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The Kids’ Gardens

August 12, 2015 By Laura 5 Comments

After intending to for far too long, I am finally sharing with you our kids’ little gardens, today!

All 4 of our kids help in our family gardens at some point or other through the gardening seasons; although some do with more joy and ambition than others. There is always some weeding, dead-heading flowers, or picking vegetables, that needs tending to. I do much of it myself, but sometimes I could use another pair of hands, and the company is nice sometimes, too.

But just prior to the gardening season in 2013, I pitched the idea to the kids, of having their very own little garden.
I explained that they could plant and grow whatever they wanted, but they were also responsible for keeping it up. That meant keeping it weeded, watered, dead-heading their own flowers, and generally tending to it with love.  Not only that, but after their father built the frame base, they had to be a team and prepare the bed themselves. They all loved the idea, and each have had their own little garden ever since!


It may have been more work than they anticipated, that first year!  Because although we have had loam brought in by the truck full for our other garden beds, we had a perfectly good dirt pile next to the driveway that we didn’t really want there.  It had been overgrown with weeds and grass, though. Basically, it was less of a dirt pile any longer, and more like a grassy hill, riddled with rocks! So they did work hard, like a team. The boys dug the hill up, pulling and shaking out the grass and weed clumps, and putting shovel fulls earth onto the handmade screen on the wheel barrow.  The girls sifted the dirt through, to remove all of the rocks, and then wheeled the barrow over to the garden bed, and dumped the dirt in.

That was the less than fun part. But they made the most of it, and it was good and done for many years to come.
Now let’s look at their gardens, today…. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Gardening, Homeschooling, Parenting, The Big Picture, The Homestead Tagged With: Catholic-blogs, Catholic-families, Catholic-kids, Celosia, creative-gardening-for-kids, garden photos, Gardening, gardening-ideas-for-kids, homeschooling, kids-gardening, kids-gardens, lessons-in-gardening-for-kids, painted-garden-rocks

Garden Peek!> Early Summer 2011

July 20, 2011 By Laura 1 Comment

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-12

I believe we’ve been both gardening and blogging, for about 3 years.  Our life is filled with so many various passions, there is more than we are actually able to get to blogging.  I sure try to get it all in though!  But one area that is especially hard to keep you all updated with, is the gardening!  Good gosh. Things grow and change SO fast, by the time I photograph what I want, edit the photos, and start putting a post together (while you know, living my life and doing 1,000 other things in the midst of it all), the post report, explaining the photos I took, don’t seem very current by the time I get to typing it out! But my intent today, is really just to share with you all what we’ve got growing this year.

In that light, after the first photo, the photos in this post were taken in early July. As I type, it is the 20th of July. Still, while reporting with photos is unavoidably a little delayed, we like to try and give you the picture of the process as a whole, even if the photos are a little behind the 8-ball of the gardens in the moment.  I imagine it is all still relate-able for the interested gardeners (or wannabes) reading, and perhaps it opens a door for conversation, as you reflect back on the few weeks prior to your own gardening-status, and the subsequent changes.  So we’re going to roll with this delay-thing we have going on in the gardening blog-shares, and hope you all can too.

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos

One thing we did differently this year, that we have not done in the past 2 years, is start our vegetable plants from seed!  Our experience with gardening has been that we learn a little more every year.  While we were somewhat successful in growing the plants from seed indoors, to transplant to the garden beds come Memorial Day weekend, I’m not sure our timing was right with everything. (?) For example, our pepper plants started out so tiny in the beds, that I couldn’t imagine them ever producing fruit this season!  But in sharing this with my Mother-in-law when she visited in early June, she mentioned those seeds probably should be planted in February or so.  She and my Father-in-law kept a beautiful yard full of gardens when they lived in this area. In the course of our conversation, I could not even remember the month we actually did start the seeds. But I was sure it was not that early!  The packaging of the seeds did not say, that I could tell, how long prior to replanting, that the seeds should be started. It only seemed to say how many weeks before they should bare their first fruits. So….I was winging it all. All of the seeds did sprout, grow plants, and were transplantable. In fact,  some grew too tall to keep the clear cover on, for the greenhouse effect.  What to do about that? And as I said, maybe different seeds should have started at different times. But when, for each variety, is my question. So, more researching to be done, and more lessons to be learned.  But as I have said all along, the learning as we go is half the fun!  Next year , also, I’ll keep a record of when the seeds were put in the soil. At least write the date on the containers!

