I have never blogged before so this is my first time. Jake says it’s kind of like a diary but here people can READ it instead of me keeping it hidden with a lock & key to open it and reading your most personal thoughts!!! LOL A friend gave me the idea and since I have family and friends that live in MI and other friends who live elsewhere too, I thought this would be a great way to keep them abreast of the happenings of us here in Sunny blazing too HOT Cali. So my first blog is a little boring...about our Garden. More blogs will hopefully be more interesting…LOL
We have had a garden for the past several years. And since we are renting and haven’t got any room in the yard to plant a garden in the ground we bought these ½ barrel wine barrels & work great. Although we noticed this year that some of our crop is overpowering the barrels. LOL! Every year we try to grow something new. So this year we did cantaloupe, zucchini and pickling cucumbers. HOLY COW, the cantaloupes are invading the barrel and overflowing. As you can see from the pic they are growing like…umm…cantaloupe.
Overflowing cantaloupes growing in the barrel
3 individual cantaloupes
As for the pickling cucumbers, of course I have NO idea how to pickle cucumbers so I guess that means I'll have to learn and buy a book. Wish me LUCK!!! So far we have gotten 4 rather large zucchini…much like the one you see here. So far we’ve used them in salads and on chicken kabobs for our 4th of July party. We gave one to our friend Michelle across the street and she made zucchini muffins and she said they turned out really YUMMY. Maybe she can share her recipe with me and I’ll post it! Thanks Michelle for the update.
Pickling cucumbers & zucchinis
Individual pickling cucumbers
Common size zucchinis we've been getting
We also went back to our tomatoes and this year we went with Celebrity (new variety) and Early Girls. NOTHING compares to homegrown tomatoes…and fresh too. I’m going to enjoy them very much. Jake isn’t fond of tomatoes so needless to say I get them ALL to myself. Who am I to argue??? Of course I might be inclined to share them with friends, neighbors and family. I’m also going to save some for tomato sauce. I wasn’t able to do that last year. I kept eating them before I had enough to make sauce. LOL
Tomato plants - Early Girls & Celebrity
Our first Celebrity red tomato
This year also on the veggie agenda are green beans and for the 2nd year potatoes. We planted red potatoes last year (got about 2 dozen) but this year we did white potatoes and layered them like it was suggested and I think our crop will be much more than 2 dozen this time around. They don’t look like much now but once the plants grow flowers and die off, then it will be time for diggin’em up. We bought already started plants for the beans. For whatever reason the snails seem to like the bean leaves we planted and I can’t figure out how to get rid of them aside from using chemicals which we DO NOT use on our fruit & veggie plants. We keep them all chemical free. This is the 2nd year we’ve planted Blue Lake beans and it’s the 2nd time I’m not happy with them. They don’t grow as tall as the ones we planted the first time around. I think next year we’ll just go back to starting beans from seed. That seems to work best. Well you know what they say, if something is working…why change it, right???
Blue Lake Beans
White potatoes - stage one
White potatoes...stage two, starting to grow flowers
We normally start the planting process in March but we got a later start than normal but our garden seems to be going strong and growing. I'll keep everyone posted about new things and post pics of the potatoes when they are finally dug up. Thanks for reading and keep checking back for more news from the Masons. Have a wonderful day!!
We have had a garden for the past several years. And since we are renting and haven’t got any room in the yard to plant a garden in the ground we bought these ½ barrel wine barrels & work great. Although we noticed this year that some of our crop is overpowering the barrels. LOL! Every year we try to grow something new. So this year we did cantaloupe, zucchini and pickling cucumbers. HOLY COW, the cantaloupes are invading the barrel and overflowing. As you can see from the pic they are growing like…umm…cantaloupe.
Overflowing cantaloupes growing in the barrel
3 individual cantaloupes
As for the pickling cucumbers, of course I have NO idea how to pickle cucumbers so I guess that means I'll have to learn and buy a book. Wish me LUCK!!! So far we have gotten 4 rather large zucchini…much like the one you see here. So far we’ve used them in salads and on chicken kabobs for our 4th of July party. We gave one to our friend Michelle across the street and she made zucchini muffins and she said they turned out really YUMMY. Maybe she can share her recipe with me and I’ll post it! Thanks Michelle for the update.
Pickling cucumbers & zucchinis
Individual pickling cucumbers
Common size zucchinis we've been getting
We also went back to our tomatoes and this year we went with Celebrity (new variety) and Early Girls. NOTHING compares to homegrown tomatoes…and fresh too. I’m going to enjoy them very much. Jake isn’t fond of tomatoes so needless to say I get them ALL to myself. Who am I to argue??? Of course I might be inclined to share them with friends, neighbors and family. I’m also going to save some for tomato sauce. I wasn’t able to do that last year. I kept eating them before I had enough to make sauce. LOL
Tomato plants - Early Girls & Celebrity
Our first Celebrity red tomato
This year also on the veggie agenda are green beans and for the 2nd year potatoes. We planted red potatoes last year (got about 2 dozen) but this year we did white potatoes and layered them like it was suggested and I think our crop will be much more than 2 dozen this time around. They don’t look like much now but once the plants grow flowers and die off, then it will be time for diggin’em up. We bought already started plants for the beans. For whatever reason the snails seem to like the bean leaves we planted and I can’t figure out how to get rid of them aside from using chemicals which we DO NOT use on our fruit & veggie plants. We keep them all chemical free. This is the 2nd year we’ve planted Blue Lake beans and it’s the 2nd time I’m not happy with them. They don’t grow as tall as the ones we planted the first time around. I think next year we’ll just go back to starting beans from seed. That seems to work best. Well you know what they say, if something is working…why change it, right???
Blue Lake Beans
White potatoes - stage one
White potatoes...stage two, starting to grow flowers
We normally start the planting process in March but we got a later start than normal but our garden seems to be going strong and growing. I'll keep everyone posted about new things and post pics of the potatoes when they are finally dug up. Thanks for reading and keep checking back for more news from the Masons. Have a wonderful day!!
1 comment:
Woo-hoo! Love your blog, Laura -- hey, gardens are interesting, and pretty, too! I'll have to get some pictures of ours to post on my livejournal blog.
Keep it up!
Post a Comment