Keeper of the Home: Gardening

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Gardening

January 6, 2009: Sprouts -The easiest greens you'll ever grow!
Comments: 8 | Categories: Gardening , In the kitchen , Nutrition

With the lack of my garden and the ability to pick my own salad at any moment, I've been really missing fresh greens this winter.Did you know that growing your own sprouts is not only easy, but wildly nutritious, too? Sprouts are: full of enzymes easily digestible (in part due...

November 27, 2008: Last harvest of the season
Comments: 2 | Categories: Gardening

Goodbye, my beloved garden.We've had some good times, you and I. You were so patient with me while I fumbled around, making mistakes, ruining perfectly good seeds, weathering the poor weather, letting you get mildew. You never took it out on me, but just kept letting me learn at my...

November 7, 2008: Two questions for you, ladies!
Comments: 31 | Categories: Babies , Gardening , In the kitchen

A quick thanks to those who joined in the Organic Gardening Carnival yesterday, and I wanted to let you know that if you weren't able to get something up on your blog for yesterday, you can still feel free to add your post anytime this weekend or even later. The...

November 5, 2008: Organic Gardening Carnival!
Comments: 3 | Categories: Gardening

It's time to swap tips, share our stories and sharpen our gardening skills in what I hope will become an annual Organic Gardening Carnival!If you're wondering what this carnival is all about, check out this post with all the details!For those with blogs, please be sure that you link to...

November 5, 2008: Lessons from my garden
Comments: 7 | Categories: Gardening

(I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I wanted to get out much of this info, if for no other reason than having a record of it myself!)I could actually say sooo much more than this, but here's my attempt to condense my observations and things...

November 3, 2008: Calling all gardeners!
Comments: 2 | Categories: Gardening

Just wanted to give a quick reminder of the Organic Gardening Carnival that is coming up this Thursday, November 6th! Basically, it's an opportunity to share the things that we've learned in our gardening experiences (the good and the bad) with each other, and glean from what others have to...

October 28, 2008: Upcoming- Organic Gardening Carnival!
Comments: 8 | Categories: Gardening

As I've been working to clean out my garden and prepare it for the winter, I've been mulling over the lessons I learned this summer. So many successes and things that turned out wonderfully, and yet so many things that I would do differently- start my seedlings earlier, use some...

October 17, 2008: Why I've been so busy...
Comments: 12 | Categories: Gardening , In the kitchen

Since getting home from Arizona, life has been a flurry of food preserving. Here's what I've been up to: First, there were pickles to make (you can see, they've already been dug into- I tried to buy more pickling cukes, since I only got enough for 4 quarts from my...

September 4, 2008: Me vs. the Powdery Mildew
Comments: 6 | Categories: Gardening

My squash patch is in a sad state of affairs. I'm well aware that it's mostly my fault, because I planted too many plants too closely together, allowing too little air circulation (and all the rain we've been getting sure hasn't helped). This is the lovely powdery mildew that has...

September 3, 2008: Growing for a Fall harvest
Comments: 5 | Categories: Gardening

I'm excitedly awaiting my spinach seeds and garlic in the mail, which will complete the planting I am doing for the fall! Just last week, I got in more lettuce, beets, turnips, snow peas, shelling peas, carrots and broccoli. I just love that gardening is not finished even though summer...

August 21, 2008: I love gardening!
Comments: 10 | Categories: Gardening , In the kitchen

If I've said it once, I just may have said it a hundred times this year... I love gardening! More precisely, what I love at this very moment is reaping the rewards of all my efforts, as I bring my delicious, organic produce in to my kitchen! Here's my sweet...

August 8, 2008: Free companion planting guide!
Comments: 2 | Categories: Gardening

I just ran across a link to this free downloadable guide to companion planting (which is using different plants in your garden to support or benefit each other, or to repel particular pests, etc.), and thought some of you would find it useful!It's a little late in the season to...

July 24, 2008: Succession planting my way to a continuous harvest
Comments: 8 | Categories: Gardening

If I start something (and especially if I get really passionate about it) you can expect that I will get quite ambitious with it, regardless of my know-how! Gardening is a perfect example of this. I may be a novice (it's only my second year), but I am determined not...

July 4, 2008: How my garden grows...
Comments: 14 | Categories: Gardening

First off, happy 4th of July to all the Americans out there! Those of us who are Canadian actually celebrated Canada Day on Tuesday, July 1st, though it is not quite the massive celebration here that I'm sure you are all partaking of down there today! It's been a while...

June 26, 2008: First harvest of the season
Comments: 10 | Categories: Gardening

Mmm... the first salad of the season, made with a lettuce blend from my backyard! I'm using a nice heirloom lettuce blend, as well as a romaine called Olga and some oriental greens called Mizuna. Is there anything more satisfying than eating what you've grown? (Okay, the answer is yes,...

