tomatoes and sweet corn for a summer vacation just before school started. As you might imagine, my husband and I have enjoyed planning, planting and harvesting our own vegetable garden through the years. What we plant and how big our garden is has changed through the years, as the season of our life dictates. Some years, our schedule for the summer hasn’t allowed time for gardening, and what we plant has also changed as our interest in certain vegetables has changed.
Herb Gardening in Small Spaces
Last week we heard about our friend Jill’s experience with gardening throughout her life. She shared some wonderful tips for planning a garden and using the information on seed packets to help you make decisions. I would like to share a slightly different perspective. I live in a small house and I do not have land to till up and plant a garden. I still love to grow some food though, so I do container gardening.
What do I Grow?
“What do I grow?” That is a question I ask myself every year when I start thinking about my garden. And the answer is different every year. In my previous home, my garden was much larger, so I had a lot more options. Over the 11 years I worked in that garden, I planted lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, corn, broccoli, carrots, beets, kohlrabi, squash, peas, green beans, potatoes, and flowers. No two years were the same.
Jody’s Garden Update- How Did the Garden Grow?
Three months ago I shared that my son was interested in having a garden and we decided to do container gardening on our deck and grow tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce. Our neighbors also gave us a pot with a strawberry plant in it. Well how did the garden grow? Really well! My son helped with the planting and both my son and daughter helped me water it so it has been a fun group endeavor. We all enjoy checking on the plants each morning to see what new things have grown. We’ve gotten a number of peppers and tomatoes and we’ve harvested our lettuce 6 times!
Update from Justine – What do I Grow?
In early June, I wrote about how I decide what to grow in our garden. When planning out our garden this year, I asked my children what they wanted to grow. My oldest son chose to grow four different pepper plants, my daughter chose to grow romaine lettuce, and my youngest son chose to grow zinnias. These choices did not take up a lot of space, so I added two tomato plants and two acorn squash plants.
