My Poor, Poor Garden

Two weeks ago when I returned home from Rustic Youth Camp, my garden was flourishing!  I picked green beans and canned three quarts (not a lot, I know, but we were traveling back and forth to Corinth frequently to check on Jimmy's daddy, and I knew that they would ruin if I did not put them up). I also had numerous tomatoes--we ate fresh tomatoes every day for a week or so, and I canned 7 pints. One morning I counted the green tomatoes that would be ripe in a week or so, and I counted over 300.

Then.  THE DEER FOUND MY GARDEN!

And it was basically ruined.  In about one day.  :(

This is the third year for us to put our garden in this particular spot.  We have deer that live in our woods (we see them all the time), but for some reason this is the first summer that they have discovered my garden and had themselves a little feast!  They ate every. single. pea.  They ate all the green beans. They ate most of the foliage on the tomato plants.  And they ate over half of my green tomatoes.  The ones they didn't eat, they took one bite out of and tossed it to the ground.  They trampled two of my bell pepper plants (I guess they don't like peppers, because they did not eat those plants). The only thing they have not destroyed are my squash and watermelon plants.

I cannot tell you how upset I am about the deer ruining my garden!

Clay ran fishing line at three different heights around the perimeter of the garden, and I sprayed the remaining plants with a gallon of my smelly deer repellent…..but I am afraid that it's all too late.

There are still some tomatoes on my plants, but the plants look pitiful.  Just pitiful. What green leaves the deer did not eat are turning yellow……I am not sure if the plants got too much rain last weekend when we had basically a flood, or that I waited too long to give them nitrogen. I did fertilize them just before the big rain last week….but still.  They look awful.  Not a red tomato in sight, and less than 50 green ones.  However, I did see some new growth on some of the plants this morning.  And I picked 12 green beans.

I'm glad my family is not depending on my garden for our food this winter.

The Garden

Well.  I planted my garden a few weeks ago.  I kept waiting for an opportunity to get it in the ground, but we had SO MUCH RAIN in March and April, that every time Jimmy tilled it, it rained for days, and I could not plant anything.  Finally, I had a window of sunshine.

Jimmy expanded my garden size this year.  It is 30 feet by 30 feet.  Not too terribly big, but the biggest garden I have had.  It has 10 rows.  I planted 4 rows of tomatoes, 40 plants in all.  I will be canning tons of tomatoes this July!  I planted 4 bell pepper plants too. The rest of the things I planted were from seeds:  cantaloupe, watermelon, cucumbers, squash, lettuce, crowder peas, and green beans.  I did not label my rows, and so except for the tomatoes and peppers, I was a little unsure of what was on each row for a while.  I tried to remember and write it down on my garden chart when I got to the house, but I got a little mixed up.  Surprise!  That's what I will have when the plants start growing.  I have figured out which plants are the green beans and squash.  A few seeds still had not sprouted earlier this week, so I replanted a few things.  Who knows what all will come up and where in a few weeks!  I am sure I will need to thin out some of my plants when everything sprouts.

In addition to canning tomatoes, I also hope to have enough peas and green beans to can as well.  We will see!

I am so happy to have Olivia home!  She and Julie and Leah too, when she is not doing school, are crafting like crazy!  We gave Julie a sewing machine for a graduation present, and she and Olivia have their sewing machines set up in our school room.  Julie has already begun piecing a quilt.

Leah, Sam, and Clay have just two more weeks of school!  Then let the summer fun begin!

Warmer Weather

Finally.  Sunshine!

I sat outside yesterday while eating my quick lunch so I could soak up a few rays from the sun.  I think we will be doing our Sonlight reading outside soon.  (We have been reading our Sonlight books at night for various reasons).

Jimmy is tilling up our garden site right now.  I think I missed the opportunity to plant potatoes, but I plan to plant tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, and squash. This year I will plant enough green beans to hopefully can for the fall/winter.  I have only 3 jars of tomatoes left from last year's crop.  I would have run out sooner, but I have bought some canned tomatoes at the store in order to save my last few jars.  If we have soup one more time this spring, I will use the remaining jars.  We have also eaten all but three or four jars of the beans I canned last July.  I have plenty of dried beans (chickpeas, pintos and black) to can again, I just have not set aside the time for the task.

The kids and I both have spring fever with this warmer weather.  No one wants to do school!  We want to be outside.  The kids are roller-blading, swinging, riding their bikes, and romping in the woods.  I want to plant my garden, trim my shrubs and monkey grass, clean out the flower beds and spread the one hundred bags of mulch Jimmy bought last weekend.  However, we are still doing our schoolwork. And when I am home in the afternoons, we will do our Sonlight reading outside in the lovely sunshine.

We have a few 5K and 10K races planned for March, April, and May.  Also Julie will be graduating on May 1, and I will be bringing Olivia home from college at the very end of April.  The other three children will continue their schoolwork until the Friday before Memorial Day.  Then summer break will begin!  Yay!  I plan to continue some Sonlight reading throughout the summer, but we will see if I actually do it.  :)

Happy Spring!