June 19, 2008: Grow, little garden, grow!
Comments: 12 | Categories: Frugality , Gardening

Did you know that you have some incredible garden fertilizers, right in your very own kitchen? As I am trying to keep my garden costs low, I have been so blessed this year to discover a few very simple, yet very effective ways to boost my garden! It all started...

June 17, 2008: Baby Steps: Get growing!
Comments: 9 | Categories: Baby Steps , Gardening

This week's baby step is: Very simple. It is to grow something edible, anything at all, this summer. And eat it! Why this step is important: I think there is something crucial about connecting with the seasons and the way that food grows. Though I find it difficult to express...

June 14, 2008: The summer that wasn't
Comments: 2 | Categories: Gardening

Gray, cloudy days. No hint of sunshine or blue sky. 11 degrees (52 F). Sigh... so much for summer weather! I suppose I'm being a little bit pessimistic. It's only June 14, and summer technically doesn't begin for another 7 days, but it is usually lovely out by this time...

May 16, 2008: The Makings of a Frugal Garden
Comments: 16 | Categories: Frugality , Gardening

Since it's on my mind right now and it's definitely that season (or at least, it's getting to be for those in colder places), I thought I would share some of the ways that I have put my garden together quite cheaply! I didn't have much of a budget for...

March 24, 2008: I can talk the talk, but can I walk the walk?
Comments: 0 | Categories: Gardening

So, in case you were thinking that I must be some fantastic organic gardener or something, let me put your minds at ease... I thought I was so clever with my little toilet paper rolls, all frugal and green. Last week we spent a couple of hours soaking our seeds,...

March 19, 2008: It all starts with a little seed...
Comments: 0 | Categories: Gardening , Our family

March 8, 2008: A garden in progress
Comments: 3 | Categories: Gardening

I mentioned that I wouldn't be around much on Thursday because I was tilling my garden, and it's still such a work in progress. We got the basic tilling work done, but there were some huge blackberry roots in one corner that we just couldn't do much to (I'm waiting...

March 6, 2008: I'm off to till my garden!
Comments: 6 | Categories: Gardening

Today's the day! A friend and I are splitting the cost of renting a roto-tiller, and will start at my house, have lunch here, then head over to her house to do her garden as well (I know, I know, there are cons to roto-tilling, but my garden is fairly...

February 28, 2008: Have seeds...will plant
Comments: 2 | Categories: Gardening

I think I'm ready to start! I've got: carrots shelling peas sweet bell peppers sweet frying peppers tomatoes- three different varieties, plus one of cherry tomatoes onions sweet corn lettuce mix romaine lettuce passionflower (nothing to do with vegetables at all, but they looked really interesting and supposedly have edible...

February 26, 2008: I've been inspired!
Comments: 6 | Categories: Gardening , Going green , Living healthy

As I ramp up more and more for the start of the gardening season, it is exciting to think about the potential of my little, backyard garden (likely not more than 8 ft by 18 ft, though I haven't measured it yet). But not in my wildest dreams have I...

February 14, 2008: Heirloom seeds and where to find them online
Comments: 1 | Categories: Gardening

Today I received my co-op order, and I was so disappointed to find that only 3 out of about 15 packs of heirloom seeds arrived. I suppose they were so popular that they sold out (which I can completely understand- they were an exceptional price and sounded just amazing!). For...

February 5, 2008: Anticipating gardening season- composting and seed starting!
Comments: 8 | Categories: Gardening

Ta-da! I actually started my composting! It's not fancy or even terribly creative, but it was free, and I think it will work, and that works for me! Preferably, I would like to get a "real" composter, made of metal, that does all of the mixing for me. :) I...

January 17, 2008: Anticipating gardening season
Comments: 11 | Categories: Gardening

"A wise gardener anticipates June in January" Author unknown This is the opening statement in my newest book on gardening, Momma's Guide to Growing your Groceries , by Kimberly Eddy (an ebook I recently purchased from Biblical Womanhood). As a fairly novice gardener, I can see the wisdom in this...

December 30, 2007: A flop, a find and a Father's love
Comments: 3 | Categories: Gardening , In the kitchen

My day in a nutshell. :) A flop: My broccoli-cauliflower cream soup. Dismal, I must say. It was so good the last time I made it, but today I decided to use my Vita-Mix for the whole thing to save time and dishes (Vita-MIxes create so much friction that you...

October 25, 2007: End of season garden deals
Comments: 0 | Categories: Frugality , Gardening

For this week's Frugal Friday post, I just had to show off my latest deal! We needed to grab something from Superstore (for the Americans reading this, it's like Walmart or SuperTarget, but more grocery based), and as I was about to run into the store, I noticed red clearance...