November Garden

Here are some recent pictures of the garden progress

What's for dinner

We have been getting about 10 Okra a week.  I think our plants may be done.  I have to do some research.  I save them up and then make fried okra for dinner.  The boys love it.

This is the bucket of micro greens that have been growing very well.  It looks a little weak because I just pick a bunch for dinner.  It is coming back though.

These are the other lettuce plants.  We have been having salad everynight.  Can't wait to get some tomatos to go in the salad.  We also have some peppers coming I have picked two or three but I think I picked them too early. 

This is the bucket of spinach.  Again I took this after I picked some for dinner.  This is the best spinach I have ever had.  We had it cooked in pasta one night and have had it in salad the last two nights.  I have planted two more buckets but plan to plant more. 

The garden seems to be growing well.  The buckets for the lettuce and spinach are working out great because it helps keep too much dirt from getting on the leaves. 

The buckets that I used we purchased from Firehouse Subs for a couple bucks.  They each had a lid.  I cut each bucket in half and then drilled holes in the lid and the bottom.  This created two planting buckets.  I filled each bucket with a mixture of topsoil and cow manure. 

Changes in the Garden

Changes in the garden!!!
In my attempt at weeding and cleaning up the garden I killed my cucumber plants.  I made the mistake of letting if grow on the same trellis as the green beans and both started to strangle each other.

So in my new garden bed I am going to attempt to grow my cucumbers up a trellis of its own, by recycling my old swing.  I hope to post the new growth in a week.

I also ripped out my Zucchinni plants because they were not producing any fruits that blossoms kept falling off.  I have planted new seeds in buckets.  These were planted from seeds two weeks ago. 

Whats growing in the garden

So far we have gotten two cucumbers our of the garden and plenty of lettuce.

I have destroyed my cucumber plants by weeding around them.  I think I moved the vines too much and by allowing them to grow on the same trellis as the green beans I have damaged the green bean crop as well.

It is definitely a learning process


Here are some recent pictures


First cucumber

 

Lettuce for our dinner salad... was awesome!!!
Had another salad for dinner tonight.

Lettuce plants after I pulled off the bottom leaves, then I put the stakes in and twisty tied the plants to them.  I found these green garden stakes at Lowes for $5.50 for 25 of them.  I have been looking for a week for something like this I don't know how I missed them.

Eggplant looking healthy.   I think I need to stake these plants

Lettuce plant.  I picked the leaves from the bottom and worked my way up the stalk.

This is the structure I built to see if the peas growing will climb up.  Underneath the peas is a row of micro greens that I cut with a kitchen scissor and put in the salads.

These are the first peppers growing on one of the 8 pepper plants I have.  I can't wait, almost as exciting as eggs.

These are the first showing of tomatoes in the garden.  This is the cherry tomato bush growing every which way.  These will be a great addition to the dinner salads.

Check out whats cooking

As part of my blog I have added a tab of whats cooking.  I have been trying to get away from buying food that comes from a box.  As a kid my mom almost aways cooked from scratch with whatever we had in the fridge.  We didn't really eat hamburger helper or canned ravioli or spaghettios and as a teenager I would never choose that stuff.  So I have never really made it available to my kids.  I am not saying that they have never had it or that I have never had it or made it but it never tastes as good as I think it is going to.  I also don't feel it is that much harder to make a meal from stuff in the fridge. 

I am by no means a health nut or organic in anyway.  I enjoy cooking for my family but the challenge is always will they eat it.  And that is not always the case.  Some nights the choice is a bowl of cereal or peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  It is definitely a juggling act between making the food is good for them and taste good... for all of us.

Here is a picture of dinner last night

It was chicken divan, grapes, salad (from our garden) with homemade ranch

The chicken divan was a recipe I found online that included chicken, broccoli(I used frozen), rice(I used jasmine), cream of mushroom soup (I made from scratch), and Parmesan cheese on top.

I made three of these casseroles, one for us, and two I gave away to friends.

Jack (7) cleaned his whole plate, said it was great.

Max (7) ate two helpings of salad- tasted the casserole and said he doesn't like mushrooms so he wasn't going to eat it.- Max only likes certain vegetables and broccoli and mushrooms are not in that group.

Tyson (4) ate the grapes and some of the ranch dressing- he didn't like the lettuce or the casserole.  He did have some carrots with the ranch but either he wasn't hungry or he really didn't like it.

After talking to Max about why didn't like the casserole I have figured out that he and I are pretty similar in that we really don't like all our items of dinner mixed into one thing like a casserole.  I am not a big fan of it either so I can understand.  I loved the mushroom soup recipe though and put that on rice. 