Here is just a couple of other small points to note:  1)  As a reference, these photos were taken in early July. Things have grown and changed a lot since then.  So we plan to update you soon, but a little after the facts of course. : )  2) Please pay no mind to the very patchy crabgrass, in our sand-dirt, that needed mowing badly. It was done that evening.  But I am working on not procrastinating photos or a post, due to a likely irrelevant detail, so don’t call me out on that, or I may have a relapse with my self-therapy. ; )  Alrighty?

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-1

Here in Bed #1 we have little pepper plants on the far right, behind the Marigolds.There is Green Peppers, and Jalapenos.  Aside from the Marigolds, we also have Cosmos, and a sweet single Sunflower that {O} grew.  I plant the Marigolds and Cosmos in ever bed, to attract bees and butterflies, for assistance in pollination. But also, because I love bees and butterflies.  : )   On the far left, we have Cucumbers growing.


early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-2

In Bed #2, we are growing Yellow Summer Squash and Zucchini.  We were adamant about the squash varieties growing in another bed this summer, after last year’s devastation!  Some of you may recall the sudden and devastating death of our squash bed last year, and eventual discovery of the culprit!  More on our remedy for this in just a bit.  But also in this garden bed is something new we are trying to grow Sugar Snap Peas! We had no idea what we were doing there at first, but I researched it and learned quickly. They started out ‘thin’, in my Mother-in-law’s word. That was her nice way of saying ‘puny’ I think. Made me giggle. But they are looking GOOD now. A closer look on that in just a minute as well. All else we have here, is the Marigolds, Cosmos, and still sitting there is our now-virtually-famous Coke Bottle Box and Candy-Cane Striped Petunias. There’s also a few Snap Dragon in that box.

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-3 Promising buds of  squash.

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-4

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-5 Squash Flowers.  No, we have not prepared them as a recipe in any way yet. Fried? Stuffed? It just sounds strange to me.  We’ll see who can convince me.

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-6 We were pretty excited to see these 2 pods!  I have fond memories of picking & gobbling peas in my aunt’s garden, when I was little.  I want our kids to be able to do the same.

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So as I implied earlier, I wasn’t sure starting out, how we would do producing Sugar Snap Peas this first year. But regardless, I have loved watching them climb our wooden frame, and zig-zagging twine.  The hornets are ‘having at’ that wood frame, by the way.  I’ve found myself watching & studying their activity intently, both fascinated & irked at the same time.  I hope the frame holds up through the season anyway. It’s easy enough for Michael to whip another one up next year.  As an update, the peas are doing wonderfully, and I’ll show you more on that next garden post.

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-8 Garden #3 is the Strawberry Bed.

You are welcome to check out the post prior to this one, for lots of photos and chat on our Strawberries this year.

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-9 Another new learning experiment this year.  Since last year we learned that we planted our Pumpkin Patch too soon, this year we thought we’d try using the bed as a Watermelon Patch first!  The kids planted the seeds into this bed themselves. You can hardly see them well in this early photo, but let me point them out among the Marigold plants.  The Watermelon plants are in the upper far left, the one in the middle-ish, and far center-right.  There were just a couple others that the squirrels pulled out, before we got to spraying a Deer-Off border.  So I planted a row of 6 new Watermelon seeds in the soil vertically on the far right side. Updated photos of the plants will be coming up too.  We’re not sure if we’ll actually get Watermelons this year either, as my Mother-In-Law said those should have been planted earlier too.  But the plants are spreading like mad now, and I did catch a glimpse of a flower. So there’s a small chance we’ll get at least 1 melon. Heyyyy, we can split it!

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-10 Lastly, in Bed #4 we have 4 Varieties of Tomatoes:  Cherry, Early Girl, Big Boy & Beefsteak.

This is the bed that was our Squash Bed last year! First, we screened all of the soil, looking for any Vine Borers that were hibernated down into the soil, pupating, after the devastation they do in the year prior, waiting to reak new havoc again this year!  We learned that’s what they tend to do!  We didn’t really seem to find any, but we used a new bed for the squash this year just in case.  Besides, we try to rotate the beds every year or 2, so the soil is not depleted of any nutrients from one particular plant variety.

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-11 Some Cherry Tomatoes on the vine.

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-13 Marigolds.

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-14 Cosmos.

And lastly, a quick look at how our Mailbox Garden Tub has filled in….

