With this insanely cold winter we’re having, I’ve been even more excited than usual to get back to gardening. Gardening around here (zone 6) usually starts with my birthday. My birthday is St. Patrick’s Day, so March 17th is when I always try to get my cold weather seeds planted. It’s colder than normal this […]
GMO is short for any “genetically modified organisms.” Currently genetically modified plants and genetically modified animals both exist. GMOs are created by using the DNA from different species of plants, animals, bacterias, and viruses and merging them together with gene splicing techniques. These GMOs can not be created naturally which means you can not achieve […]
It’s that time of the year when frost is coming and it is time to put the garden to bed for the winter. We keep a close eye on the weather reports and about three days before the first frost is expected, we put the boys to work. Last week Greyden and Colter picked the remaining produce […]
We’re a little sad around here because frost is coming, and it doesn’t look like our sunflower seeds are going to completely ripen in time. We planted the sunflower seeds late in the season because it took longer than anticipated to complete the construction of the garden beds. So we knew it was a long […]
I never had sweet potatoes growing up. I don’t think my mom liked them, so she never cooked them. I suppose I saw them at Thanksgiving time, but as a kid I thought they looked nasty even with marshmallows on them (I was never a big marshmallow fan either). It wasn’t until I got heavily […]
I learned a lot about cooking from my Italian Grandmother. She was a great cook. Unfortunately, she was also the messiest cook I’ve ever known. I think she used every single cooking item in her entire kitchen everytime she cooked. I believe this because she regularly left the cleanup to those of us who enjoyed […]
Asparagus is one of my favorite vegetables to grow, because it is the first thing to come up in the garden in spring. Asparagus is a perennial, which means that once you plant it, you don’t have to replant it. You purchase the plant as “asparagus crowns” which are little cut off plants with lots and […]
I love my herb garden. Right now, it’s not in the best shape and needs a lot of dead stuff from last year removed. Some fresh mulch would make it look really nice too. Here is a photo of one of my lavender plants (notice the lemon balm creeping in and the dead stuff to […]
I am so excited that Spring is here. Our cherry trees have blossoms on them and so do lots of other trees. Emery’s daffodils and hyacinths are up and blooming. It’s wonderful! My asparagus isn’t up yet, but it should be poking through any time now. And that means it is time to weed the […]
We grew some mammoth sunflowers in the garden this year. The goats really love sunflowers and the fat and fiber are very good for them. I had no idea they would be so huge!!! Now granted, my children aren’t the tallest in the world – but still! Those are some tall sunflowers. They are just starting […]
Guess what Jim brought home from his route today – four crates (maybe 100 pounds?) of cabbage! One of Jim’s customers runs a food ministry and often sets out food for us. He also knows we have animals, so will set out any produce that he doesn’t have an immediate need for. This photo was […]
This is a partial view of my backyard. In the foreground is one of my gardens. We call it our trellis garden. This photo was taken on October 19th, so the garden is winding down. Remaining in this garden are turnips, peas, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, lettuce, basil and parsley. It was our first […]