Free range chickens

We are now considering our chickens "free range" since we have been letting them out of their coop. 

We are now up to 11 eggs as of October 3rd 2012.  We are not sure which chickens are laying eggs but we have gotten one a day since last week and for three days we got two.  We have yet to eat any eggs becasue the boys want to wait until we get a dozen first.  So Saturday morning should be a big family breakfast.  Can't wait!!!

It was a great day in the White's Backyard Farm...

I was resolved to the fact that our chickens were not going to lay eggs so I was going to stop checking but of course I couldn't stop checking and today was the day!!!!

Look what I found

Our First EGG!!!

We can't wait to fill in our carton of eggs.

Chickens at the end of September

Here are the girls hanging out under their coop. 
September 23 2012

It is hard to get a good picture these days of the chickens.
They are always running around.
No eggs yet!!!

 

 

Back to farming

Now back to the farm---

 

Current Garden September 23 2012
This picture shows the pumpkin vines in the front with the radishes planted within it.
There is also lettuce, okra, broccoli. tomatoes, and peppers.



This is from the other end of the garden with the pepper plants in the bottom of the picture and the cucumbers and beans are to the left of the picture growing up the trellis.
 

I am really enjoying the garden.  The weeds tend to get out of control by the weekend.  But I hope I am doing everything alright.

The issue that I am currently having is since we are getting so much rain.  It seems it storms every other night.  The soil in the garden keeps washing away.  My plants, although I tried to mound them up, seem to be a little unstable.  I replanted the tomato plants to put them deeper in the ground but I can't seem to figure out what is happening to all the dirt.  So if anyone has a suggestion that would be great.

Although I have been a little worried..... this is all worth it.  Our first family harvest.

Dinner tonight!!!!

Where did September go!!

Time sure does fly when you are busy.  Our family has been keeping busy the this month.  We followed my husband's volleyball team over to Walt Disney World for a weekend vacation in the WDW parks




Hanging out at Alstar Sports Resort with Huey, Duey, and



And Louie!!!



We made it to the Magic Kingdom!!!



 

















Then off to Hollywood Studios

 

We had a wonderful weekend running around the parks.  The boys and I actually made it to three parks in one day.  We had a blast and it was so cool to see the fall decorations.  They had a wonderful birthday celebration.  --even though their birthday wasn't for 5 more days!!!

 

How this post fits into my blog-

Although hanging out with my kids has nothing to do with my backyard farming this Blog is about making all this work within an everyday family.  My husband and I both teach high school so we have pretty kid friendly jobs ...  we also spend a lot of time coaching.   So these mini vacations are very important to us for spending family time away from everyday life.  We have always been Disney fans -even before kids, so now we can enjoy Disney a whole new way with our boys. 

 

While tropical storm Issac is running its course in the Gulf of Mexico, here at the White House on the east coast of Florida we are staying pretty busy.  After spending a great summer in the Amish Country of the Finger Lakes Region of Upstate New York I came home ready to get a garden started in hope that we would be able to not only eat what we grow but possibly can or freeze the harvest. 

Here is the picture taken at the end of July about two weeks after we planted.  We planted everything from seed except for the corn in this picture.

These two pictures are the same area as the picture above from July 31.  These picture were taken today August 27 between storm squalls.  The picture on the left shows the pole beans in between rows of corn.  At the bottom of this picture are the pumpkin and watermelon seeds that my boys planted.  The right picture is more corn with a row of bush beans in between.

The picture above is from the other end of the corn rows.  These plants are squash and cucumbers.  They are looking pretty good so far.  I hope we can keep the pests out.

This is the area of the garden north of the squash.  We planted tomato and pepper seeds but nothing came up.  So I decided to have a try at growing seedlings in a recycled plastic 9 pack container.  I used the burpee seedling dirt and the seeds grew very well.  I have now transplanted them.  The larger plants were bought and the smaller ones are my home grown seedlings. 

 

We are looking forward to have a fruitful harvest that we can enjoy and share fresh vegetables. 

I would love to add some pictures of my garden and all the growth however we have not had an evening without rain so I can get out there.  By the time I get home with all three kids, make dinner, four lunches, clean the kitchen and the kids and homework done I get about an hour of daylight.  Well unless it is storming.  So instead of working in the garden tonight.....

Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream

I made this with the rival ice cream mix that was on sale at Wal Mart.  It was chocolate mix that I made with skim milk (even though it called for whole).  It is very chocolaty and pretty creamy.  The boys .... and I loved it.  I think tomorrow night for dessert we might add some bananas and peanut butter and make a monkey milk shake.