Gardening

Organic gardening is one of my favorite hobbies though I'm not an expert at it. I think it's an important way to teach kids to work. They learn how to work hard and get a reward at the end. I think it's also important for the kids to know where their food comes from and how much work it takes to produce it. We are loosing touch with the earth and the way food is supposed to be raised with all the vitamins and minerals that were intended. Along with that we are loosing our health. I'm teaching them how to put back what you take out of the earth like grass clippings, leaves, our chicken and goat manure, etc. We don't use any pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. Here are some fun pictures.



Here is my pumpkin and squash patch. They got a slow start so I'm just
staring to see fruits coming on.

We have over 200 tomatoes growing. They are finally starting to
turn red. I guess we'll be bottling a lot of tomatoes this year.

This is the first year we've planted strawberries. It's been fun to have them.
We've made smoothies and ice cream out of them.

This is the most beautiful corn we've ever had and yummy too!

We love planting cantaloupe. We first planted this last year and had such good luck that
we did it this year too. We have about 20-25 melons growing, some
almost ready to pick. these are so sweet when you grow them naturally.

Here is the corn growing on the stock. One row turned out really big and healthy. The other row I planted when it was too cold and the stocks were dwarfed.

Our grapevine is HUGE this year and loaded with grapes.

The kids really love planting sunflowers. At the end of the season we cut off the head and the kids eat the seeds. We have these come up from our own seeds every year.

Here are the potatoes. I'm experimenting with them this year.
They are huge on top so we'll see if we get any potatoes. We also planted peas but they're spring veggies and we have eaten them all up. Raw peas from my garden are my favorite veggie. I also have broccoli, carrots, and beans growing for my fall garden.