Gardening Blog Update

Big plants are much more fun to look at than seeds.

The cynical part of me is wondering how this garden is ever going to save me money when I keep spending so much on it. But I’ve decided that my garden is like a good business. And that means it’s WORTH the investment. I’ve been gardening off and on for years with little success. Mainly because I’ve been inconsistent and tried to delegate the task to others (namely my husband hehe)

Gideon’s doing all the heavy lifting. My husband is just there to help out!

Even if I don’t make my money back this year I am determined to reduce my grocery bill significantly. And with determination comes OBSESSION. I spent over three hours out there yesterday, and then went back out again to pick some collards for our dinner. It’s a good thing I did because today it’s all cloudy and yucky outside and thus I’m trapped inside. But then again this blog post wouldn’t be happening if it weren’t for the sour weather so I guess there’s always a positive!

Please turn red little tomato 🙁

We’ve already been able to stop buying collards, kale, chard, and green onions. Yay! But I can’t wait to start eating the other veggies. I have green tomatoes and beautiful yellow tomato flours all over the place and I look at them every day to see when I’m going to get to eat them. I’m really sick of paying for store bought tomatoes, and they don’t taste very good.

This is a mix of baby rainbow chard and iceberg.

We’re not even close to growing all of our lettuce yet 🙁 I’ve decided to find a way to squeeze some more containers into the front yard somehow. Maybe on top of the chain link fence? We eat a lot of salads and I would love to never buy lettuce again haha! For now I’m taking our lettuce and mixing it with romaine and iceberg from the store.

Admit it… it’s strangely beautiful.

I was in a weird mood when I was making dinner. This is my creepy Beetlejuice inspired salad.

If you look close you can see the pretty green potato plants shooting up.

I decided to plant potatoes even though it’s technically too late. If they don’t mature in time it will be at least as successful as every other time I’ve tried to grow potatoes. Of course that’s not much of a competition because I have NEVER successfully grown potatoes.

It’s like a potato bag army. “ATTENTION”

I’m trying something new this time. I’m growing them in potato bags. Supposedly these are reusable (we’ll see next hear if that’s the case haha). Perhaps what I’m most excited about is the fact that there’s a velcro flap on the side and you can check to see if the potatoes are done. You can harvest them all at once, or be super careful for a continual harvest. Fingers crossed!

This upside down eggplant wins the competition for prettiest plant right now. Check out those purple flowers!

I can’t remember if I showed pictures of my upside down planters yet??? But I have a fun science experiment going on with upside down plants on my porch. Most of them are getting along fabulously.

To make matters worse, this was a red bell pepper… which is my FAVORITE!

But we have had some tragic deaths this week. Those nasty animals consumed a watermelon and a cantaloupe plant. And one of my upside down pepper plants snapped in half. I still haven’t had the heart to take it down. Maybe those two little leaves can revitalize the whole plant?

I’m happy to say the my ten year old hung up the laundry.

And this is the moment where I realize that I did a very poor job of photographing my raised beds in the backyard. So please be forgiving. The kids are out of school already so I have three people vying for my attention at all times!

Pay no attention to those weeds… they live only in your imagination… I wish!

At his point I still have 3 raised beds left to clear out and plant. I’ve already started some of the seeds in trays and the rest I’m planning on direct sowing. I’m thinking about saving the concrete bed to get a jumpstart on some of my fall garden plants because it’s underneath a giant tree which makes it super shady. And that’s it for the gardening blog update. I’d love to see what you’re all growing. Please leave a comment or share a picture on the Modern Homemakers’ Facebook page!