What's Growing On

Basically every single morning, after we finish up our breakfast, we girls head to the garden. It's a few houses down in our friends big backyard! We water, weed, plant, pick, and play with our friends (lots of kiddos live on our street). I cannot tell you how nice it is to get outside everyday! :) 

Yep, this picture just about sums it all up... Jubie getting into trouble, momma's chair for resting, and baby Elo napping all beneath the apple tree. 

So we have a community garden for our street. It's a communal area, but we each tend and care for our own plots. Every family plants what they'll eat in different size gardens with different techniques and plans. It's very interesting learning from one another and developing gardening skills along the way! Three of us, including me, did a lasagna type method after loving what we saw from the Back to Eden documentary.  (It's a lot of work but is so amazing and only gets better and better with time!) Two other families did the more traditional garden with plowing and then planting. So far, both have resulted in great success! 

It's quite large, don't ya think? 

In our garden, we're growing LOTS! :) Want to know what all it is bed by bed? So first bed is corn, snap peas, green beans and cucumbers. Second bed has peanuts, beets, onions, broccoli and edamame. Third bed has kale, onions, spinach, lettuces, and cauliflower. Fourth bed has garlic, onions, kale, swiss chard, and carrots. Fifth bed has tomatoes, arugula, hot and sweet peppers, and radishes. Sixth bed has sweet potatoes, red potatoes, white potatoes, and kohlrabi. And our seventh and final bed has pumpkin, butternut squash and watermelon, PHEW! That's a lot! In our front yard, we're also growing blueberries, strawberries, sage, parsley, chives, oregano, spearmint, and basil. (Getting this garden prepared, planted, and ready while I was pregnant was definitely my pregnancy workout, as you can imagine!)

Our's is the row in the center... running from the bottom corner to the fence line.

This is some of the other plots. Some are growing squashes, okra, and eggplant... some celery, cabbages, rhubarb... lots of variety! 

My tomatoes! I don't even like tomatoes... but I'm going to try and like them. Lots of salsa, tomato soup, pasta sauce and salads, which I do like, coming up soon! 

The tail end of my broccoli. I cannot even begin to tell you how delicious fresh broccoli is. It has a nutty flavor and is so delicious raw... I will never go back! :) 

Green beans hiding under the leaves. I had no clue I even had green beans yet until Julip picked on off the other week! They are so delicious! 

Growing your own food is a lot of work. But the pay off is SO delicious and bountiful it is worth planting a little seed and praying it grows. Our garden was definitely an experiment. I had no clue if we'd even enjoy anything from it... God has been so so faithful in our gardening desires by providing soil, manure, and woodchips sources, putting people in my life to mentor and guide me, and opening the heavens with some much needed rainfall. I have so enjoyed the growing season thus far! 

 beans, carrot, radishes, garlic, and beets. 

funny, crooked, wrinkled carrots. Next time I'll be adding sand to our soil and thinning them out a little more, ha. 

 My two favorites- GARLIC and ONIONS! :)

I've been most surprised with the lack of predators on our produce. Bunnies are EVERYWHERE in our area and squirrels are rampant too, but we haven't had much trouble from them at all. In fact, I haven't ever witnessed them eating anything yet. We've had some trouble with bugs eating our leaves, but nothing too major... it's been pretty incredible.

The biggest delight is seeing sweet Julip and dear Dustin eat raw veggies strait from the beds... I cannot tell you how loudly my heart sings! :) Nothing beats fresh vegetables, that's for sure!

 Jubie having some fun hugging the apple tree! 

 My sweet, big girl! 

My dream is to continue gardening every year, developing my skills and learning how to grow the majority of our food. I have a huge passion for eating the way God intended us to eat and am encouraged to glorify him by the way we care for our bodies. It just blows my mind that from a little seed, with the addition of water, soil nutrients, and care.... and some patience, comes an amazing plant that produces food to nourish our bodies... it seriously blows my mind!

much love,
wanna-be-farmer, Caro

P.S. We aren't having ALL success, just so you know. My peanuts haven't shown significant growth since I planted them, not a single cauliflower head has produced, and like you saw, our beets and carrots are so so crooked... but it's definitely a learning process, all along the way! Oh, and our little strawberries get eaten EVERY time one starts to ripen. Sad day.