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-15 I love how the Calibrachoa spill over.

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-16 And I have always loved Snap Dragons.

early-flower-vegetable-garden-photos-17 THIS, is not a photo from early July, but a more recent photo after some picking, last weekend. We have been enjoying Yellow Summer Squash, Zucchini, and Cucumbers, so far.

And that my friends, is your Late Garden Report!  Stay tuned for more Late Reporting, right here in the The Homestead ~Home & Gardens section, of Our House Of Joyful Noise.  Meanwhile, I’m open to some sharing and garden chat in the comments!

 


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Filed Under: Gardening, Photography, The Homestead Tagged With: cosmos, cucumbers, early-gardening-season, flower photography, flower photos, garden beds, garden photography, garden photos, Gardening, gardens, green peppers, jalapenos, peppers, snapdragons, squash, strawberries, sugar-snap-peas, vegetable-plants, watermelon-patch, yellow-summer, zucchini

Pansies, Verbenas & Berries | Photography

May 19, 2010 By Laura 7 Comments

I wanted to share with you some fun photography I did of my yard pansies, verbenas and berries.

1_pansies

Yesterday morning, I found myself up wicked early.  And not at the computer, in my bathrobe, with coffee. But up, dressed, and outside with my camera, taking photos around my yard.  (With coffee.)  I had to wonder what in the heck was going on with me lately.  I have never-ever been one to  get up early, unless I absolutely-no-way-out-of-it-have-to.  This morning, I was not only up at the crack of dawn, but after a night where I had laid in bed during the night, for at least 3 hours, wide awake!  I thought for sure I’d be sleeping like a rock, come morning. But no. I was more than up-and-at’em.  I am becoming more and more convinced, that this means I am indeed ‘approaching elderly’.

2_verbenas

Doesn’t this sleep- pattern mimic the old folks?  I always hear many of these dear old ones talk about how they “just couldn’t sleep all night”.  And on the occasion that ‘I’ have had to be up and out early to be somewhere, old folks are everywhere.  Why? They are retired! They have no kids to get off to give breakfast to and get off to school!  It puzzles me. Ok, maybe there is a handful with a doctor appointment that morning. ; )   But not THAT many.  I want to go up to them and say, “WHAT, on God’s green earth, are you doing up this early?  Don’t you know, you can do anything you want with your time now!  Why aren’t you sleeping in?!”

4_verbenas Later in the afternoon, I was telling some friends about this new mystery of myself and sleep.  One girlfriend replied, “Maybe the spirit was a-movin’ ya.”.   Another said, “I think you have a condition called Spring Fever. No worries though, I hear it cures itself. ;)”.   A third friend just came right out and said it:  “I was going to say…..your age!”.  We all need a friend who will tell us the truth, no matter what. Don’t we?

3_verbenas So back to the photos I was out in the yard taking.  These gorgeous dark pink flowers are some of my verbenas.  I have some planted in the ‘window box’, that is actually sitting on a foundation wall, under the ledge of my front deck.   Upon the sight of little flower buds in my pots, boxes and gardens, I get little butterflies of excitement inside.  I love to watch them slowly open up, or happen-upon the surprise of sudden full blooms.

5_verbenas In the same flower box, in between the verbenas, I have planted shasta daisies.  I am not all that familiar with them yet, so I’m not sure if the little nubbies I see on them are almost buds?  But if they are, I’m excited.  There is also some white verbenas in there somewhere,  but for some reason or another, they aren’t blooming yet.

6_bench

Over at my bench seat in the front near the garden beds, I have a few pots, that contain some of the leftover pansies and verbenas, after I had filled my box, and other bigger pots on steps and such.  The white verbenas are in bloom here.   The verbenas, by the way, will grow to spill and hang long over the edges of it’s containers.   I look forward to them covering my heinous foundation wall under the deck. (Big plans for that coming up soon, to permanently take care of that! Very exciting project we’ll be sharing here.)

7_pot-of-pansies I really enjoyed, not only photographing the things I have grown around my yard, but processing them with textures.  Have you notice the textures on the photos?  Photographing whatever I am inspired to, and processing them any way I want, is often almost way more fun than I can take.  ; )  Especially without the pressure of time lines and deadlines, for clients, that often comes with the photos I take.

8_white-verbenas Here is a bloomed bunch of white verbenas.

