Growing Pains in Eden

Finally for the 4th of July we dried out little in our Garden! This was so exciting for us because it meant our trench was dry and didn’t need to be bailed. This also meant we actually had to water out plants which has been a chore we have been able to skip most of the summer. Unfortunately our dry spell did not last long and the following week rained us out a few times. Being rained out was not all bad because we have a lot of preparations to make for our family camp coming up this month! While the weather was dry we took advantage of it though. With our dry weather we also had six little helpers in the garden. We weeded, tilled, and planted all of the plots that were still unplanted. This was so exciting for us because it has been a bit of a downer to come to the garden and not have it all planted until JULY! But it's done now. This was probably our biggest round of planting and thankfully our last. Our two largest left over plots were planted with multi-color corn and s...

This past week we built a 4 soils garden. We wanted to have this garden ready for our family camp in a few weeks to serve as an illustration to the kids when we go over the parable. The idea behind this garden came from a parable told in Mathew 13. The parable of the sower talks about seed that falls upon 4 different soils. The first soil was the path which was compact so the birds ate whatever fell on the path. The second was rocky ground where the seed sprung up immediately but were quickly squelched by the sun. The third soil was full of weeds that chocked the seeds out when they grew up. The fourth and last soil was the good soil the produced grain one hundred fold. To build our 4 soils garden we used a pallet that already had 4 squares so it required little work. The pallet was placed upside down a few weeks ago which has allowed weeds to grow up in it. Now after coming back to it we first weeded 3 of the 4 squares in the pallet. Next we filled a square with plain old di...

About two weeks ago I did a post about composting . That post focused a lot about how and what to compost. Here I would like to delve into more of what you need to put your compost in! I currently  compost at my parents' house in a trash can with a  lid. This works well for our lives in the city, but could be taken a lot more seriously The Tenth Acre Farm has a really good post about a few different composting bins you can have in your back yard First they talk about the good old fashioned heap which requires no additional resources. For most of us living in urban areas this will simply not work for us. Firstly this is not for me because, having a compost heap is too unsightly. Second having a compost heap is available to  neighborhood friends like bunnies, raccoons, foxes and squarls, these friends could cause you more problems than you could even imagine. Mentioned are several medium sized compost solutions. These solutions include a round wire bin tha...

This has been the summer of rain! This rain has defiantly been the biggest difficulty we have faced in the garden this summer. We have well over 100 tomato plants planted, and after a certain donation we are probably close to 150! Our tomato plot has been affected by the water most obviously. For a week we let tomatoes sit in standing water with the hope It might stop raining. Unfortunately our patience was not beneficial and we had to take action against the gathering of water. Step one was to dig a hole for the water to gather in this hole is about four feet long two feet wide and two feet deep. In addition to the hole we dug a few channels for the water to flow into the hole. Our second course of action involved using cotton string to wick the standing water away from the base of the tomato plants. Every day even multiple times of day we have bailed hundreds of gallons of water out of this hole five gallons at a time. I almost don’t want to mention it just in case the r...

What does life have in store  for me next? I have been giving this some thought lately and there are so many options available to me. the plethora of options is freeing and overwhelming at the same time. My first option for after graduation is to do a solo tour of Europe for 1-2 months. Even with in this option there are many options starting off with Hitting every tourist spot in a backpacking style tour of Europe Mixing in actual tours through travel agents and such WWOOF . World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. This would in tale an organic farm providing me room and board in exchange for 4 hours of labor a day. Seems like a pretty good deal and would be a great opportunity for hands on experience and education Another option is have is to tour the united states. This option does take a back seat to touring Europe simply because I have driven form the Mississippi to the pacific ocean a couple of times even though I was rather young. For...

My parents back yard is where my interest and exploration in gardening began. 12 years ago we moved in, at that time we had a German Shepard/Husky mix dog, who we loved. The first spring we moved in she dug a gigantic hole under our fence. We could never keep it filled to stop her from getting out of the yard. My parents had a very creative solution and made that corner of the yard a flower garden. Over the years the garden has been willed with perennials that come up on their own every year. It has been like watching an evolution happen in that space. Some flowers have been moved, others taken out, while some have simply grown unbothered. It was a few more years before we out grew the first corner flower garden and in to more vegetable raised garden beds. Once we stared building vegetable boxes we couldn’t stop. To date we have 10! It has been such an incredible pleasure to see how this garden has frown and affected my family. My dad is our resident master gardener, while my...