My garden at dusk....Kindergarden Week 17

A little off the subject for just a moment....I just wanted to say that last weeks Kindergarden post was not to make anyone feel bad about the way they eat.  This way of eating did not happen for us overnight and in no way was I saying that my way of eating is the best way.  Everyone needs to do what is right for their family and I truely believe this is what is best for me and my family.  So I want to apologize if I came off as pushy, that was not the intent of the post. The intent was to make people think a little more about where their food is coming from. 

Whew, glad I got that off my chest!!  Kindergardens is my favorite post of the week!  It is post that I get to show off my garden and see others show theirs off as well!!  If you like my Kindergarden (and I sincerely hope you do!!) please check out the other fabulous Kindergardens over at The Inadvertent Farmer!

We had an assignment this week to take pictures of our gardens at either dawn or dusk.

So without further ado.......My garden at dusk.

There is fruits and veggies just hanging out!

Hidden tomato

Strawberries (yes they are still going strong!)

Eggplant- almost ready to pick!



Looking over the tomato plants, yes they are pretty tall!

 We did not intend to have pumpkins this year but I guess this is what I get for throwing my pumpkins down off the deck to the embankment! Can you find the hidden pumpkin in the second picture? 



Green pumpkin

Did you spot the pumpkin?



In last weeks Kindergarden post I used an old photo of my garden. Someone asked what my garden looks like now.....

Five raised beds

The two you cannot see because of my tomato jungle

Looks like a wild jungle of tomatoes!

Lately I have been really into taking pictures of bees. I am fascinated by these very necessary but oh-so-cute little pollinators.  Yesterday they were happily pollinating my Autumn Sedums!

Honey bee on an Autumn Sedum

Bumble bee flying away

Honey bee on an Autumn Sedum

Does anyone know what this is?  The hummingbirds love it. The Hubs called it a weed!  I think it is just beautiful and the Hubs agreed not to cut it down because it attracts the hummingbirds.  It has little orange flowers that remind me of those little goldfish crackers.  But I have no idea what it is.....

????

Chicken Update!  No eggs yet....That is all.....Wait you thought the status changed?  Silly!
Well I am now off to prepare for Irene.....Can you believe it?  An earthquake and a hurricane all in one week, I can hardly stand the excitement!  We will be getting our emergency supplies ready and trying to figure out what to do with the chickens.

What is your favorite time of day to enjoy your garden? 

I know where my food comes from! Kindergardens Week 16

Yes it is true, I know where my food comes from.  So should you......

It comes from here.......

Old picture I know, but it is the only picture I could find where you can see all five beds! This is where most of my food comes from.

The other night we sat down for dinner.  We had free range beef and organic corn from a farm in the next town, tomato salad and zucchini from our garden.  We knew exactly where all of our food came from right down to the raw milk we drink.  I was really proud of us!

I think more people should know where their food comes from, don't you?

Just on a side note....I may have made a bit of a mistake with our hens.  They are only 19 weeks, I miscounted on the calendar.  Really they should be laying any day now, I still cannot wait for fresh eggs!

Are you loving this Kindergardens series as much as I am?  If so check out the other gardens over at The Inadvertent Farmer!

Egg watch continues.....Kindergardens Week 14

We're back into the swing of things here and feeling a little better than last week.  Thank you again everyone, your kind words meant a lot to me!

On to Kindergardens, check out Kim over at The Inadvertent Farmer, she has 3 brand-y new donkeys!  So cute, I want one but only having an acre of land kind of puts a kibosh on large farm animals. *Pouts* Someday I will convince the Hubs to buy 100 acres in Montana...Someday.

Enough with the day dreams.....

We are officially on egg watch. There were none tonight but the gals will be 22 weeks old next Friday.  Can you believe it?  It feels like just yesterday we brought those six little sweethearts home!  They have grown into such sweet little chickens and Little Bird is quite the chicken whisperer!  She is not afraid of them at all!  Little Bug on the other hand is still not too sure she likes them to be too close to her.  Maybe in time she will get use to it!  I think we are going to get meat birds next, we have been doing our research to find out which bird is the best meat bird.  If anyone has suggestions we are open to them!  

1 day old

21 weeks

We puttered around the gardens this week just to find a ton of tomatoes were hanging out.....

The corn was, well, being corn.  Growing beautiful tassels and we found new little ears getting ready to grow!

Please don't mind the unpainted chicken coop, it's on my to do list once this humidity is gone.

The watermelon decided to use the corn as a trellis!

The eggplants are just starting.  Hopefully we will get a few!

And all Little Bug wanted to do is pick the flowers......

Can you blame her?  They look beautiful!   

How is your garden growing this week?

Kindergarden Weeks 10 & 11

First I apologize, I am so busy right now I forgot about last week, and I am finishing this post up at work.....Yes I am on my lunch!  That's my excuse and I am sticking to it! I promise next week I will be back to my regular irregular schedule.  I think it is pretty obvious time management is not my thing!
Oops! Sorry no pictures.  I did not bring my memory stick to work. I would forget my head if it wasn't attached somedays!

It has been hot and sticky July weather here but TONS of growing and flowering has been going on in the garden!  I seriously have not been this excited in a LONG time!

