How does your garden grow?

Mine grows as it wishes. Completely chaotic and charming at the same time. I like to think that this is more akin to nature. Nature doesn't spread her beauty in nice perfect rows (not that I have anything against it), but rather mixed up all together in a splendid show of color and bounty. She likes to put in a lot of green with spots of color and plenty of food for wild animals and nectar for bees. She keeps evolving and changing with new growth to replace the old. I like to think she also puts in a lot of love. Ours, this year, is full of all of this. 

Color.

Food.

New growth.

And love.

Happy gardening everyone. 

Back Garden Update-August

We will start with the grapevine area. I had taken off several leaves that just didn't look good and may need to do so again soon. We will be moving this guy to another space before next year. We will put up a nice support so he can grow better. This year, though he has just been growing all willy nilly. 

If you look close you will see his friends Mr. Pumpkin and beans. There is also a little new pumpkin growing away on the sidewalk. 

Then we have the bed that is ready for Fall. I put a few transplants in that we had started from seeds. We also have an onion in there that sprouted in the onion drawer. Some of the transplants didn't make it. 

That is ok. We have more that we can stick in once they get bigger.

We have a lot of lettuce plants growing. The plan is to let them get bigger and then move them to the corn and beans bed once it is cleared.

We have a lot of beets started that we need to transplant into pots soon. They will grow there because we haven't had good success with in the ground beets. If the tomato plant in the side bed planter ever gives up they will go there since it is big enough to be a home for them all and easy to cover. 

There are a few spinach plants growing. We have added a few more seeds to the pot in the hope that we get more. They will later go with the lettuce in the corn and beans area. We just put out some kale seeds which will also go there. We are hoping to put a few of each and see how long they survive the winter as it is a small space that will be easy to cover when it gets cold. 

You can see the pumpkin vines that are growing in the pathway. Once the little guy finishes up we plan to pull these up.

Now to the corn. And beans. As you can see the corn is pretty much done but some beans live on. We hope we can pull it all up soon to make way for fall, but it has been a joy letting Emmalee pick beans from the porch. 

We hope you enjoyed this little update. We will do a new round of updates once we get things switched over for Fall. If the garden continues producing well we may have one more round of harvests to show. 

Happy gardening everyone!

Bean picking with Little E

     As we have discussed in the past, little E planted beans among pretty much all the plants. So, today when we went bean picking I took some pics. As much as I get tired of looking among so many different plants to find the beans it has been worth it. In the eyes of a 3 year old bean picking is an exciting adventure. 

     Above she is in the front finding them among the tomatoes and cucumber.

     The next few show her picking them along the side where there are also cucumbers and peas.

Here she is searching for them among the grape vine and pumpkins.

     Finally here she is picking them from the steps. They started growing up the corn but some have found their way up the stair railing. She thinks these are "So silly beans".

     So, based on our "experiment" this year beans can grow just fine planted with the following: tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, peas, grapes, and pumpkins. Everything grew well with the beans except funninly enough the corn. I do believe that we just needed a bigger plot for it pollinate well enough. 

     Do you often grow plants together? If so, leave us a comment.

          Happy Gardening everyone!

Mr. Orangey

Mr. Orangey, our pumpkin, is finally ready to harvest. Any harvest is exciting, but this one is especially so for Little E. She named him, watched him grow, talked and sang to him and even petted his smooth skin. It must have worked because he turned out beautiful. 

I hope that we can harden him off so he can last until Halloween.

What has been one of your favorite harvests?

Happy Gardening Everyone!

Composting with Little E

I am putting a link to my latest podcast. It is about composting with Little E. I wanted to capture her in the moment. She loves to compost amd talks about it so much. Well, I did and it was so cute. Then I accidentally deleted that segment. Haha! So had to do it again. Such is life. She talks some in it so if you'd like to listen feel free!

Listen to my segment "Composting with kids" on Anchor: https://anchor.fm/gardeningwithe/episodes/Gardening-With-Kids-e1qbhc/Composting-with-kids-a4semi

Side Garden Update- August

     We will start with a new addition. Sweet potato slips. When we went to get flowers we ended up finding cheap sweet potato slips. No idea if they will actually have time to grow, but one dollar for six slips could not be passed up!

     If you notice we used a little cloth shopping bag. We had ordered a potato planter because it was on sale but weren't sure how long it would take so we just used what we had. This one only has one slip for Little E. I hope it makes at least one or two little potatoes. It is small enough that I might be able to bring it in this winter if not. 

     Then we have our Pappaw Bill tomato plant. It has really taken off! The cage is a large one and it is even taller than the cage. I keep taking off the bad looking leaves so the plant can concentrate on producing tomatoes instead of healing the leaves. It seems to be working as we have several tomatoes on the vine. Little E has been picking them as soon as they turn so we have been eating them quite a bit. 

     Next up we have a small pepper plant. We got him on sale as well. You can just see him by the tomato cage. I don't think it is growing well now so we will probably over winter him. Next to him is a bag with the rest of the potato slips. 

     The bell pepper plant was looking puny so we took off a lot of the lower leaves. Now it has a lot of peppers growing on it! It has been hard to keep Little E from picking them. It will be a happy day when they are big enough to eat.

     We still have the big planter with the overwintered tomato plant. Just when I was ready to take it out and move the purple basil plant it put on a bunch of new growth and tomatoes. It is the little tomato plant that could. 

     The cucumbers are still going. It is about time to try some more neem oil and get rid of the powdery mildew. I had actually planned on pulling it up not long after the squash, but now there are about 15 new cucumbers growing. So I guess taking most the leaves off didn't hurt it in the end. Maybe all those aggressive pruners really are on to something. 

     Then we come to the tomato cages that have some of the cucumber plant intertwined with beans, beans, and beans! Underneath are the new batch of peas. They are coming along nicely so I suppose it is about time to succession sow another batch. We really love peas around here so will probably do several more plantings. 

     Lastly we have the mint in its new home.  We have been picking it, but not enough to keep up. It truly loves its roomier pot! We love to cook with hom sometimes, but mostly use it with other things to spice up our tea or make our own! 

Here is what it looks like all together.

We hope you have enjoyed our side garden tour. We have one more tour coming up this month- the back garden! We'd love to hear about ways your garden has changed over the season, unexpected big producers etc.

Happy gardening everyone!

Garden fun with Big E

     Today daddy took little E to spend some time with her great aunt. She loves going, and it gives me some time with Big E. We cleared out the patty pan squash and covered it with some organic matter so that it can break down over the fall. Once the transplants are bigger it will house the brassicas (cabbage, brocolli, and cauliflower). We will just move a little to make a hole, throw in some good dirt, plant and cover the hole back with the organic matter. The hope is that it will put nutrients in the soil over the fall. We may also put in some bone meal since we did grow here all Spring and Summer.

     Then we had some good ole fun. When he was little he'd take my yarn scraps (the bits I would cut off for one reason or another) and make "yarn men". He found some yarn today and we made some together for old times sake. We positioned them all around.

     He placed one on the pumpkin in silly positions. 

     Then he used some random odds and ends little E has placed on the porch "to make stuff" with. He made an entir scene with a little family relaxing out in the sun.

     We wrapped it up by heading inside from the heat and playing Super Smash Bros. Melee. He is entering a tournament for high school and under at the local community  college at the beginning of September. Bless his heart he tried to teach me and well let's just say I may be a hopeless case. 

     Do you ever have fun doing non garden related things in your garden? Comment and share if so. 

Happy Ggardening everyone!