More About Our Garden

What We Plant:

Onions
Yellow Beans
Peas
Sugar Peas
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Cabbage
Green Peppers
Hot Hungarian Peppers
Jalapeño Peppers
Sweet Corn
Cucumbers
Zucchini

We plant a large garden so we can use it now fresh, and also to can and freeze things so we have fresh food for our family all winter long.  We make a spaghetti sauce, which we use the onions, green peppers, hot hungarian peppers, and tomatoes for.  We make pickles with the cucumbers.  Sauerkraut with the cabbage.  We freeze peas, yellow beans (we prefer them over the green), and corn.  We make a lot of recipes with the zucchinni, enjoy eating the sugar peas our of the garden (my fav), and making salads with the fresh lettuce. 

We also tried out mulching our garden this year.  Though it takes up some time up front to get the mulching done, it has saved us so much time weeding all summer long!  We used newspapers, and also cardboard.  DH can get the cardboard from work, and the newspapers were given to us since we don't get the paper.  We used these because they will break down in the garden.  We then cover them with cut grass.  We have a ton of mowing to do here on our land, so we had plenty of grass clippings to use.  If you don't you can also use straw.   The grass clippings were free, so then all the mulching was free for us.   Our garden starts out with seeds and some things we start out with plants.  The things we prefer to use plants with are, tomatoes, peppers (all the kinds), cabbage, and head lettuce.  We use onion sets, and the rest are started with seeds in the garden. 

We also compost and all our food scrap/waste is put in a pile near our garden.  Then in the spring we take that compost and put it in our garden, along with the fall leaves and grass clippings.  We then rototiller everything up into a rich soil!  Lots of organic matter make for a healthy and happy garden.


And you can see I used the word WE in this post a lot.  That's because this is something that our whole family is part of.  There is even a small portion (too shady to grow things well) that we let the kids dig and play in the dirt.  I hope our children not only remember the tasty sauce they grew up eating, but also the dirt between their toes and the taste of a fresh vegetable pulled from the garden.  We can't trust what the grocery is selling us, so why not take control and know you are serving your children the very freshest and healthiest of foods.  Also it saves a TON of money through out the year!  Why not save money while making the healthiest choice!


Here are some pictures so you can have a peak into our garden! Enjoy! 

 Our Garden Today (top pic is the left side, bottom pic is the right side)

 

 How it all started, seeds and plants.

 Just a blank canvas waiting for the the rest to be planted.  Onions on left were planted early.

 Today's yummy snack straight from the garden!  Mmmmm! My favorite!

 This says it all! <3

My two kiddos happy to be helping plant the garden!