My zucchini and yellow squash have these beautiful orange flowers on them!  You can pick the male flowers off and deep fry them or cook them in a butter sauce or just add them to a salad, they are delicious!  If you don't know the difference the male flowers have a long straight stamens (they kind of remind me of the male anatomy).  The female look like a few curled up little zucchinis (and yes they do remind me of female anatomy) there is an ovary behind it and will produce fruit if pollinated.  Do not pick the female flowers, they produce the fruit!  If you want to try some zucchini flowers use the male flowers!

I have a bunch of tomatoes and a ton of little yellow flowers!  Those plants are almost 5 feet tall!  I have three different varieties, Amish Paste, Black Krim and a type of cherry tomato!  I remember growing up my grandfather teaching me how to grow tomatoes.  I was responsible for watering them every morning!  It's such a great memory and I hope someday when my girls grow up they remember this valuable lesson we have taught them!  

I take back what I said two weeks ago because my corn seemed to shoot right up! "Knee high by July" is the old adage!  We are right on course, hopefully we will start seeing some tassels soon! 

We finally got the herb bed filled with dark loamy soil and I am trying to figure out what I want to put in there. 
I keep checking the radishes but I think they have been overcrowded and are not going to grow anymore. So I started looking online to see how to prepare the leaves.  I did not know you could eat the leaves.  And did you know that if you leave radishes in the ground they sprout these little flowers?  Neither did I. I got these beautiful little flowers on top.

And no my chickens have not started laying yet.  On August 12th they will be 22 weeks old, I am keeping my fingers crossed!! 

Ok so I promise to make the time to blog. Have a great week!  I can't wait to see what everyone is growing!  To check out the Kindergardens series head over to The Inadvertant Farmer! 

Kindergardens Week 9

This weeks Kindergarden assignment is to show our gardens from our children's perspective. This was a ton of fun for my girls because they LOVE to steal my camera and take pictures of themselves!  If they weren't so stinkin' cute they may get in trouble for it! If someone stole my laptop they seriously would wonder why I have pictures of blurry little girls body parts......

Is it just me or does it seem like nothing is growing like it should?  My peppers and eggplants look way too small.  The corn looks on the smallish size too.  And really my beets and carrots just are not growing at all.  I was thinking next spring I will make seed tapes for the beets, carrots and radishes so I won't have to worry about overcrowding! 

The tomato and squash plants, on the other hand, have taken off like crazy!!  I tied the tomato plants to stakes last week and they were about half the size of the stakes.  This week they are almost as tall as the stakes!  I love tomatoes and I cannot wait to pick the first big juicy red globe of goodness!

We also found a little surprise!  I am not sure what it is but we have been filling in this spot in the yard with some leaves, dirt and various other types of fill all spring and the Hubs seems to think we threw our pumpkins off the deck into this spot last year.  I dunno know but I guess we will find out sometime in the fall!  It would be nice to not have to buy all those pumpkins this year!! 

Our roadside lillies finally bloomed.....I love these bright orange flowers!  I transplated this one this spring after it had sprouted leaves and it bloomed.

The girls loved taking pictures of the strawberries.  We still have a few ripening in the beds.

Our lettuce is looking good.....

We had a lot of fun doing this, I think I was more excited than the girls were!  Every week when we walk out there it amazes me how much things have grown and how much closer we are to having fresh, untouched, organic food!  I cannot wait to have the first ear of corn or ripe tomato!  I can practically taste it now!

Hope everyone else had a great week of gardening!  I know we did!  Have a safe and happy 4th!

Kindergardens!!

I promised you a little more information on Kindergardens.........If you want to join please head over to The Inadvertent Farmer!

I love Kindergardens, I really just love the premise get your kids involved with gardening and giving back to the community! A garden is such a  simple and fun thing to do with your children.  It really teaches them valuable life lessons on where their food comes from! We have also been given a challenge to give back to our community.  Our extras will go to the Queens Galley here in the Hudson Valley. 1 in 6 Americans struggle with not having enough to eat, that, in my opinion, is 1 too many.  No one, child, adult or senior citizen, should ever have to wonder where their next meal is coming from.  To me it's such a shame that a first world country even has this statistic.

My kids use to think tomatoes only came from the supermarket!  But ours are starting to flower!

We harvested one radish, it was small but tasty, Hopefully we will have some more in the coming days!

Little Bug pick one of the strawberries it was not quite ripe yet but she insisted and gobbled it right up!  Our strawberries are new in our garden this year so they did not produce as much as I thought they would so we had to go to the farm to get a good supply for preserves. I am very glad we have all of these farms around us!  Oh well maybe our strawberries will give us something next year!


Our not quite ripe yet strawberry.  Little Bug ate it anyway......

Mud puddles at the farm!

Strawberries............

Glad we picked enough to make preserves!

I need to figure out how to keep the area cats out of my raised beds, I keep finding little "presents", the hubs solution is electric fence.  Maybe I will get some netting to put over the beds.

The chickens will hopefully start giving us eggs in either July or August.  We really do enjoy the gals and Little Bird really watches over them, she is a great chicken farmer!  For now they run wild all around the yard and get into almost everything!  I am glad they do not get into the raised beds, yet......

The hubs holding Lovely Rita......

Agnes......

Edith and Agnes......

All in all it was a great week for us here!  Lots of stuff is growing away and hopefully by the end of the summer we will have a bounty of goodies to eat and share with our community!