House Exterior Paint!

Our house is getting painted finally! A few months ago, I decided I was really sick of it and started scraping paint myself to get things prepped. Once I got to the ladder on the garage only 15 feet up I was scared and did not feel confident doing anything. I was able to convince Cam to get some quotes. And after a good quote from someone and waiting for our turn- they started last week!

Now for some before pictures:

This is a picture from last year.

 Progress!!! The garage face siding and up to the door has been painted the new house color. They did all of the front trim first. The color is Behr Mossy Oak- but was color matched in Benjamin Moore Aura Exterior. It is pricey stuff but is suppose to last longer and save more money in the long run. The trim color is Benjamin Moore- White Dove (also Aura).

We painted our shed the Mossy Oak color last year and so I knew it was the right color for the house and for my taste. It's darker and warmer than the old grey. As you can see in the picture above it is a touch more green.

Here is the side, they did the trim and primed all the bare wood. I can't wait for it to get done. Its going to look so much better.

I will update next week!

Garden Harvest

It's been awhile since I posted anything here! I have been taking pictures as we went along but never got around to publishing them...till now!

 The kids were pretty excited about the sweet potatoes. They came very early. I think I harvested them the end of August. Last year, I harvested my sweet potatoes in October. I do still have some purple sweet potatoes in the ground that aren't ready yet.

 Cruz helped me dig them out.

 He did an awesome job of not breaking them!

 So far my estimate is that we've harvested about 50lbs. I've been getting creative with my sweet potato recipes. I tried to cure them on my back porch and I'm not sure I did it right. But hopefully, they will last in my basement for a while.

 Hales best Melon. These were prolific and sweet. Much easier to tell they were ready than the watermelon.

For watermelon I grew Ali baba and an early variety. The early variety had too many small seeds and wasn't as sweet as Ali Baba. However, I got way more icebox watermelons- probably because they are small when mature. I think we got around 25 watermelon total (I really need to keep a more accurate count so I can compare year over year).

 This is a cushaw squash. I got 11 of these. This was average size!!! I got one big one that must have been close to 40 pounds.

I'm hoping these last a while in the basement too. I did already cook a few and froze them for later. They have a lighter flavor compared to butternut squash. I think I like butternut squash more, but these were super duper squash bug resistant! I made squash soup, squash cookies, squash pancakes and roasted squash so far.

 I dehydrated a bunch of peppers at the end of the season since we were all getting tired of them.

Organic Bug Control- Squash Bugs, Cutworms, Hornworms, and Japanese Beetles.

I thought it would be fun to post about how I get rid of bugs in the garden. There are so many bugs here. My main pest is squash bugs.

I used to squish squash bugs eggs with my fingers but it was time consuming and gross. Then I saw an idea on the internet to use duck tape. It works wonders! The tricks to check the plants at least every other day.

 Sometimes the eggs are in groups but lately I've been finding a lot of random ones on stems.

 Here is my random eggs and I got one nymph.

 Here is what is more commonly seen, the eggs together in a group.

 And if you see an adult, get that sucker too!!

 When I'm done I fold the tape over so they can't get off then throw them in the trash.

Next up is cutworms.

A huge part of organic pest control is preventative. I try and peruse my garden at least once a day. One day I was looking around and saw this...

Its hard to see in this small picture but the stem was chewed off and fell over. I had cutworms in my garden last year and to prevent them I put plastic cups (bottom chopped off) in the ground an inch or two around each plant. It worked.  But the important thing is also to find the culprit.

Do you see the cutworm? It wasn't sitting out like that. I dug around the base of the stem and found it.  Then you have to squish it, or feed it to your chickens (mine weren't interested unfortunately).

Above is hornworm damage on a tomato plant. They usually hang around on tomatoes but one year when they were really bad they got on my peppers too. Thankfully I haven't had too many problems this year.

 You can catch hornworms by looking around where they have eaten leaves and left droppings. They camouflage really well! They love the tender new growth and are easiest to catch at dawn or dusk when the sun is not beating on the plant because they will travel to the top (usually). I had already killed my hornworm when I took this picture but I have a picture from a year prior below.

This year the Japanese beetles have been really bad here! Thankfully not bad enough to kill any thing though.

My main concern is the damage on my blackberry plants because they fruit on second year canes and my first year canes are getting slaughtered by these guys.

When I see a lot, I grab a bucket of water, add some dish soap and flick them in the bucket with my finger. I also will hold the bucket under them and tap the stem or leaf hard so they fall in. It seems to work keep them under control.


I also have been letting my chickens roam the backyard more to eat as many bugs as possible. But I DON'T let chickens in my garden. That lesson was learned the hard way :)

Garden Progress July 12th

As promised, the updated pictures of the garden.

 Sunflowers have finally come out :)

Watermelon, cantaloupe, and winter squash are sprawling much more.

