Dreams of Gardening

It is 4 degrees with the windchill!!

I can't wait for summer!

Our 60' X 100' Eat and Store Garden

  I am dreaming of warm summer days working in the garden.  One of my favorite gardening books is "Joy of Gardening" by Dick Raymond.  We plant an Eat and Store Garden.  Which gives us plenty of fresh produce to eat fresh all summer and enough to can and freeze for the winter.  Our garden plot is 60' x 100'.  We plant wide dense rows and till between the rows to help keep the weeds down.

I have been collecting beautiful seed catalogs and enjoy looking through them planning for this summers garden.  We have our trusty favorites like Peaches and Cream sweet corn, Beef Steak tomatoes, and Yukon Gold potatoes.  Along with lettuce, sweet peas, pickling cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash, jalapenos and bell peppers.  

Wagon full of Veggies!

Each year we try something new.  Last year we grew brussel sprouts.  The boys loved them!  They froze well and we ate the last of them a few days ago.    

We also grew giant pumpkins.  They were so pretty.  We put them on the front porch to decorate for fall.  Unfortunately the chickens thought they were pretty and tasty too.  They ate right through them! I wish I had gotten a picture of our chickens standing inside the pumpkins happily pecking away!

 I love "shopping" from the garden for dinner.  Nothing is better than fresh fruits and vegetables that we grew ourselves. Our little ones are more likely to try new dished made from garden vegetables.

The sunflowers were so pretty!

My Grandma always plants flowers along the edge of her vegetable garden.  Her garden is just amazing!  We decided to try this too.  We grew Sunflowers at the back of the garden and Zinnias in the front.  They were beautiful!  I had fresh cut flowers all summer and into fall.  The Zinnias grew like a hedge they were 3 feet tall bushy plants and just covered with blooms!  Ranging in color from yellow to hot pink.  They are a new staple in our garden.

A Zenia hedge!

 A pretty pink Zenia from our Garden!

 I am so excited for this year's garden!

Cherilyn