Adding Comments to the Blog

It seems like people are having trouble posting comments to the Blog. Hopefully, these tips will help:

I recommend you only try posting using the pulldown menu options: Anonymous or Google Account.
Do NOT use Name/URL unless you can get it to work. I am betting that a lot of people are trying to post using the Name method, and I am not sure what type of account that refers to.

Anonymous
Select Anonymous and it will let you post with no issues. If you use this one, please write your name in the comment post somewhere so I know who it is from.

Google Account
If you have Google Chrome on your computer (and are logged in all the time), it will automatically put your username in once you have selected Google Account, and then Publish. If you are not logged in to your Google account, it should prompt you to log in. Using this option, you won't need to put your name because it will put the name that your Google account has associated with it.

If you guys are still having issues, please reach out either via email or on Facebook.

<3

Starting to see the FRUITS of our Labor!!

At the end of June, we were starting to see some great progress on the development of our veggies. 

There is corn growing at the top where the tassels are????

Corn is looking great!

Carrots were a little short, but were pretty thick!

The stem on the carrot was VERY impressive.

Our first 2 heads of broccoli! They were HUGE!

Baby Broccoli heads on the rest of our plants.

Our first corn!!!!! 3 ears! And a few strawberries.

Grape Tomatoes and Sun Sugar Tomatoes

Let's get Jammin'!!!!

We are growing strawberries in our home garden, but we really wanted to make some strawberry jam. We do not have enough strawberries at one time to make a good-sized batch, so we drove up the road a bit to one of our favorite strawberry patches to go to: Porters in Fuquay. The staff there are so friendly and the strawberries are amazing! Though, I think this is the last trip for us until next year. We saw quite a bit of fuzzy strawberries since it's getting to the end of the season. 

They love to pick berries

To prep the jam, there was a lot of prep. The process itself doesn't take long, but we had a lot of waiting time. 

1.  Use your favorite Jam recipe (I use one without Pectin)
2. Hull your strawberries (this is by FAR the longest part of the process)
3. Wash strawberries
4. Start Water Bath canner to heat up. This took a while.
5. Put strawberries on the stove to boil and mash them with a potato masher.
6. Sanitize your jars and lids. Warm jars in oven at the lowest setting. This prevents jars from breaking.
7. Add sugar and lemon juice (per your recipe). 
8. Pour mashed strawberries into jars.
9. Leave appropriate headspace and remove bubbles along the sides.
10. Place seal and ring on the jars.
11. Make sure water bath canner water is boiling.
12. Place carefully in a water bath canner pot. The water level SHOULD be about 1" above the lids.
13. Bring water back to a boil and let sit for 10-15 mins. 
14. Pull the cans out carefully.
15. Allow to sit for 24 hours or at least until the lids pop.

Strawberries starting to boil

Warming up the jars after being sterilized

Water Bath Canner almost ready

Final Product! Waiting for the seals to POP and now we have jam that is good for up to a year (granted it probably won't make it past a couple of weeks). 

Newest Pest: Slugs

We went almost 2 weeks without a good rain. Praise God! It finally rained! And then it rained a LOT. We had so many blessings! The water tower was now overflowing, our garden got ALL the water it needed and is thriving, but along with these positives, a new pest has emerged....Slugs....

These little teenie guys were first found on our Squash and Zucchini, but it was only maybe one every other day or so. No big deal. However, after all the rain we had, I found about 20 in the broccoli between about 6 plants. That is CRAZY! And who knows how many more were hiding and I just didn't see them. I picked them off the plants, but I am not sure that my pesticides will handle slugs.

What is your favorite Go-To to get rid of slugs? I need some ideas before they move to more plants!

Why is the Broccoli so popular????

Gross!

 

Beauty in the Garden

Not only is our garden making food for us, but while we are trying to wait patiently for the fruits of our labor to be ready, in the meantime, enjoying the flowers and nature that is around the plants.

Who knew that potatoes produced such BEAUTIFUL flowers??? Our Yukon potatoes seem to have white flowers, and the Red potatoes seem to have a lavender color. They are so pretty! I almost wanted to pick some and bring them inside, because they are just such a neat bloom, but I decided against it since this is a good indication of the health of the potatoes. 

