Front Garden, Bible Garden

Today, the kids and I planted some bulbs in the Front Garden. We planted Crocus's, Tulip's, and something else I forget at the moment! Will have to look that up. The package is in the shed.

We raked the leave mulch off the garden, pulled up all the weeds, and vines from last summer. Planted the bulbs, put the leave mulch back, and covered it with hay from the goat pen.

The daffodils are starting to come up!!

We also pruned back the hibiscus's, the roses, and hostas in the Bible Garden. Then put hay on them, and the rest of the Bible Garden.

Oh, it was nice and warm today! Unseasonally warm!

Garden of Mystery

We mucked out the barn today, and spread it all on the garden. Well, part of the garden. :)

Watermelons and Pumpkins

Our watermelons. Yep, they're small!


Our pie pumpkins. A couple of days after this was taken, D brought in about 6 more small ones. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies with cinnamon chips. yummmmmmm.........

Sunflower

Duane took this pic of one of our dwarf sunflowers. He doesn't know what he did to make the pic look blue! We didn't enhance it on the computer, it came out that way!

Pickles

Today I made 6 quarts of bread and butte pickles, and 12 pints of sweet pickles.

Tonight, D pulled up 3 hills of cucumber plants. We had 6 hills, and each hill had 3-4 plants. We were getting SOOOO many cucumbers that we couldn't keep up with them. We've given away all that we can, no one wants anymore. So we slowed down production by getting rid of half of our plants.

Pictures

Mallow in the Bible Garden

A dwarf sunflower on Sunflower Island

The Chicken Garden & Front Garden

This morning, I spread hay around the roma tomatoes, green peppers and broccoli in the Chicken Garden.

I also spread hay between the combination rows of corn and green beans. The green beans are growing faster than the corn. So I had to seperate the gb. I ran one line of string, but need to get more to string up all the rows. They are supposed to be stakeless green beans. Guess they were wrong!

The Chicken Garden

Phew! The weeds are thriving here! This morning, I hoed around the roma tomatoes, green peppers, and broccoli. Then spread newspaper out.

Gardening Books

I've been reading gardening books this month. Fun stuff like weed and insect identifier books. lol But my two favorite books this month have been:



Gardening Without Work by Ruth Stout








Weedless Gardening
by Lee Reich





I have adopted some of each book. :) And I really like it so far! The gardens look so much better with the hay on the ground. I'm not having to work for hours every day trying to keep the weeds down. It's helping to retain moisture in the ground. I'm loving everything about it! But D is not so sure. He doesn't agree with the thought that you don't have to till the soil. Guess time will tell if we continue to use these methods.

Corn Maze

The neighbors cow climbed out of the fence last night. Climbed right OVER the fence. He/she ate a LOT of corn in the corn maze. :(

The Garden of Mystery

Hoed the peanuts, and the pumpkins. Abigail hoed the watermelon.

Pulled a FEW weeds out of the carrots and radishes. MANY more to go. :(

Yoda got out of the fence TWICE today, and was eating the corn in the corn maze. At least she's eating the feed corn, and not the people corn. But still! The little stinker!

The Garden of Mystery

Hoed 2 rows of peanuts. phew! The weeds sure like the peanuts!
We have a LOT of blossoms on the cantelope plants. As well as the pumpkins.
Abby hoed in the sweet corn.

IT RAINED!!!!!



The Front Garden

D, Mel, Calen, Hannah, Abby, and Zach helped me weed and hoe the whole garden!

The Garden of Mystery

Hoed 3 rows of peanuts, between the plants, and between the rows.

Abigail hoed the 2.5 rows of sweet corn. She did a good job! :)

Our little scarecrow! Made with Zacharys old clothes, and my old hat. From the road, it looks like a real little kid. Well, except for the hands. lol  

The Front Garden

hoed the tomatoes, and the green beans.

The Front Garden

Miracle Growed. Hannah weeded between the tomatoe plants. The are very sad. The cold set seeds that I got just didn't do any good. I'm not going to used those again. very dissatisfied. need to get some tomatoe plants at Walmart. we have baby zucchinis!


