Saturday, March 19, 2011

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

7 comments:

  1. Good Morning!

    I may be asking you a few questions down the road. We have raised garden beds and I'm new to them this year. I think it's a wonderful idea to grow your own vegetables, if you can. I've always had good luck with zucchini and cucumbers. We love zucchini in spaghetti too. The kids don't notice they are eating it that way :)
    I'd love to try pumpkins. Love pumpkin butter. Off to see the recipe.

    Have a nice weekend! Michelle

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  2. I live in the burning hot desert. It is so hard to get things to grow here. Your post has inspired me. I am going to try to get something to grow here. I know it can be done, it's just a little tricky. thanks!! :)

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  3. Love MANY years. Actually, we live north and west of you outside Lebanon. I thought that was interesting. We've had problems with the deer the past two years, in fact, two years ago we had enough corn for ourselves and our neighbor for one meal each and those deer came that night and ate ALL the rest of the corn. At least what we did eat was wonderful. I love okra too. How do you fix yours? Well, happy Indiana gardening.

    Have a God Filled Day
    Shirley

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  4. Great post Nicki. All of the reasons to grow your own are perfect!

    Cindy

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  5. Isn't gardening great? I've planted a few flowers and stared at my garden plot hoping it would till itself. So far, no, but I keep checking! Happy gardening!

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  6. I have a small garden. I grow tomatoes, lots of them, and I love to grow bush beans. I did grow pole beans two years ago and made teepee like structure for them to climb up. You can get more beans in a smaller space. I don't have much room so I can't grow rambling things like you can. I love knowing that this food from the garden is totally chemical free!

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  7. I just got a bunch of landscape and gardening books at the library this weekend! We are doubling our vegetable garden this year and our landscaping is looking pretty sad. The new Lowes gardening book has those tepees in there but they use a climbing vine instead of beans!I was just thinking of those for my little ones but hadn't thought of beans. Even better so we can eat it! Duh! I'm in southern Indiana so hoping the warming trend continues so we can get out there and get busy!

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