Fall 2011 Vegetable Garden

Last week, during the peak of that lovely cold snap we had, I planted my fall vegetable garden.  It felt so great to be outside, enjoying the beautiful weather and having my hands in the soil.  And I love gardening with Penelope.


Gardening is such a big part of me, I wish I had more time for it, or made more time for it.  I figure I have the rest of my life to grow plants, I will only have one window of opportunity to grow Penelope.

I usually do more plants, but I felt the urge to give my regular garden a rest.  It dawned on me, that I have been non-stop planting in it, since it was built and I decided it needed a little break.

Or maybe I just needed a little break. 

I planted broccoli and spinach.  This picture above is spinach, the very first picture is of broccoli.    

Penelope is a freak about broccoli!  She could eat a pound of it a day, and I swear it is because this spring she was so excited about watching them grow and harvesting them with me.

This little bed, used to be my herb garden.  It had gotten so overgrown and untidy looking, that it was driving me crazy.  So I pulled them all out earlier in the summer and it has been empty. 

I really liked planting in my herb garden, because it is so close to the porch.  While I planted, Penelope drew with chalk on everything, except her table with chalkboard paint.  

I had paint left over from when I painted the wall in my kitchen with chalkboard paint, and decided to paint her little table.  I am in love with chalkboard paint now and I wander around my house, looking for more things to paint!

Here is my 10x30 veggie garden.  I thought it would be a good idea to cover it, in order to kill some of the weeds.  The weeds are just getting worse and worse every year, I hope this at least puts a dent into my battle with weeds.  I am not sure what this stuff is called, its some eco-mesh-garden stuff that I got it Ace.  I am sucker for anything that says "green" or "eco-friendly", who knows if it actually works.  

In the past I have used pine straw and newspaper. Next spring, I would love to put a nice, thick, layer of mushroom compost down and restore the nutrients to the soil.

Did you do a fall garden?  How does your garden grow?

By Best Kids Health Blog

Spring Vegetable Garden Progress

Spring gardening is well underway in the Cornais backyard.   Peter actually took off the day from work today and mowed, edged, weeded, cut back our butterfly bushes and lantana and put pine straw down. It's a miracle, I know.

Our organic veggie garden is 10x30 foot and encased by cement blocks.  Making a garden out of cement blocks was a good workout, but it was such a no-brainer, no planning or cutting wood.   Just line em up, nice and straight.  It's is the lazy mans option of doing a raised bed.

On the left side, we have collard greens growing.  They did so wonderful this winter, except they weren't the tastiest greens ever.  I took this picture before we left for vacation and they have now gone to seed.  That means the center sprouts ups and flowers and it seeds itself for next year and when that happens the leaves are really bitter and no good to eat anymore.  So I will rip them out soon and compost them.  I will give that row a little compost love to refurbish the soil and get it ready for peppers, eggplants and squash.

The other two rows are two different kinds of tomatoes,  broccoli and two different kinds of parsley.  I get my plants from a local farm called Turkey Hill.

Then we planted some seeds.  I have never bothered with doing seedlings and transplanting.  I sort of view my garden as a huge experiment an have no expectations at all.  So when something does actually grow and work out, its thrilling!

We planted some carrot and sweat pea seeds and lots of zinnias.  I let Penelope shake several flower seed packages, wherever she pleased, so it will be interesting to see what turns up. It was such a nice day in the garden, my Dad was in town and helped us.  Good memories being made in the garden.

My pretty collards.  They were much more visually appealing than they were tasty. Oh well, it's all in good fun.  I love that Penelope is at an age where she can be out there with me and playing in the dirt, that is all that matters.

Here are some other cool gardening posts from some of my favorite blogs:

10 Unique Gardening Activities for Kids

How to Build a Raised Garden Bed

So tell me what's going on in your garden?

Our Edible Backyard

Well, it would be an edible back yard if we could figure out how to keep the birds from eating our strawberries, blueberries and plums. This is a picture of one of our 8 blueberry bushes. Almost ready!




















One of our plum trees. This was the first year we really had a good amount of plums, but we still haven't eaten one yet. The birds always get to them first.




















First of the ripe tomatoes! I remember the first home grown tomato I ever ate, a couple of years ago when I first started gardening, I called my Dad and said "It tastes NOTHING like the ones at the grocery store!" I couldn't believe how delicious they were.

These guys are coming along. Big thanks to Peter for actually getting these guys in the ground. He has pretty much taken over the Cornais Family Farm and these are now "his" tomatoes. I love him for that!