The Garden of Mystery

Miracle Growed. Made a scarecrow. soooooo cute


The Chicken Garden

Miracle Growed.

A wildflower growing in our front yard. 

Zucchini blossom 

My rose!! 

The Owl guarding our gardens. 

The Garden of Mystery

Top dressed the watermelon, pumpkin and cantelope hills with compost. Miracle Grow'd

Top dressed the sweet corn with compost.

This garden is not as rich as the others, and will need a lot of fertilizer.


The Chicken Garden

Fertilized the tomatoes with Miracle Grow for tomatoes.
Fertilized the peppers, broccoli and potatoes with Miracle Grow

The Chicken Garden

Finished hoeing the potatoes, hoed the broccoli and green peppers.


The Bible Garden

Weeded the Anemones, Geraniums, & the 3 Hibiscus

The Front Garden

Hoed the peas, weeded between the plants on one row.

We moved the contents of the old (like 3 years!) compost pile to The Garden of Mystery piled to be spread out later. Dug the ground and made it ready to start a new compost pile.

We cleaned out the chicken pen, and moved the contents to the new compost pile.

The Chicken Garden

Hoed about half of the potatoes.


The Garden of Mystery

weeded one row of sweet corn, and one row of peanuts.


The Bible Garden

deadheaded the roses. There are 5 new buds!

The Bible Garden... on the end of the house. The plants in the front aren't big enough to show in the picture. 

The Potted Plants, herbs and flowers. These are still on the porch, but will be placed out in the gardens as they get bigger, and I decided where to put them. 

The Front Garden... to the right you can see the creek then The Garden of Mystery. The Goat Barn is in the background. 

The Garden of Mystery... with the compost pile in the background. 

The Corn Maze...There is actually more, over the little hill, that you can't see in this picture. You can't see the pathways very well yet, as the corn isn't high enough yet. 

The Chicken Garden...with the chickens and chicken house in the background. 

The Front Garden
I hoed, but still need to weed between the plants in each row.
Fertilized with Miracle Grow.

The Garden of Mystery
Fertilized with Miracle Grow

CHICKEN GARDEN

Sprayed with Garden Sense Fruit and Vegetable Insect Spray the least toxic spray I could find at Walmart. Going to have to try Tractor Supply for some insecticidal soap.


BIBLE GARDEN

Sprayed roses with insect spray


FRONT GARDEN

Sprayed everything except tomatoes with insect spray.

There are buds on the squash plants!

FRONT GARDEN

D roto tilled (except tomatos) rows

Fertilized butterfly bush and 2 hibiscus

Potted Plants

Fertilized the potted plants - herbs and flowers.

The Corn Maze

We planted the other half of the corn. PHEW!!! I'm glad that's done!!

The Corn Maze

We planted half the corn.

The Front Garden

The kids named it that, because it's in front of the Garden of Mystery. They're separated by the creek. We planted pea pods, green beans, cold set tomatoes, summer squash, zucchini and cucumbers. With some room left for succession planting.


The Corn Maze

We laid out the maze in the upper garden. We are going to plant feed corn for the goats. The kids read about a corn maze in a Box Car Children book, and wanted to make one, so we are! We have it all laid out. That took a couple of hours! We ran out of time to actually plant the corn. lol


Todd picked up the tractor.

The Chicken Garden

We put in potatoes.


The Garden of Mystery

The kids named it that. No reason, they just liked the name. LOL We planted Sweet Corn,3 different kinds of carrots, green onions, radishes, peanuts, pumpkins, watermelon, and cantaloupe. With some room left for succession planting.

Sunflower Island

is no really an island. lol Today, I tilled it, and we planted 2 kinds of sunflowers. A variety that gets only 2-3 feet tall, and one that gets 6 feet tall.

The Front Garden

D plowed.

The Corn Maze

D plowed again.

Todd brought the tractor over. D plowed The Garden of Mystery and The Corn Maze

The Chicken Garden

So named because it's next to the chickens. LOL We put out the seedlings that we had started in the house. Roma Tomatoes, Bell Peppers and Broccoli.