Welcome to My Garden:Happenings in the Garden

Last weeks load of tomatoes is going to be made into tomato sauce and stored in the freezer. I am just not getting enough tomatoes at on time to can them. It is so much work that I really want a larger haul of those little beauties before I bust out the steamer/caner again.So far I have only gotten about 6 pints of tomatoes canned and that was in two batches of three pints each and a couple jars of salsa and of course the tomatoes from last week. 

These tomatoes made me 2 quarts of freezer tomato sauce that turned out yummy! I just cooked down the tomatoes all day in the crock pot with about 6 cloves of garlic, a whole yellow onion, a couple handfuls of fresh basil and a few sprigs of fresh rosemary.

Today's harvest includes a couple of jalapeno peppers that I will put into some fresh salsa I am going to be making later. The rosemary will go into the freezer for seasoning dishes throughout the winter months and with all the cucumbers I have gotten and ones from friends I will be making a cucumber salad.

Love harvesting out of the herb garden! Today's haul is a whole bunch of lemon balm and that's not even close to how much I actually have!!! I planted two lemon balm plants in the herb garden and have many baby lemon balm plants in the back yard from before when I just had one plant in a pot and kept moving it around my flower beds!!

The lemon balm is going to be dried for use later in lip balm and tea. Right now I am infusing some of the lemon balm I previously picked in some Extra Virgin Olive oil so I can make some cold sore lip balm. I will post more on the lip balm later! I still have to get the mint picked and prepared to dry. Maybe I will fit that into today's chore list.  

Happy Gardening!!

Welcome to My Garden:Update

I had really planned on sharing more about my gardening experience, but just didn't have as much time for it as I thought I would. I did have a good harvest, but it wasn't a big one. I thought I would have a lot more tomatoes and bell peppers than I got. Don’t get me wrong I have a lot of tomatoes I just don’t get enough at one time to can them like I wanted, so next year I will grow more plants. This year I did 2 early bird varieties, a Roma and two cherry tomatoes. The Roma’s ended up the size of the cherry tomatoes so I really ended up with a huge harvest of tiny tomatoes.

I am very pleased with my first harvest and am excited to see how I do with my fall garden. I used a web site called www.sproutrobot.com  to find out what could be planted right now according to my zip code.  This site is awesome it tells you how to plant in a garden or container and whether you need to direct sow or start inside!

I was gifted a greenhouse this summer, so that is all set up and planted too. I am growing all the same stuff in both places I figure I won’t fail in both places, so I get some food out of this grow! 

Here is a quick peek at my garden it is already much bigger with the beans, peas and radishes are going crazy!I also planted radishes, cucumbers, lettuce and spinach to round it all out! I am also trying to grow a couple of tomato plants out in the green house.

I have decided to not add any fertilizers to my garden I am just using egg shells on the top of the soil to deter creepy crawlies and give some calcium and then the Epsom salt water spray on the tomatoes. So far my produce is growing well without any.

Welcome to my garden!:Progress

I am amazed how well everything in the garden is doing. I was so worried that I would over/under water and kill it, but I have a green thumb when it comes to houseplants and this isn't that much different! I spent a little bit of time looking up how to care for each plant so I have a good idea of who needs how much water and so forth.
 I haven't yet put any fertilizer in the garden. I have been using an Epsom salt spray on the tomatoes and peppers and the peppers are looking good! There are about 8 on the plants right now and more coming!

 Last night I had to have my boyfriend add some more wire around the tomatoes. They are getting big and have lots of new fruit. All bugs are being controlled with an all natural spray that I made myself and it is very effective. I can't wait until we are harvesting fresh tomatoes.

 The basil plants are doing well they are however, looking a little bare after yesterdays harvest!

 I have also added cucumbers to the garden. I know the timing is not right but they don't get too much sun right there and I can always build them a little shade shelter if its not enough and if they die that's ok too!

 I just recently found a website that tells you when to start seeds according to zip code. This will be very helpful come fall because I want to try some fall crops this year! No reason to stop gardening because summer ends!!

Happy Gardening!

Welcome to my garden!: The Plot

Welcome to my garden!: The plot

   I don’t have a lot of sun in my yard for a garden but I have desperately wanted one for years. This year I decided I wanted to try and utilize the small patch of full sun that runs beside my driveway. My next challenge was to put together a garden as cheaply as possible.  So I found a web-site that has lots of interesting ways to reuse pallets and one way was to use them laid down flat and plant in them.  I loved that idea as it is cheap and fairly easy, so I showed my boyfriend the picture and asked him if he could help me get the pallets and fix them up. Well after a couple of hours of hard work I actually ended up with some raised beds made out of the pallet wood and the fencing material and posts came from my boyfriend’s dad’s house.  Love my recycled garden enclosure!!

The sticks all along the top of the fence are to hopefully deter the deer from jumping the fence and enjoying my garden. So far I have 5 varieties of tomatoes, jalapenos, Anaheim chilies,basil,rosemary,cilantro,peppermint and lemon balm. I was going for a salsa garden but there are always more things I want to grow. I have been spraying the tomatoes and pepper plants with Epsom salts and water and have about 8 peppers and two tomatoes growing! I have lots more room to add stuff and I plan on adding more as the summer goes along and look forward to trying some winter crops too!