9_pansies-variety I forget the name of the  variety of these smaller pansies, but if anyone remembers, feel free to enlighten me. : )  If no one does, I can always look at the pot tag I saved out there somewhere near the pots.  (And I might have to.) But I sure do love their colors.

10_strawberry-bed Let’s just get this out of the way:  Yes, the lawn weeds we have out front need mowing.  It’s not looking like it is going to happen for at least another week.  But anyway, this is our strawberry bed.

I have a confession to make, regarding the strawberries, and all of the planted flowers you’ve seen here:   Somewhere early t0 mid April, I was getting the gardening-bug so bad. I was just itching to get out there and get dirty.  We were having beautiful spring days, and I was convinced it was here to stay!  So I planted flowers all over the place, and raked most of the straw off the strawberry beds, since I could see green leaves popping up through.  All of this, despite the warnings that it was way too early for planting, etc., since there was still a good chance of frost, which could destroy it all.  The recommendation for planting is Memorial Day weekend.  Mother’s Day at the earliest.  But I’m a true gambler.   (O.k., not really, but I like how that makes me sound gutsy and tough.)

11_strawberry-bed Well, I’ll tell you where that risk got me:  Out in the pitch dark cold, at about 11:30 at night, on 3 different occasions, covering the beds and plants with large sheets of plastic, because a weather-check before bed said temperatures would dip that night, and frost was likely.

That should teach me, come next year.  But I can’t guarantee it.

12_ever-bearing-strawberry-plants Thankfully, everything survived, and we should be home free.  Although technically, Memorial Day is not until this coming weekend.  But look how the strawberry plants are growing like crazy!!  We are anticipating an abundance of strawberries this season.  Last year, the beds were new, and the strawberry plants were just planted.  But this year, they are more established, so we should have more strawberries than we know what to do with.  But we’ll figure it out.  In fact, I look forward to it!!

13_everbearing-strawberries  Strawberry jam…… strawberry shortcake…….. chocolate covered strawberries…… strawberries in our cereal….strawberries right off the vine……strawberries for our kind neighbors…..(Yeah, just the kind ones. Not the chipmunk-killing-outdoor-cat-owner ones.)

14_everbearingstrawberries If there was one thing I was noticing while I was out this morning, taking these photos, it was that….I was noticing everything! The moist dew in the air, the clean and fresh air, and the scents of new growing life coming and drifting away,  the silence……WOW….the silence.  I think the quiet, was why I could notice so much!  This Mama of 4 (home schooled) kids, is not used to such quiet.  I had all kinds of complete thoughts, running through my head.  Weird.

15_strawberry Quiet early early hours of the day have been so foreign to me.  I guess I never knew what I was missing. Come to find out, it’s rather nice!  Perhaps I’ll watercolor paint a little more often, with these extra hours in a day, too.

Yeah, maybe this old lady could really get used to this early morning thing.


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Filed Under: Gardening, Photography, The Homestead Tagged With: berries, flowers-photography, garden photos, pansies, photography, verbenas

Garden Vegetable Photos

August 29, 2009 By Laura 3 Comments

Just a handful of our garden vegetable photos, to share with you, today!

vegetable garden photos

vegetable garden photos
Look how CUTE!!
vegetable garden photos
These turned red rapidly after this photo.
vegetable garden photos
vegetable garden photos
Look at all of the tomatoes in there!!  YAHOOO!
vegetable garden photos
vegetable garden photos
vegetable garden photos
A treat, right off the vine!
vegetable garden photos
vegetable garden photos
‘Last Saturday’s lil’, lil’ harvest.
We’ve gathered a small bowlful of Everbearing strawberries, too.  Overall, we were pleasantly surprised with our first year of gardening!  We planted these itty-bitty plants in all of the beds, tended to them with a little bit of love and care, and they grew!  And produced!  It has definitely encouraged us to keep on gardening, and expand our plans.  It’s been a downright exciting experience, and has reaped very fulfilling rewards. ; )
Next up in The Homestead, we’ll be heading inside the house for awhile. Hope you can join us!

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Filed Under: Gardening, The Homestead Tagged With: cosmos, cucumber, garden photos, garden-vegetable-photos, Gardening, green-bell-peppers, tomato-photos, vegetable photos

Front Yard Gardens – Progress Update

August 25, 2009 By Laura 8 Comments

Everything we planted in our front yard gardens, is really growing!  We wanted to give you a progress update.

front yard gardens

In our last post, we shared with you the very beginnings of our front yard transformation.  We planned out 3 gardens, built 3 garden beds, had loam delivered, filled the beds with the loam, and got our strawberry plants planted all in mid-May.

