my blessed life

Yep.  I have been bitten by the gardening bug again.  It's been a couple of years since I've tried anything, but we have the perfect place for it in our backyard and I just can't stand it if we don't at least try this year.   We have wonderful farmers markets here because the area we live in is full of beautiful farms (both Amish and "English") and last year our sweet neighbors shared much of their garden bounty with us.  So we were very blessed with lots of fresh produce.  You may remember that I learned to can tomatoes last summer because we had so many from our neighbors' garden.  We sure have enjoyed those all winter long! So far my gardening experience is extremely limited.   The first year we tried it everything was in containers .  Then we graduated up to a raised bed .  The next year I experimented with starting seeds .  But last year I tried nothing at all ...and I was a little sad about that.   This...

Not only have I had lots of banana peppers this summer, we're getting lots of beautiful tomatoes!  I didn't want them to go to waste, so here we go with the canning again :)  I'm really feeling pioneer-ish these days--ha!  Seriously though, I can't wait to use these this winter for chili, soups, casseroles and more!   Of course the first thing I did was to call my mom--because she has canning experience--and get some tips from her.  She was very helpful and gave me a much simpler game plan that all those canning websites I'd been reading.  You can really can tomatoes without all of that fancy equipment (as handy as I'm sure it is).  The only specialized canning "equipment" that I have is one of those plastic canning funnels.  Yep, that's it.  I simply use large stock pots for the rest of the process.   So, let's can some tomatoes... 1.  Get your jars ready.  (I used pint jars instead of quart simply because the...

Even though we did not get a garden planted this year we have been abundantly blessed with the overflow of our neighbors' and friends' gardens.   I've got a TON of banana peppers and didn't want them to go to waste, so I decided to try my hand at pickling some.  I always love those little pepper rings in salads, on pizza and on sandwiches, too.  I have hardly any experience with canning or pickling, but why not try it! Easy Pickled Banana Peppers About 2 lbs of banana peppers 5 heaping tsp. of minced garlic or 5 garlic cloves (or more garlic, if you desire) 1-1/2 cups water 1-1/2 cups white vinegar 4 tsp. salt ***** Wash the peppers, cut off the tops and remove as much of the membrane  and seeds that you can.   Slice the peppers into rings, then place the peppers  into the {sanitized} jar(s) that you want to use.   Add the minced garlic or  cloves to the jar(s).  In a medium saucepan combine the wate...

See what's growing in our yard?  Yes, a squash plant!  And, no, we didn't even plant it :)  Sadly, I didn't get any kind of a garden planted this spring. We just happened onto this plant in our yard and thought "hey, this looks like a squash plant!".  Sure enough, there's one growing and there are lots more blooms.  Can't wait to pick them! Now for the really funny part...this squash plant is right by our front steps...by our lilies.  I'm sure people coming to our front door are wondering about our landscaping tastes (no pun intended..haha).   Oh--and, yes, this was the perfect example for my children of "animal dispersed seeds" from our Apologia Botany study this past year :)  

I was wondering what was eating my roses (obviously I'm a novice!) when a friend pointed out all of the Japanese beetles in my yard.  Yikes!  But then she told me how to get rid of them.  So we headed straight to Lowe's to get some traps.   I haven't weighed how many beetles we've bagged and tossed, but it was disgusting no matter how much it was.  Although by the look on my son's face he was pretty excited to hold a bag full of bugs:) My daughter, not so much. Come to find out, those pesky beetles were eating on several things in our front yard.  However, their number has been greatly reduced already and we've only had that bag up since Saturday.  Pretty impressive!    If you have ever battled Japanese beetles, what worked for you?

Are you starting to feel it, too?  I sure am!   Spring Fever is growing steadily around our house. The trees are budding out, bright green shoots are popping up in the flower beds, the grass is greening up and flowers are starting to bloom! The kids are able to spend more time outside, climbing trees, playing with their puppy, riding bikes... I'm thinking it's time to get out our birdhouses, just in case some are looking for a new home this year, you know:) I'm also thinking of the garden I want to plant soon: tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers...to name a few things.  What will you be planting this year?

Well, I slightly missed the Garden Challenge deadline for this post, but since they're flexible I'm doing it anyway. I feel that I need the closure since it's the end of the challenge:) Overall, my little garden has done fairly well, especially since I started it all from seeds. Of course, this means I haven't reaped any of the fruits of my labor yet. And we'll be moving in a month, so I'm a little anxious...but what can one do, right? The tomato plants have really thrived! It's been fun to watch them grow so big from those very tiny seeds. And I finally have one little green Roma growing. There are lots of blooms, I'm just hoping that the plants don't drop them to go into preservation mode because it's so hot here. That's what happened last year and we didn't get any tomatoes. Hopefully the fact that one's already growing is a good sign. I have about a dozen stalks of corn and they seem to be growing very well, too. I have ...

(click for a larger view) Our little garden is growing! Thank goodness all of this crazy rain hasn't washed it away, although I have lost a few seedlings~as you can note by the bare spots. I'm not complaining too much though because I've hardly had to water it at all. Over all, I am really excited about how it's doing! This is only my 3rd year to try vegetable gardening and I learn something new every year, of course. I would imagine that will be true every year I garden. This year so far I have learned: start my seeds earlier especially start the tomato seeds earlier I'm probably going to have A LOT of zucchini So I guess you can start sending me your fave zucchini recipes right now:) Seriously, I am really looking forward to having fresh veggies before too long. Maybe by the next month's update! How is your garden growing? This post is linked to the Garden Challenge at The Homeschool Village .

I have this thing about Adirondack chairs. I think it goes back to my long-time love affair with Victoria magazine. There always seem to be beautiful photos involving Adirondack chairs in that magazine! And quite a few years ago (probably well over 10) I finally got a pair for a steal at Tuesday Morning (another fave *bargain* store!) . They were beautifully stained and oh-so-nice and I loved them. Then they began to weather and for a while that was okay. But then they really got weathered and faded~which is not-so-okay. We thought about painting them, but we only got as far as priming one of them with white while the other one sat looking sad. See how sad: On our every move, Vince was always asking me nicely if I was ready to let those chairs go. Poor guy was sick of hauling them around, I'm sure:) But I just couldn't let them go. This year I was determined that they should have color! I thought a pretty green would be just lovely. And my sweet hubby went and...

Time for our 2nd link-up with The Homeschool Village's Garden Challenge! A lot has happened since our 1st link-up ~hard to believe that was only a month ago. Let's start at the beginning and talk about how I started my garden this year. I've not done much with seeds in the past, but this year I went all out (for me). I started 10 different kinds of seeds in little newspaper pots that I made. I just have to show you the newspaper seed pots because they're working great and they were totally FREE! (I priced those little pots at the store and they are so expensive). These just took a little time and effort, but I got made over 100 in just an afternoon. First I gathered my materials, which were newspapers, a straight-sided glass, some containers to put the pots in, my seeds and, of course, potting soil. (BTW, if you don't have newspapers~or you run out like I did~head to your local grocery stores and pick up some of those free sale newspap...