Yukon Potato Blossoms

Red Potato Blossoms

The strawberries have been so much fun, and my lavender has been amazing to watch grow. I have never had lavender get to the point where it blooms! We have some bees that seem to really like the lavender too. Slowly, we are trying to learn to not be afraid of the bees. I know that they are necessary. We need them to help with pollination so we are able to have fruits. But I tell you, as soon as those boogers fly in front of my face, I freak out every time. We will still keep them though.

He's a Happy Bee!

Kenz enjoying one of her fresh strawberries in front of our beautiful lavender.

Our first of many amphibious friends we have found.

Meet Mr. Tree Frog

We have found quite a few frogs around our home lately. Several tree frogs, who seem to REALLY like our broccoli, and a couple of toads here and there on the front porch. Guess they like to look at pretty plants too. 💖

We are all about catch and release (except cabbage worms and the butterflies they grow into). We catch a little critter and then take a closer look at it. We love using this as a teaching method for the kiddos. Also for us grown-ups too! Because how long has it been since you held a frog or watched how little animals interact with an active garden? It is really amazing to see how all of nature connects together. We leave the frogs in our garden so they eat the pests that eat the leaves and harm plants. We have discovered new beetles that we never knew existed. It's just a really neat thing to watch all the things we can learn about with having our little garden outside. 

~ Ginny ~

Cabbage Worms are the Worst!

Cabbage Worms are the WORST!!!!

I inspect our cabbage and broccoli plants every day looking for these suckers. Initially, they took to liking our broccoli plants. I find several every day. And now they have found the cabbage. These suckers are the worst nemesis we have so far against any of our plants thus far. 

We thought these beautiful butterflies were the cutest and thought they were helping to pollinate our vegetables, so we let them hang around until we realized that these beauties are actually little imps in disguise. Introducing the Cabbage Butterfly and the Cabbage Looper. These guys lay eggs on the plants that produce the caterpillars. 

To learn a little more about cabbage worms, this site was a good resource from OKC Beautiful. 

Arrival of Cabbage Worms & What to Do About Them

Natural Pest Treatments

Below are some of the things we have tried. We would love to hear of any other tricks you may have to get rid of these boogers. 

Planting Herbs

We found a blog that suggested planting certain herbs around your broccoli that would help keep butterflies from laying eggs.

We planted thyme between all the plants and intermingled some onion and garlic bulbs around them as well. Needless to say, these plants did not really do much for us. One thing we thought is that maybe if we were able to do this on a larger scale, it may have more effect. Maybe it is because our broccoli has exploded in size, and the herbs are below the leaves, so they are covered and aren't really helping too much. 

Garlic Spray

We made some garlic spray. We took a recipe online and modified it some. I added cayenne pepper to mine. This seemed to work for a couple of days. Not sure how well this worked, but my cabbage and broccoli smelled really good. I love the way garlic smells, but supposedly, a lot of garden pests do not. 

"Gardening Know How" has become one of my favorite sources for information when I Google something. Here is the garlic spray recipe we started with: Garlic Spray for Garden

I am not convinced that this was the best approach, but I will keep giving it a try to keep the pesticides down to either non-existent or very low. 

Pesticides

Garden Safe Insecticide

I bought this guy in the hopes that it would get rid of the cabbage worms. I have only applied it once, but we supposedly can apply this up to ten times on each plant, as needed, all the way up to harvest time. 

Sevin

I give up! They are everywhere. We had to kill them or they were going to kill our plants! Back in early May we DID apply Sevin on the broccoli. We would not have had any broccoli if we didn't get rid of them. I was finding at least 4 caterpillars on each plant every single day. Those poor leaves didn't stand a chance. This is NOT my ideal choice for pest control. We wanted to do natural methods first. 

Cabbage Inspection

We had my eldest daughter check the cabbage leaves for eggs. Within seconds, she was hollering that she saw a bunch. So I went over to do my thorough check. I flipped a leaf over and found this. Initially it looks like dirt. But it looked strange enough to give it a closer look.

Yep! When a bit of a closer look, this was BAD! It appeared that a whole bunch of eggs had hatched and these baby cabbage worms were ALL over the place looking to taste our delicious-looking cabbage. These guys have GOT to go. 

Garden Video Update Links

We started our video documenting with doing some Facebook Lives.

Here are some links to the videos to check out our progress. Start with the first video, so you can see our progress. These videos are raw. Haha! So, cut us some slack. Enjoy!

April 11, 2021 Garden Tour

May 2, 2021 Garden Tour

May 8, 2021 Garden Tour

May 21, 2021 Garden Tour