Our First Pickins from the Garden!

These are from the cucumbers and peppers planted in our haybales.

 Anaheim Peppers

 Yummy!  Sweet and mild flavored cucumbers.

Thanks for stopping by!

Dawn

Haybale Garden Update

We took some garden pics to share with you all.  It's growing well and we are seeing tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and the zucchini are blooming!  Looks like they are doing well in the hay bales, for the most part.  

Here are some of the pepper plants.

  Cucumbers

 Zucchini

 Tomatoes

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Dawn

DIY Painted Rock Garden Markers

My sister and my nephews have been here for a visit this week.  They brought us some river rocks and paints, paintbrushes and spray sealer.  We've been painting markers for our gardens and herb beds.  It's been fun! 

My brother-in-law, Andy worked for a landscape company one summer and they blessed him with 2 big bucketfuls of rocks.  Lora-Joy and Landon made some of these last year for their garden.  They decided to make more this year.  So, we planned to make a day of it while they were here.  They shared these great rocks with us!  

Here is what you'll need to do this project yourself:

River rocks of any shape or kind. Really could be any type of rock.  This is what was left in the bucket when we finished.

An assortment of acrylic paints and paintbrushes.  

It really doesn't matter the brand of acrylic paint.  As you can see we had a mish mash of all kinds.

Some kind of acrylic spray to seal the paints and protect from weathering.  We had 2 different kinds.

Then you need a nice large space to work on with lots of newspaper and paper towels.  There will be lots of messes if I am involved, or there are any children participating in the project! :0)

And, you'll need a space outside for spraying that is dog-proof and toddler-proof--like this.

 The only other thing you need is to give your artistic side a good massage...get those wheels all lubricated for beautiful painting and creative ideas!

And....here is what you will get (or something similar anyway!)

Lora-Joy and her family lost their beloved dog this year...so they did a memorial rock in memory of her.  Top left--Daphne

Caleb got a new puppy for his birthday and, not wanting to be outdone...decided to do a rock in honor of her!  Middie.

My nephew, Landon really must have massaged his temples well.  His artistic side was showing out!  Look at that tabasco bottle--wow!

However, his spelling side got left out.  Notice the rock for sqash! hehehe!

Some close-ups of my favorites:

These two we have planted in our hearts and lives through the love of Jesus Christ.  So, we are growing them in our "gardens". 

How about you?

You CAN do this at home.  If you do decide to do this project or something similar, please link back here or share some pics in the comments. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Dawn

I linked up here: Weekend Whatever Link Up
and here:  Scoop Link Party

Another Garden!

We were greatly blessed by our friends at Coldwater Farms Greenhouse!  They blessed us with 2 whole flats of heirloom tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and cucumbers!! 

Check out their facebook page:  Coldwater Farms
 

We have some old hay that we used for the hay bale maze last year on the Christmas tree farm.  It's gotten too icky to feed to the cows, so we thought we'd use it to grow a garden.  We are experimenting to see how well this will do.  Heard you can grow things very well in hay bales.  So, it's over by our "under construction/finishing phase" gift shop where we get full sun. 

 My sweet hubby helped me get most of these planted before dark, although he would have much rather been planing boards for the gift shop walls.  Thanks, Babe!!

We planted the rest the next morning and then staked them and watered.  

tomatoes

above on the left are the pepper plants

already blooming tomato plant

cucumbers

black zucchini

Now, if I can just remember to go and water every day.  hmmm....setting some reminders in my Ipod, now. :0)


24 tomato plants
6 pepper plants
4 zucchini plants
4 cucumber plants

Can't wait to have some fresh veggies this year! Looks like there is a lot of canning in my future.  Looking forward to canning all things tomato.  Pickles will probably be on the canning menu as well.

Please share any tomato canning recipes, links, etc.  I want to do spaghetti sauce, diced tomatoes, and tomato sauce.  I've never canned any of these.  But, I can a really mean salsa.  We can't wait to have some again.  It's been many, many years since I've canned anything. 

Anybody else do any canning?  What do you can?
Please share in the comments.

Thanks for stopping by!
Dawn

Our Garden

We have taken the plunge again and are planting a garden.  We still don't have our raised beds built, so we improvised and planted in the flower beds (that's what they're called anyway...haven't had any flowers in them for a while :0)  ).  We'll see how well our veggies grow this year.  This is mainly an experiment with the kids in taking pride in growing their own food.  We decided we would plant a "salsa garden".  We all love salsa!   

In case you do not know, we live on a hill in the trees.  A space that gets plenty of sun and has no rocks is rare around our house.  A garden a long way away is just not feasible for us right now. So, we are planning to build some raised beds where we get full sun in one place in our yard--where the trampoline sits.  Sorry kids!  We'll find another place for the trampoline.  Anyway....so as I mentioned earlier we planted in the flower beds right at the house.  David is planning to trim some of the trees this week for me, so the sun will shine on these areas a little better.

We've had some great rain since we planted our little garden and are excited to see each plant grow.

We have 2 dogs--one is a puppy! So, we decided to just hunt down lots of sticks and make a barrier around each plant to keep the dogs from trampling them down.  I think it was a GREAT idea that Hannah and I came up with as we planted our tomatoes.  A frugal idea at that!  

These are our tomato plants--6 in all--1 cherry tomato

 We just improvised with some rocks to kind of make a path.  This way the kids won't step on what's growing!

 These are the pepper plants.  We have jalapenos, cayenne and a Thai hot pepper.

This is really hard to see, but really there is nothing to see, since they've not come up, yet. lol!  These are our onions.  Hopefully, they will come up....I've never planted onions before.

 Ok, it was supposed to be a salsa garden, but I just couldn't resist some other plants....who gardens without cucumber and zucchini, right?  :0)

 This is one of 2 black zucchini plants

This is one of 2 cucumber plants--one has already been trampled by either a kid or a dog.  Guess our stick barriers aren't as effective as we'd hoped! {sigh}

   We bought these plants from a new farm in Woodbury--Coldwater Farms. They plant all heirloom non-GMO seeds.  Yay!  We like to support our local farmers!!

So what do you plant in your garden?  One day we will have a huge garden again with all the wonderful plants like watermelon and cantaloupe and potatoes....and the list goes on and on.  Keeping it small 'til my raised beds are built.  The Christmas trees are priority right now and they get most of our time and attention!

Thanks for stopping by!

Dawn