A Garden Update

I really need to take a picture of my garden.  It is flourishing!  Our potatoes are delicious, and we have already eaten all of the broccoli.  Olivia removed the broccoli plants from the garden last week.  The cabbage was ready to be picked a few days ago, and I made delicious slaw from one head.  The rest of it is in the refrigerator.  We have more cabbage than we can eat before it goes bad, I'm afraid.

Julie picked the first of the squash a little while ago, and she dug up a good bit of potatoes.  We will have sautéed squash and boiled potatoes for supper tonight.  I have some leftover pasta salad and bean salad to put with it, and I will make a green salad as well.

The tomato plants (31 of them) are growing taller and taller every day.  Some of the plants already have green tomatoes on them!  The green beans are tall too!  This is my first time to grow green beans.

When the tomatoes start begin ready to pick, I plan to get my canning supplies out.  I will can most of them as whole tomatoes.  That way I can use them in soups, spaghetti sauce, or for making batches of fresh salsa.

Our VBS week is going well, and I am spending most of my afternoons working on my camp plans.  In fact, I need to get back to that right now!

A Garden Update

I have pretty much neglected my garden since I planted it March 15.  Julie has watered it a couple of times, but we have had a fair amount of rain.  Once, not long after I planted the garden, we had a freeze  warning one night.  I covered each plant with a plastic sack secured with nails.  The plants did not freeze.  Then about 2 weeks ago we had an "almost freeze".  I think our overnight temperature reached 33, maybe 32 degrees.  I chose not to cover the plants, and the broccoli and cabbage weathered the cold temperature just fine.  The potatoes had just sprouted, and the tops of their leaves turned black!  But they have recovered now and have tripled in size.

The corn was a complete failure.  Three half rows of corn planted and I think one or two kernels sprouted.  What a flop.  The lettuce didn't do much better.  I planted half a row of lettuce seeds and maybe three sprouted.

This afternoon Julie and I tended the garden.  Overnight, grass and weeds have just about overtaken the garden, so we hoed, and dug, and weeded, and worked very, very hard.  The garden looks great again!  Then we planted the remainder of our planned crop.  We set out 32 tomato plants.  We planted on the row that I had designated for tomatoes, but we also planted tomatoes where the corn and lettuce failed to grow.  We also planted 5 squash seeds and about 20 or 30 green bean seeds (Julie did that, and I can't remember how many she said she ended up planting).

So, still a small garden, but just enough for us.  Any bigger, and I think the hoeing and weeding would put me in the hospital!  I am so sore from our work today!

Yardwork

Yesterday I spent from 9:30 AM to 6:30 PM (with only two short breaks:  one for lunch and one to put supper in the oven) working in my flower beds.  Before I began, our flower beds looked like overgrown jungles.  The mulch was almost gone, the beds were covered in leaves and weeds, lots of big clumps of weeds, and my shrubbery and monkey grass had grown completely out of control.

I had a lot of work to do.  And of course, I thought I could do it all in one day!  I was wrong.  I have two beds in the front of our house, two in the back, one small one in the front yard, and two gigantic ones on one side our our house.  One of those gigantic ones is actually enormous!  It is actually two huge beds with a walkway between them.  So what did I get accomplished yesterday?

All shrubs trimmed in the two front beds and the two (really three) side yard beds.
All monkey grass trimmed (by hand, using scissors) in those same beds.
All trimmings, leaves, debris, etc., hauled off with the wheelbarrow down to our "mulch pile".
20 bags of mulch spread out in the two front beds.

And I am so sore I can hardly walk around!  I feel like I ran a marathon!

I don't have another full day to devote to yard work in the near future, so the rest of the work will have to be done in 30 minute to 1 hour intervals, as I have time each day.

This afternoon I plan to complete my presentation on home and homeschool organization and planning, that I will give this Thursday night.  I have worked on it a little bit here and there, but today is the day that I plan to finalize it.  I will blog my notes when I finish.

P.S.  I realize that if you don't live in the south, you may not know what monkey grass is.  I have the variegated kind that grows in clumps, not the dark green kind that spreads and serves as a ground cover if you don't keep it pruned.  The official name for the monkey grass that I have is called liriope muscari.

P.P.S.  Nothing in my garden has sprouted yet.  My cabbage and broccoli plants are growing, but nothing that I planted from seeds is showing any sign of life.

Catching Up

Well, I have just come to the conclusion that I am going to be a once a week blogger.  I write all kinds of blog posts in my head, but when it comes time to sitting down (or standing at my kitchen counter) and typing my thoughts, I just can't seem to fit it in!

So here is a catch-up post!

We celebrated Clay's 15 Birthday last week.

