The Bee Lady's Challenge

The Bee Lady has a challenge!

She is challenging everyone to grow one edible plant.

Please stop on over to her blog to read about the challenge: The Bee Lady from Hilltop Farm

This is a challenge I love on several levels.

We moved to our small town from Indianapolis, where organic foods are harder to come by and much too expensive.

 

When we got here we quickly realized it is a much more health conscious town, where organics are more available and actually not as expensive.

 

Not everyone lives in an area where you can hit the local farmers market on the weekend and pick up some fresh goodness.....so I encourage you to grow your own!

You don't even have to have a lot of space. Container gardening is a great option if space is limited.

Source

 

If you have kids, it is a great learning experience. They can help you plant and watch the seeds sprout. You could take pictures of the growth and let them create their own plant journal.

The flavor is amazing.

When you buy from the grocery store often the fruits and vegetables have a "watered down" taste compared to home grown.

You get more nutrients from home grown since it hasn't been shipped from sometimes hundreds of miles away allowing the nutrients to degrade.

 

Today my dear hubs is going to till our garden in preparation for planting sometime in the next month.

Last year was our first garden. I learned a lot of what to do and what not to do.

We gathered up water hoses people threw out during heavy trash pick up to use as soaker hoses.

The deer ate all of my corn, but the pumpkins grew crazy wild.

 

Read here on how to make pumpkin butter when you have too many pumpkins>>Pumpkin Butter

 

This year I will be planting marigolds around the border to help deter pests. I am doing smaller groupings of raised beds. 

We have hundreds of blackberry bushes that grow wild around the property. To that I have added a raspberry bush, blue berry bush, strawberries, and a peach tree.

 

We don't use any chemicals and have a compost pile.

Next month I will be planting:

 

Okra (a favorite of mine, and the stalks grow tall with pretty flowers!)

 

Yellow squash and Zucchini (LOVE chopped up in home made spaghetti sauce)

Cucumbers (Fresh or canned for pickles)

 

Tomatos (large and small)

Sweet Corn (hope to keep the deer from eating it this year)

Cantaloupe (these grew small but oh so sweet)

Beans (I am going to make bean "tents" for the kids)

 

Peppers