Growing Food

Vegetable Harvesting

Vegetable Harvesting

As the harvesting duties start to pile up I needed an easy way to clean vegetables before bringing them into the house for processing. Cleaning dirt out of the kitchen sink is never fun and after trying to hold the hose and the vegetables at the same time...

Color in the Vegetable Garden

Color in the Vegetable Garden

We have all seen great pictures and even visited designed vegetable gardens. Some great potager, or kitchen, gardens are famous for their beautiful symmetrical designs. My kitchen garden sports simple raised beds in a fairly linear design. I’m planning on...

Mother’s Day Garden

Mother’s Day Garden

Not to be outdone by the Easter Garden the grand-kids in Illinois (zone 6a) planted a garden with their mom for Mother’s Day.  Let’s join Kristen for a quick tour… We started prepping our garden back at the end of April.  If we wanted to we could call our little...

Easter Gift of Plants

Easter Gift of Plants

It is always a struggle to find something to give to a 16 year old for Easter... Dress? No GMA. Little white gloves, hat, chicks, bunnies, stuffed animals? No GMA. This girl doesn’t even like candy that much. A Starbucks card is good but pretty ordinary. So, this year...

Garlic Harvest

Garlic Harvest

As the pumpkins start to take over the garden bed I know it is time to harvest the garlic.  You may remember that I planted garlic last fall. I can tell it is ready to harvest because the tops are starting to turn yellow. Some gardeners wait until the tops are...

And So It Begins…

And So It Begins…

The days have been very warm for April and the garden beds are ready to plant. I don’t know about you but sometimes I get carried away with new seeds I’ve purchased and forget about the old ones. This year I sorted through my boxes of seeds and found several packs...

Raised Bed Gardening

Raised Bed Gardening

As I wait for the seeds to arrive it’s time to start working on my garden beds. I choose to use raised bed gardening for my vegetable beds and have helped many customers to do the same. Raised bed gardening has several advantages. They give a greater depth of soil...

Reap What You Sow & Sow What You Reap

Reap What You Sow & Sow What You Reap

I’m not a big seed saving person but I can’t really resist seeds when they are lying right in front of you. If you have never tried saving seeds before here is a little introductory tutorial for you. Veg seeds are easy to work with and usually very successful for home...

Fall Veg Planting

Fall Veg Planting

Even while the veg garden is still in full glory it is time to think about fall Vegetable planting. Looking at my garden I see I have some room in the garden where the lettuce has finished, the onions have been harvested and some beans have...