Gardening 2010

We've been busy working in the garden this spring. We have added two additional planting boxes. We planted the peas, spinach, radishes, and lettuce.



We have dug out 60 feet of a space to hold 120 blackberry plants.



And the Peach and Nectarine trees are in full, beautiful bloom.

I love the promise of spring.

Yummy garden drinks

We have been experimenting with some of the herbs from the garden. I recently made some really good "lemonade."

2 Lemons washed, and squeezed into a pan. Put the rinds in too.
25 leaves of lemon balm (can use lemon verbena too)
2 cups of sugar (My family doesn't eat a lot of sugar, I think we could use less)
4 cups of water

Boil for 5 minutes. Strain into a gallon jar, fill with water and put in the fridge.

Very yummy and so inexpensive!

I also tried this with an orange, and leaves of pineapple sage. It was a bit watery. I may try to add some tea bags next time.

Do any of you have any ideas of ways to use lemon balm, pineapple sage, or cinnamon basil?

Garden Update and Announcement!

Many of us are feeling the price crunch when it comes to feeding our children healthy foods... when cucumbers and peppers are over $1 each, we need to think of something else to do. So many of us are trying to turn black thumbs slightly green by learning to garden.

Unfortunately, many of us don't know what we are doing. So I thought of making an online Garden Club. I will put a Mr. Linky (I am going to name him The Garden Guru if it will let me...) on my site on Friday Morning. You post something which tells about your garden progress, or asking a question. Then everyone can go visit each other, offering encouragement and advice. Don't you think it will sound like a great idea? I hope people participate!

Thanks to the great Computer Expert ~ The Cap'n ~ we have a button for our new Garden Club! Take it over to your own site if you want to participate!

And just for the record... I planted lots of seeds last Thursday. Over 50 % of the tomato seeds in the little pods (you know the presto ones that you add water to and they expand?) have sprouted, and NONE of the ones in the Jiffy Seed Starting Mix have sprouted yet. Interesting, huh? I wonder what those pods have the the Mix doesn't?

Start thinking and preparing for your post on Friday! (I do want to let people know that I will be in the hospital with Mercy on Friday, so it might be Saturday if I cannot get wireless on my laptop... )

The Going's On Around Here...

This week Eric did a project for me... he made growing shelves so I can start my plants inside. We put two shelves above my washer and dryer. We are hanging fluorescent lights from the bottom of the top shelf (for the bottom row of plants), and from the ceiling for the top row. I'd show a photo except my batteries are charging. I am sure you'll be hearing a lot about it in future posts.

The weather has been nice, so the boys have been working on filling my new garden boxes (we are putting three boxes next to the house) with hay / manure / compost. The boxes are 4 feet wide by 32 feet long. I plan on using the square foot methods in them.

We have lots of hay which the horses spread on the ground and don't eat. Once a week (or more) we put this hay into the hen's yard. The hens peck through it and eat out the seeds so we are not planting weeds into the garden. They also add manure into it! ;) Then we take it over to the garden. I am unsure how this will work this year (it probably will not have time to fully decompose), but I KNOW by next year it will be wonderful soil. We will still have our large garden near the field if these don't work this year.

So that's what we did this week. I am ready for warm weather to come so we can all be out and planting things again!