Blog
Beginner’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening
The gardening urge tends to strike me this time of year as we start to see trees, flowers and grass come back. I love to grow flowers, herbs and a few vegetables at home. I stick with container gardening because I do not have the space for a raised bed or an in-ground plot. Even on this very small scale, gardening is a source of joy for me. Vegetable gardening not only gives you healthy, tasty food to eat, but the activity of gardening can support good physical and mental health through exercise and stress relief. Gardening can also be a valuable point of connection between people. Whether it is talking with friends about what you plan to grow or sharing your harvest with your family or neighbors, gardening can be a wonderful source of community.
What Fruits and Veggies do You Like?
This past year, we have been asking people about their favorite seasonal produce. We are going to continue sharing this month, starting with my family. I decided to ask my three children what fruits and veggies they like to eat in the summertime. We are very lucky to have a small garden at our home and access to larger gardens at grandpa’s and grandma’s homes, which you will see reflected in their answers below.
Container Gardening: Big Benefits in Small Spaces
The interest in growing our own produce increases daily. Everyone can garden, even apartment dwellers and those with limited outdoor space. The Sow, Grow, Eat and Keep series is helping Iowans learn to grow their own food at home. This week’s “Sow, Grow, Eat and Keep” video from Iowa State University Extension and Outreach addresses how to start a container garden to grow tasty foods at home.
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.
Growing Vegetables in Pots
This week in our gardening series, I’m going to share the plans my son and I have for doing some container gardening at our house.
Benefitting from Our Neighbor’s Talents
Gardening is not my strong suit. Quite honestly, the thought of gardening and planting flowers brings a lot of stress! After years of attempting to garden and losing motivation due to brown flowers and plants, I eventually came to terms with the fact that my family’s produce would need to be purchased from the grocery store or a local farmer’s market. Fortunately, one of our neighbors has a gift and has planted a garden to share with a few families on our street. Like mentioned in the previous gardening posts, our neighbor has done the research to determine what items to grow in her garden. With a lot of trial and error, she has become quite successful!
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.
Update from Christine – Herb Gardening in Small Spaces
Back in May, I wrote a blog related to how I like to grow herbs at my house. I do not have a good space in my yard to dig up a garden, so I use containers instead. Herbs are a great food to start out with if you are new to gardening. They grow very well in Iowa summers and take up a small amount of space. Not to mention, fresh herbs are quite expensive at the grocery store and can spoil quickly. Growing them at home gives you the pleasure of fresh herbs for far less money.
Enjoying the Fruits of Labor
A few months ago, I wrote a blog about the neighborhood garden that my family contributes to during the spring and summer. My husband and I do not have green thumbs, so we have enjoyed participating in a neighborhood garden that our neighbor, Jen, has created in her backyard to share with a few of us who live nearby.
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.