We began the day with a special breakfast of doughnuts from Shipley's.  Next, Clay opened his presents.  He enjoyed a leisurely day of trying out his new gifts and working in the barn.  His siblings did his chores for him, and we all had a delicious birthday lunch at our local Thai restaurant.  Later, we had cake and ice cream!  Yum!  I think he had a great day!

 Brothers

 Enjoying the breakfast doughnuts

 Opening gifts

 This year, Jimmy did the birthday shopping for Clay.  As I wrapped his gifts, I must admit that I had no idea what most of them were!  He got a welder and all kinds of supplies and tools for that.

Interesting things!

15 Candles

Born to Run 5K

Saturday morning we all drove to Ripley (over an hour away) to run a 5K.  The weather was really awful!  It was cold and rainy, and the wind was really strong.  Sam and I opted not to run once we got there.  I knew that he would be miserable, and that running 3.1 miles in those conditions could very easily stretch into 45 minutes or longer with an unhappy 8 year old.  However, Jimmy and the other children were hard core!  And they joined over 150 other people and braved the elements.  They all had great running times.

A Visit From My Parents

Sunday afternoon my parents came for a short visit.  They came bearing gifts (two beautiful ferns for my front porch, a marshmallow shooting gun for Sam, and various fun things for Leah) and some special items from my grandmother who recently passed away.  We enjoyed lunch and visiting together.  

My Garden

I am not sure if it's going to grow!  I covered each plant last week when the temperature dipped into the twenties one night.  Those plants look ok, but none of my seeds have sprouted!  It is almost time to put some other plants in.  I plan to do major work in my flower beds around the house this Saturday.  I'll have to get to the garden planting another day.

Bible Study

I finished the B90 yesterday!  It actually took me 92 days, but that's close!  That was my 4th time to read the Bible through in 90ish days.

Today I started a new Bible study, and inductive study of women of the Bible.  It is different than what I have done for a long time, but I plan to stick with it.  When it is finished, I want to resume copying the  New Testament.

Running

I am still doing the marathon build-up mileage running plan.  Last week's total miles were 15.  I was supposed to do a total of 18, but it didn't happen.  This week's plan is 3,4,3,4,6.  I fully intend to get in all of those runs!  I ran 4 yesterday, and I plan to run 3-4 with Lynn this afternoon.

See y'all in a week!  :)  But, hopefully, sooner!

Some Fun From Last Week

Last week was our Spring Break, and we had a fun-filled week.  The highlight of course, was having Olivia home from college for the week.  

We spent a couple of days in the Huntsville area visiting one of Olivia's new college friends and his family.  Now we are all friends!  It was nice getting to know such a friendly and kind family that are also brothers and sisters in Christ.  

While we were there, Jimmy took Leah, Sam, and Clay to the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville.  Later that night we enjoyed a delicious meal with the Copeland family and spent a few hours just visiting and playing a new (to us) game.

 game fun

 more game fun

 more game fun

 more game fun--even though Clay doesn't appear to be having fun at the moment!

 at the Space Center

 at the Space Center

 at the Space Center

 future astronauts!

 even more game fun!

Danielle, Julie, and I did not play any games--we chatted and watched Danielle draw with her cool computer/drawing pad/tablet/thingy!

The last couple of days of our Spring Break were spent shopping with Olivia (getting her a dress and accessories for her Spring Banquet at school) and planning and planting my small garden.

Pictures to come of the garden!

Gardening

Over the last several years we have dabbled a little bit in gardening.  We have planted two or three small gardens in two different locations.  We have planted herbs only.  We have planted tomatoes only in a couple of different locations as well.  Julie asked if we could have a garden again this summer.  Jimmy and I agreed, but this time I am going to take a more active role.  I have been reading about gardening in our area of the state (mostly via the Mississippi State gardening website), and I have created a gardening notebook.

Our garden is going to be a small one by gardening standards, but it will be the largest one that we have ever put in.  20ft. x 25ft.  I hope to yield just enough produce to eat each day that the harvest is ready.  I am not trying to put up food to last us all winter!  However, with the tomatoes, that's a different story.  I have canned tomatoes and/or salsa for the last 3 years, and I am setting out 24 tomato plants in our garden this year with the hopes of having enough to yield to eat each day as well as can some for the future.  We will see!  I may be buying tomatoes from a local farmer to supplement mine in order to can.

We are planting small amounts of the following:  

broccoli

cabbage

potatoes

green beans

sweet corn

cucumbers

squash

lettuce

tomatoes

I will observe which of these plants do well, and increase or eliminate my planting accordingly for next year.  

So far Jimmy has staked off the boundaries of the garden and poisoned the grass.  He plans to till up the ground this weekend, and I will plant the broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, and potatoes.  I have a list of what to plant, when all ready.  I drew a grid on paper of my garden plan.  I plan to keep many notes of what I am doing this year, how much I spend, etc., so I can learn from my mistakes and better plan for next year.

It will be a learning experience and a work in progress.

I hope our garden will grow!