Garden

I haven't written about my wonderful garden in quite awhile so I guess it is high time I do so!

My carrots are still coming along wonderfully.  I picked some last week and they are still quite small, but definitely still growing.  I think I will leave them in the ground for another 2 weeks and see where they are after that.

 My tomato plants, still keep bearing fruit on a regular basis.  I have now made 2 different types of salsa.  I need to get that second recipe on here.  In case you missed the first one click here! I have also made a small batch of pasta sauce that I made some spaghetti with and then I made a tomato sauce that I put in my shepherd's pie.  That recipe will be coming soon so keep your eye out for that one!

My broccoli continues to grow.  I have 5 heads coming in off my biggest plant that I have already harvested once, and my other 3 plants are looking like they are going to start blooming any day here! So excited, broccoli is my favorite veggie!

 I thought the heat had done the cucumber plants in, but when I went outside yesterday to start cleaning some stuff up in the garden it has come back to life!! It has a lot of flowers on it, so hopefully we will be getting some more cucumbers here soon!

Then pepper plants have done fantastic since adding the Epsom salt to the soil. It is amazing what that did for them! They have like 5-6 peppers on each plant.  I also had one plant that looked dead and it has perked right up.  It has yet to yield any crops but it looks a ton better than it was, which is great in my book!

Well there is the wonderful update on how things are growing around here! It truly is the gift that just keep giving!

Fresh Garden Salsa

5 Early Girl Tomatoes
2 Roma Tomatoes
1/2 red onion
3 garlic cloves
4 cilantro springs
1 green bell pepper
1 red frying pepper
2 orangefrying peppers
1 dash salt
1 dash pepper
1/4 tsp cumin
1/2 lime

First cut up your tomatoes, peppers, and onion.  Place in blender with cilantro and garlic cloves.  Blend well.  Pour into a bowl. Stir in salt, pepper, and cumin. Squeeze half a lime over bowl and stir in.  Enjoy!

*Note: you can use whatever peppers and tomatoes you want this is just what came from my garden so I put the types here so I would remember which ones I used in my recipe.  For the next round of harvest I may try roasting the veggies to see what type of flavor that give it. Keep an eye out for that recipe, but it will probably not be for a few weeks, since I am waiting on my garden!

My most diverse harvest!

So I have not had too many things the past week come from my garden.  My green beans and peas appear to be about done for the season(I think the heat is getting to them).  My carrots are still growing, but appear to be getting close. My garlic are still growing as are my onions, although I have picked some onions on occasion and I use them for pearl onions and cut up the tops for green onions. 

But the other day I was able to pick the most variety of veggies so far. I picked 3 different kinds of tomatoes: yellow pear, cherry, and early girl.  I picked 1 cucumber, some pearl red onions, 2 orange peppers, and one of my broccoli stalks.

Eli loves to help mommy pick the veggies, he gets so excited to go outside and see what has popped up over night! He knows the tomatoes go in the window sill and everything else goes in the fridge and he tries to help me put them all where they belong, it is the sweetest thing to watch him get so excited about it.

I was so excited to have such a variety of vegetables, that I decided to use most of them for lunch that day.  So we had an onion, tomato, cucumber salad and then we had chicken fajitas that I used the peppers and some more of the onions for.  I saved the broccoli for yesterdays lunch and it was so good, I can't wait to harvest some more broccoli that is for sure.

Harvesting Green Beans

I have now harvested my green beans twice! TWICE! And we had enough both times to eat them as our veggies for lunch.  I steamed them a bit and man were they good.  I'm so excited that we got to eat all those wonderful fresh veggies!  And there are still more to come.  Those little plants sure are working hard especially in this 100 degree weather.

These seem to be the only thing producing for the harvest currently although the other plants are still hard at work.  We shall see what comes up in the garden next week.

Oh and since I sprayed my plants with that wonderful spray, I have not seen any more white flies eating my plants.  That makes me soo happy!

Gardening-Parenting

Gardening just seems to reaffirm so many things about parenting and there are so many parallels.  I love the constant reminder as I'm working in it.

Gardens need water.  Our children also need water, yes they need this in the physical sense.  But they also need to drink from the Living Water.  I'm reminded of this daily as I water my plants.  I need to make sure that I am also reading to my children daily from scripture so they might drink of the Living Water and have a fuller, more beautiful life.

Gardens need care/time.  They are an effort.  You cannot just let them be.  You must go out there and check on them.  Check to see if there is anything to harvest.  Check to see if there are weeds or if they need more water.  You have to make sure they have the right balance of everything.  Just like children.  They need balance.  You have to spend time with them, and put forth and effort.  If you don't put effort and work into them, you will notice as they get older. 