At the end of May, after the threat of frost had past, we planted all of the vegetable and flower plants in the beds.   I did not take photos of the extensive work we did that day along the way, because frankly, I was covered in earth and sweat, and wasn’t about to touch my camera. : )

front yard gardens

Here’s a photo of our front yard now, with the 3 garden beds. I think it’s a dramatic improvement to the ‘blahness’ it was, already!  Don’t you?  We even have some green weed/crabgrass growing in our dirt where the driveway was extended!  Since we don’t have plans to plant grass anytime soon, we’ll take anything green!   In the long run here, we’ll likely be putting in more  gardens, little walkways, maybe a small tree or 2 ….who knows what.  So planting grass at this point is not wise, when it mostly will be getting dug right up, soon enough.

front yard gardens Here’s a view from this angle, taken in mid-July.  I’m going to take you from garden to garden here and show you what we’ve got.  All of these photos coming up were taken in mid-July.

front yard gardens

First on the far left, while acing our house with your back to the street, is our strawberry bed.    This is the garden that was done first, a couple of weeks before the others, because we could do that with the strawberries.  So I had done a couple of posts on how the plants and strawberries were coming along.   Rather then re-hash all of that, and re-post all of those photos, I’m just going to link you to those 2 posts.  They will open in their own window, so don’t worry about losing your spot here if you want to take a quick peek.

Strawberry Fields Forever

We Picked Our First Strawberry

Being the first year, the plants needed to get established, so we weren’t expecting an abundance of berries this year.  But we have high hopes, jam recipes, and many desserts on our agenda for next year!

front yard gardens

This is the second garden from the left, next to the strawberry garden.  Or, the middle garden. : )

Aside from the flower, which I will get to a little later on, we have growing 4 varieties of tomatoes:   Beefsteaks, Better Boys, Early Girls, and Cherries.  We also have cucumbers in this bed.

front yard gardens

front yard gardens Just a couple now-outdated tomato photos. More to come.

front yard gardens

In our last bed here, 3rd from the left, closest to the drive-way, we have growing summer squash, zucchini, and green peppers. Plus the flowers.   I had read how helpful having certain flowers in your vegetable gardens were, to their growth and production.  They attract certain bees that help pollinate, as well as other certain insects that are good for the garden and good for keeping other harmfuls away.

I know that sounded a little vague, but I just didn’t want to get into the full explanation right now.  Besides, I’m not sure I can remember it ALL at the moment.   But I can tell you, that everything I knew at the time, and therefore did, seemed to have done exactly what it should , and it all worked!  So that’s got to count for something. lol

front yard gardens Here’s one of our first baby squashes.  I learned real quick that I can’t be all in the squash leaves, working around, with bare arms!  I got a rashes all over my arms almost instantly, and I was going nuts.  Not sure if that happens to everyone, or if I’m just sensitive?  But….I was more careful from there on out.  Kind of like my jalapeno chopping incident, but I’ll spare you the story on that. For now.  (But eventually, these dramatic complaints need to come out. So…be forewarned. : )

front yard gardens

On the corners of some of the beds, I had planted cosmos, that have really grown beautifully.  We let them grow tall, and they are not only lovely, but really beneficial to the garden.

front yard gardens Pretty, huh?  We have this color, and white ones as well.

Mid-August….

front yard gardens

These photos are now from mid-August, and things were looking great!

Look at all of the tomatoes growing!…

front yard gardens

front yard gardens

front yard gardens

front yard gardens

front yard gardens

Here is one more shot of the middle garden, with the white Cosmos.

So as I said, the second half of this this post was mid-August.  A week later, so much had changed, and there were so many new surprises!  So up next, will be yet another garden post, to share with you how things developed from here.   I have discovered a new love of garden photography.  Shocking??  Probably not.

But soon, we’ll be heading inside the house for a bit, to show you a couple of new things that we’ve been doing in there.  I can’t wait to show you!!

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Filed Under: Gardening, The Homestead Tagged With: cherry-tomatoes-on-the-vine, cosmos, cucumbers, flowers, front-yard-gardens, garden beds, garden photography, garden photos, green-bell-peppers, peppers, squash, tomatoes, vegetable photos, vegetables, zucchini

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