Our Vegetable Gardens 2014

We are very excited because we have a new raised vegetable garden this year! It means twice the amount of planting space! Now we have two raised vegetable garden beds, 6 container gardens, and one small raised bed. Planting things brings a lot of joy to Kaylee and I. She loves to help plant the seeds and seedlings. She gets really excited when things start to grow and ripen. It's a great learning experience for her (and me).

We've planted: strawberries, cucumber, tomatoes (two kinds), bell peppers, hot peppers, lettuce, salad, cilantro, rosemary, mint, parsley, yellow squash, zucchini, watermelon, cantaloupe, cauliflower, brussels sprouts,and corn. We are hoping for a good harvest this year. Many of our plants have blossoms and some have little baby veggies.

Our plants in mid-May...

Our raised vegetable gardens in May.

Our container gardens in May.

Our gardens in June...

Our raised vegetable gardens in early June. 

Our container gardens in early June.

Our mini raised garden in early June.

The Summer of the Cucumber

Around our house we are calling this summer, "The Summer of the Cucumber." Cucumbers are one of Kaylee's favorite vegetables. In previous years, we have had difficulty growing cucumbers for various reasons. I have learned to plant extra plants so we can still have cucumbers even if we lose a few plants. In the spring, I planted 4 plants in our Earthboxes on our deck and 4 plants in our new raised garden bed. I figured I would lose a few plants. Boy, was I wrong! Not only did our plants thrive, but we have had an overabundance of cucumbers!

In order to preserve some cucumbers we decided to try pickling them. The first batch I made refrigerator pickles. Refrigerator pickles do not require any canning. You simply boil the brine solution, pour it into jars filled with cut up cucumbers, and refrigerate. Then, wait a few days and eat them.

A few days later, we had a lot more cucumbers. I decided to actually can these cucumbers to eat later this year. I have only canned once before. I researched how to can pickled cucumbers and the homeschool lesson began.

Kaylee loves to help. I sliced up the pickles and she helped by stuffing them into the jars. She watched each step of the process and was quite excited to learn a new skill!

Stuffing the jars with cut up cucumbers. 

She loves to help. 

Some jars ready for the brine. 

Garden Update

    Our gardens are doing well. We had our first harvest from our Earth Boxes on the porch and the cucumbers in the raised bed are trying to take over the entire garden. Kaylee and I have been really enjoying gardening this season!

Our raised garden bed. Our cucumber plants are huge! 

Our first harvest from either garden, a zucchini. 

We had a visitor on the other side of our fence.

Our Gardens

      Our backyard has a lot of trees and shade. It is not very good for planting vegetables. We've had a container garden on our side porch since we moved into this house almost 4 years ago. We had two trees taken down last fall. So, this year we decided to try a raised garden bed. Kaylee enjoys gardening. She helps from the very beginning by planting the seeds in the tiny greenhouse. She helps transplants the tiny sprouts into the soil, waters them and sprays our homemade spray of Dr. Bronners soap, olive oil and water to keep the bugs away. And finally, she picks the veggies and even eats some, but not all of the different kinds we grow.

     There isn't a better way to learn about how plants grow, where food comes from and pollination than growing your own veggies. It's also helped with her fear of bees. She can now understand how important bees really are for our environment.  

     The raised garden bed has been a challenge. First, it's an investment. We had to spend money to buy the materials we needed to make the beds. Our backyard is sloped so we had to build it up fairly high to make the bed even. Then, we had to buy soil and compost to fill the beds because our soil doesn't seem to be right for growing vegetables. Lastly, we bought chicken wire to prevent the neighborhood cats from using our vegetable bed as their litter box. Yuck.

     I had some difficulty getting the soil just right. The leaves of my baby veggies were beginning to turn yellow. I researched it a bit and decided it wasn't a water issue so it had to be a fertilizer issue. I added some organic plant food and within 2 days my veggie plants were green and happy again. Some plants died along the way and I had to replant. But, I am happy that so far it has been successful. Maybe I can talk my husband in to building me a second one this fall so it is ready for spring planting.

Our container vegetable garden. We planted cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, yellow squash, and zucchini. We use Earthboxes. 

Our very first raised garden bed. We've planted tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, and then strawberries in the smaller attached box.