Gardening Hoes and Woes

Hello!!!  How is everyone?  Right now, I’m tired! I spent the better part of this morning working in the garden. (My daily routine now) We harvested 8 spaghetti squash, a bunch of green beans, 3 more pounds of cucumbers (I believe our total so far is over 50 lbs!) and some green peppers.  Tomatoes are coming along.  Slow but, they are finally beginning to ripen. We have been picking a few and sitting them in the kitchen window.  They seem to be doing well there.  We did make the most delicious fried green tomatoes the other day though. Truly yummy!

To date I have canned 7 pints of pickled radishes, 24 pints of bread and butter pickles, 28 pints of dill pickles and 16 half pints of blackberry jam! Now you know why I am tired!  Gardening is hard!  It’s fun and super rewarding but, it’s hard. I spend a few hours each morning harvesting then, another part of my day is doing something with whatever I harvested.  Cleaning, canning and/or vacuum sealing.  This year our potatoes did great!  We harvested them last week.   We have 5 watermelon currently growing and I cannot even tell how many pumpkins are growing and still sprouting. The sweet potatoes are not yet ready for harvesting.  Sadly, a deer came and ate all leaves off of them!  After researching, we believe they will be ok as the leaves supposedly regenerate.  However, the deer will likely come back so, we are buying a net fence to protect them.  The other evening we saw the deer grazing happily in the garden.  I ran out shouting, of course, the most used word on the farm,  “Get!!” and clapping loudly.  Al went out through the basement door and walked towards the garden.  He literally had to get right up on her to scare her away.  The next morning our ever faithful defender of the land Honey was found guarding the garden!

So, with all the potatoes, squashes, onions, etc. our thoughts have shifted to possibly building a root cellar.  Right now, the basement is not finished and we can store them there but, we are hoping through Fall and Winter to complete the basement.  So, what to do?  If you have any thoughts on root cellars please feel free to comment!  We are researching and doing our homework but, are open to any insight you might have!

With most everything to do with gardening we have had to learn along the way.  We’ve failed at a few things and have done wonderfully at others.  We are a work in progress.  Little did we know but, squash, onions and even pumpkins have a curing period.  This is what makes them last longer.  So, we got creative and made a few curing stations. Thank goodness with all them potatoes they just need to sit in the dark with good ventilation and cool temps!

Sadly, the only thing that has been recently built was a new mailbox.  USPS got upset that other delivery services were putting their packages in their mailbox.  So, now they have their very own.  Now, what say you USPS?

In between all the gardening and keeping the place running, I am working on some cute signs for the little garden shed.  I hope to share those with you in the near future along with our new porch swing.  The swing had to be placed on the back burner but, hopefully will get completed this coming week.

I hope you enjoyed reading!!  If you would like to subscribe to my blog, just click on the link below.  You will receive an email confirming your subscription.  Once you’ve confirmed, you will received an email each time I add a new post!  Easy, peasy!

XO,

Elisa