Garden 2013–Part 1

 

Happy Friday everyone! I hope your weekend is about to start and that your Friday passes by quickly!

If you are new around here, I live in a small town. I am a 5th generation on my family farm. It’s in my blood to grow things and produce food for my family. Every spring my green thumb begins twitching to get out and start my planting. This year is no different. This year in fact, now that I have been at this whole gardening this for a few years, I have decided to expand the garden.

There is nothing that I enjoy more throughout the winter then eating food that we have grown and preserved to last us through the winter. In fact, if you remember by tomato canning post, we JUST ran out of our last jar of diced tomatoes. Besides tomatoes, we were able to have homemade jam, peppers, carrots, pickles, and frozen strawberries all from preserving them ourselves. Sounds silly, but if for ever any reason things in the world went whacky, Ryan and I would know how to survive without any stores.

With that being said, I was feeling ambitious this year and I want to have even more in my little pantry by the time the snow starts flying! That’s why we now have two gardens!

The pumpkin patch:

My home garden was always over taken by giant pumpkin plants! It would take up half of the home garden! This year, we have decided to built a pumpkin patch! We have our giant pumpkins there, regular pumpkins, baby pumpkins, onions, guards, onions and spaghetti squash.

Home Garden:

The home garden is a modest garden. But it grows what we need. In this garden I grow dill weed, pickling cucumbers, carrots, peppers, spinach, leeks, romaine lettuce, beans, peas, parsley, onions, savoury, cherry tomatoes and peppers! Then, within the flower gardens that are around the house I have 12 tomato plants, strawberry plants and chives. 

I have lots of plans now that I have double the garden space! First, we will continue to have pickles. Hoping to get at least 12 jars.

My 20 quarts and 5 pints of diced tomatoes will hopefully get bigger! This year I planted 12 tomato plants versus 8 from last year.

Storing peppers in the freezer is so simple and one of our favourite things. To throw in sauces and have with fajitas, they are so useful! We will have another 8 plants again!

The dry summer was hard on my carrots but it is one of out most favourite side for supper. This year I have doubled my carrot plants.

This year I will attempt growing and preserving peas for the first time.

I never have luck with beans. I think it is the one thing that I had a hard time growing! Regardless, I am going to still attempt to grow them yet again!*sigh*

For the first time, I planted onions. We calculated how many onions we go through in a 6 month period (its not alot) and we planted that amount in our home garden and the pumpkin patch garden!

I will also grow and preserve baby pumpkins for yummy muffins and bread.

Spaghetti squash for a healthy noodle alternative for me!

I am also for the first time growing fresh lettuce, spinach and cherry tomatoes to have on hand for fresh salads! If I have any extra spinach I will chop and freeze my own fresh spinach for future lasagnes and spinach dips.

There is nothing more that I love then getting out and getting my hands dirty. Growing fresh vegetables and fruit to eat all season long is very satisfying. It makes me feel resourceful and nothing tastes better then fresh food!

Do you have a garden? What are you growing?

xo