Gardens need to be kept in check.  My cucumber plants specifically seem to want to take over everything else so I go out there daily and guide it where I would like it to go so that it doesn't go somewhere that it shouldn't.  We must make sure we are guiding our children.  We need to show them the straight path of the Lord and try our best to keep them on the right track.  We need to be training them while they are young so when they are old they will not forget the way they should go.

Gardens need to be cleaned out.  You have to clean out the dead leaves or plants.  You have to pull out the weeds so they don't choke out the good plants.  Again much like our children.  You must recognize the bad fruit in their lives or the weeds that get in the way.  You need to prune them and help them to grow in the way they should go.  You need to make sure there are no weeds choking them up and remove them.

You must be gentle.  When the plants are just starting to grow you need to be careful not to step on them or move them around to harsh or the stems and leaves will break off leaving your plant damaged.  You need to be gentle in your rebuking, correcting, and teaching of your children.  Always do it out of love, never anger.  Make sure you are gentle with them and their spirits as they are fragile and still forming.  This is especially true for me since my children are so young.  I need to make sure I correct them when they do wrong, but in a gentle and kind way.

I know there are probably more, but this ones are the serious reminders to me every time I step foot outside to work in the garden.

Harvest

My veggies are doing so good and it makes me so excited. When we came back from our weekend away we had 5 cucumbers to pick and eat.  We kept 3 and I gave 2 away as there was no way we could eat that many so quickly.  There were 2 more on the vine that would be ready any day.  I picked 1 today and the other should be ready by this weekend! I need to find some cucumber recipes I feel.  Although, both of the boys absolutely love to just eat them as they are.

We also got to pick a couple more pea pods when we got home.  When I looked today there were about 10 more that should be ready any time, I will probably pick them tomorrow.  Elijah loves to eat the peas straight out of the pod, he thinks it is funny to open it up and see all the little "balls."

We were our weeding today and I noticed I have green beans.  I'm going to save them to pick tomorrow.  There are quite a few we should have enough to have some for lunch.  I love fresh veggies and Elijah really seems to love them as well. Yeah for him liking fruits and veggies!

The tomato plants continue to get more and more tomatoes on them, although they are still all green.  I'm so antsy I just want them to get red now so I can make a fun sauce out of them.  Greg reminds me every day, it's just June just be patient they will turn red soon.  Poor man everyday I'm dragging him out to the garden to look at what is coming along with me.  I don't really know that he cares that much, but he knows it makes me happy so he goes along with it. What a wonderful man.

I also picked some of my onions, not because they were ready necessarily.  I wanted some fresh green onions to chop and put in food.  They smell soooo good! I love the smell of them.  I picked 4 that were close to other onions so the others would have more room to grow and then I could use the small ones in the meantime.

My carrots continue to get bigger as do the broccoli.  My broccoli is like miracle broccoli.  I almost pulled them up because those little worms ate them all up.  I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  Well, now I am so glad that I didn't they are growing and one of the plants is huge! It grew up from nothing what a wonderful thing.

I am having so much fun with this! I'm glad you are sharing in my journey on something new.  I did by a 3 in one deal to spray on the plants because I was getting white flies and they were starting to eat my beans, broccoli, cucumber, and peppers.  So it is a fungicide and insect killer all in one.  It appears to be working, I haven't seen any white flies since we got back from vacation.  I also added some plant food to the soil, just since the soil here is like clay.  I figured it would hurt it any, hopefully it won't and it will help things grow a bit better.

The start of a harvest

I harvested my first two pea pods yesterday and can I just say I am so excited!  I honestly can't put into words how happy I am that I didn't kill them and that I am starting to get some food.  They grow overnight.  Yesterday I had the beginning of some pods and then today I had two big fat pods.  I am going to have to remember to examine my pea plants real close to make sure I don't miss any.

 My green bean plants are growing like crazy they keep getting taller and taller. Amazing, hopefully soon I will see something come on them as they are supposed to be ready shortly after the peas.

My peppers have finally started coming in. At least one type of my peppers.  The ones that are good for frying, so stir fry and fajitas will be made shortly!

 I have a second tomato plant that has 3 small tomatoes on it.  One of my pear tomato plants is also starting to flower and has some itty bitty ones on the branches.  So that makes like 10 tomatoes in the process.  YEAH! I need to get busy researching some recipes so I can make something up that is super yummy.

My carrots are getting taller so I can only assume that means good things.

 

My onions are starting to get a little droopy and some of them are even starting to flower at the top!  I still have a little while before I can use one of these but they seem to be growing faster than the package says they should so who knows.

My herbs are also starting to make a small appearance.  I can't wait to use these in my cooking because they taste like 100x better than just the stuff in the container.

Well that is how my garden is growing this week and I am just so very excited to see all the progress and to know that my hard work really is paying off.  Thank you again to my dad and Sheryl for teaching me how to garden. It helps a lot when you have good mentors teaching you what to do!