 Tomatoes. Cameron wanted to try the Florida weave for the trellis this year. It has worked pretty well.

 Peppers

 Sweet potatoes

 Squash and cosmos

 Kians sunflowers he planted.

 This is a cushaw squash (a winter type). It's getting huge!

 Cantaloupes and watermelon

 Watermelon. The ones you see are an icebox variety but I also planted another regular type.

 We harvested the carrots and onions in this garden. I dehydrated the carrots for soups in the winter.

The Carrots. They shrink down so tiny!! I didn't weigh how many I had but I'm guessing this is 2-3lbs prior to dehydration. It was my first time doing it so I followed instructions from "The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook" 
 You blanch them first, then dehydrate for 12 hours- mine took 14 hours though.

 And some cucumbers.

And then some pickles from those cucumbers. My recipe is from "Food in Jars" the book. But there is a similar recipe on her blog. I tested the recipe first, and they are spicy and potent- but in a good way :)

Garden Progress Beginning of July

I took some pictures of the garden from my phone a few weeks ago. I will post better updated ones tomorrow :)

plum tomatoes are coming

green beans, and yellow wax beans

We are getting lots of cucumbers.

This is the lemon squash

onions and parsnips.

Our first egg from our chicks came last week! I put it next to a regular size one. I knew they came out small at first but I didn't realize how small!

Garden Update and Tour- June 6

I am long overdue for an update. I've been taking pictures each week but unfortunately, none of those have made it to the computer until now. Here is what the garden is looking like, and what I've been harvesting.

 We've been eating snow peas and snap peas with almost every meal. I need to freeze some.

 Raspberries are ripe (on the smaller canes at least). This variety is "heritage". You can harvest twice a year if you leave up last years canes or one big harvest if you cut them down. I opted to cut mine down last year. I'm glad I did too, they are bigger and healthier this year.

 Cam just put up this trellis for me. It's cedar and wire to hold up the canes. I think we need more raspberries since we eat these way too fast.

 Here's a look at the smaller garden. From left, strawberries, tomatoes, onions and carrots, peas, and cucumber. I harvested the last of the kale. I blanched and froze maybe 10-15lbs if I had to guess. The kale got too big for the floating row cover so I ditched it. It lasted a good month before it started getting attacked by cabbage worms. Once that happened I picked it all.

Peas and cucumber on the bottom. My cucumber got a slow start because the peas shaded it for a long time.

 Guess what this is?! Fennel bulbs. I still have bad acid reflux and fennel is good for that. I also just like the taste.

 My tomatoes in this bed are big and healthy (I can't quite say as much for the new garden)

 Now for the in progress garden!

 It has been so crazy trying to get all the beds in, planted, trying to maintain (weed and fertilize), and just finish. I'm so glad next year will be MUCH easier. We  used a lot of native soil to save money but unfortunately the soil here is so low in nutrients. I mixed in a bit of compost to each bed but it just hasn't been enough. I keep telling myself next year will be better as far as harvest too since I will be able to incorporate more organic matter.

 This is what it looks like from doors.

 Here's my beans- I'll update varieties later I can't remember right now.

 Peppers- tam jalepeno, california wonder, red cheese

 Kids garden. The tall plant is sunflowers.

 Lemon squash, dill, row of radish, and cosmos. See what I mean about the soil?! Yikes. I have been pounding on the fertilizer. I will get more compost too load on soon too.

 Sweet potatoes- beauregard (I am really behind and put these in like four days ago).

 Lettuce and tomatoes- this bed has ozark pink, amish paste, san marzano, black cherry tomatoes. Red romaine lettuce, slow bolt lettuce, a french butter type, and arugula. We've been eating a lot of arugula and lettuce. Arugula is going to seed now though.

 Onions- white and red southport, and shallots. And parsnips in the middle of this back bed.

 This bed has herbs- parsley, basil, oregano, sorrel. In the back I planted more cucumbers I will update the variety later.

 The back two beds are my asparagus.

 Another view from behind. As you can see we are still working on getting landscape fabric and mulch down in the rows.

 After the raised beds are the blueberries. We covered them with pine bark. Surprisingly they seem to be doing pretty good.

Here's what growing in the very back. (Next year I will plant fruit trees here)

 Watermelon (planted these late, but better late than never!) - ali baba and blacktail mountain

 More watermelon, and cantaloupe in the front.

 Winter squash- white cushaw. Weeds in back :) I'm hoping to flame weed the area then smother with hay. I really need to beef up the soil back here for my future fruit trees.

 Close up. Roma tomatoes. Like I said, the tomatoes in my new garden are not as healthy as they should be. I'm glad they still seem to be producing ok though!

Below is my blackberries. All came up but one.

 Some of the plants grew shoots off the old cane and are producing some berries.

From the road. Cam is still working to get the fence done.