BABY'S FIRST STEPS

by Robin

Look at the Sugar Snap peas instinctively looking for something to cling to. It is amazing to me that God programmed this little plant, that doesn't even have a brain, to know there was something out there, much bigger than itself, that would help it grow. All it has to do is grab on.



I think God programs us to know the very same thing. There is a cross out there that we are suppose to cling to and will help us with living life and growing a new nature.



Of course, every good seed has found Living Water, which helps it grow. Matthew 13, Mark 4 and Luke 8.


"But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understand it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." Matthew 13:23.

BECOMING NEW AGAIN.....

by Robin

Jack has been working this week on a new project. A neighbor had this sitting for years in his yard. For him, it was old and not worth very much. He paid no attention to it. It was rotting away because of the elements that bombarded it day in and day out.



As we have been working on it, it reminds me of a Scripture verse.


2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.


When we are in the Master's hands, he is remolding us into something new and much more beautiful than what we were when we left to our own accord.



Jesus restored my life. Will you let him restore yours?

(I will show you the finished product when it is done.)

A LITTLE JAM & OTHER WEEKLY NEWS

by Robin

We started off our week with making a small batch of strawberry jam. Strawberries are in season and they went on sale, too. It never hurts to have a few jars put up for the year. Aren't they gorgeous!



My sweet, sweet 'Andrew' was on restriction from electronics so that meant he had a lot more free time to help me in the kitchen. He does love to cook, bake and chop.



I have no idea why he likes that xbox so much. He's a much better chef. You don't think it is giving him any violent tendencies, do you?



He really is a delight to have by my side. He keeps me laughing even if he eats a few while he works. I do too.



Anyhow, we cooked these down and made 3 large jars and 3 small jars from the 4 pints. We kept 1 pint just for nibbling on.



As you know if you followed me earlier this week, we also cleared out the garden which left us with a lot of winter cilantro to dry. Normally, I chop it up & then dry, but I didn't have time since we were working outside 'til dark. So, we'll see if this method works as well. So far, so good.



Every week, for 3 weeks now, Andrew and I have been attending Hydroponics (Jr. Master Gardening) class for his spring Science credit. He loves this because it is the one day a week he gets to skip book work for this subject and work with his hands. I do believe he is a kinestetic learner. Anyhow, I will save those pictures for a separate blog but I'll tease you with this adorable donkey that lives on the farm. He came over to me for some loving but my camera batteries died. I will get better pics of him another week.



Like clockwork, the week flies by and Friday is here. Our 'Simon Peter' gives guitar lessons to his friend. She is a great student. He is a very gentle teacher. I enjoy listening to them as I work on laundry or grade papers. It makes me think about the man that he's going to become one day.

Well, the weekend is almost here. We've had great weather. Today almost broke a high temp record at 87 degrees. March winds are here, too. The cobia are arriving offshore and the winds are keeping us from being able to hunt for them. Waiting for our opportunity...

Meanwhile, I do my motherly duties... like finding out why the kids are running to the backyards with their nerf guns & cans of spray paint. Sounds like a project needing supervision.

God bless & have a wonderful weekend.
Robin

GARDEN REPORT - Germination

by Robin

Well, the garden and I were very busy this week. I did my best to work out the kinks in anything irrigation, from drip rate to water not flowing at all. We are at 100% capacity and every seed is planted, as of today.

So, let me give you a quick breakdown, mostly through pictures. I'm sure you're not as compulsive about reading this as I am about documenting it. I am documenting to prove how much better the drip irrigation does in a very hot state (zone). We are in the midst of our dry season, until late May. Once the rains come, the heat sets in and some plants could die out. It's a tricky growing season. I've already proven to myself that my winter broccoli production was far better than last years. Plus, we had a drought, being under 3" of rainfall.



Jack tilled the horse manure into the plot. The kids and I pulled as much as possible. One child cut all the bits of broccoli to be saved. The other one and I did plenty of weeding, hoeing, removing lines, etc.





This is what was salvaged. The rosemary, thai basil, 1 oregano and 1 chocolate chip mint plant were all removed to be transplanted.



This will be our new herb garden, right beside the house. I no longer have to step into dirt to get my herbs. I lost all my sage this year, so we had to start out with seed again. I still have my thyme pot but I can never get enough thyme.

Here are the seedlings with their info posted on the picture for future reference. I managed to cut all my germination times in half.















Now, here is one place where I'm trying to make the water release more consistent. My newly transplanted cherry tomatoes are very happy and they're getting a nice drip-drip. As you can see, the back row tubing is larger and releasing more like a flood, even with a clamp on the front end of it. Because of this, I decided to put my water-neediest plants back there. I alternated queen sunflower plants with a Porterhouse hybrid (beefstake) tomato, which produces 2-4 lb fruit. I want all that water to be used for developing deep roots and heavy fruit.



So, that is it for the first week. I can't wait to see how it will change by next week. I am doing my best to prevent squirrel damage. I don't think they have found my sunflower seeds yet. Yeah!

God bless & Happy Gardening.

GARDEN REPORT - Garden #2 is Ready!

by Robin

I thought I had been keeping the blog up-to-date on my progress but I guess I did that over at Facebook instead. So, here is a quick glance, mostly with pictures, at what's been going on the past couple weeks. I had planned on taking the whole month of February to prepare ground & install the drip irrigation but spring looks like it will be very early for us and so I'd like to take advantage of that time and get seeds in the ground sooner.

Andrew and I installed the irrigation lines one afternoon that he finished up school quickly. Another day, we disassembled an old chicken coop that was sitting for the past 3 yrs. The wire was still tied together but we freed up the posts quickly and drove them down.


You can see the flow of water going through the lines. You can believe that after a couple hard days of bending over, pulling, getting cut up by chicken wire and hammering, I needed some rest. By the way, the reason why I have double lines on that bottom row is because those lines were pre-drilled with 18" distance between the drip spouts. For spinach, I wanted to grow that closer at 9", so doubled it. As it turned out, I ended up drilling some holes in the other lines because I wanted my snap peas closer too.



Before I leave the above picture, let me mention that this picture was taken before I could get to the hardward store and pick up more miscellaneous parts, like those little figure 8, end-of-the-hose clamps. So, you get to see Jack's green clamps in the above picture.

This weekend, it took 2 days to pull apart all that chicken wire and see what I had to work with. One piece (on the right) was fully intact and it hung up there perfectly. Jack thought we may need a center post for support when the plants got heavy. I think he's right, so that was added.

The 2nd trellis (on left) was a combination of 2 pieces from the coop. It also had a hole in it from where the chicken door was, but that will be covered up by green growth in no time. Looks like I need a few more posts to put in another trellis.



We decided to try certain plants that did well with verticle growth to make the most of our space. The right trellis has Sugar Snap Peas. The trellis on the left will eventually have cucumbers & squash. I haven't decided if I'm going to make 1 solid row of those two or a single row of each.



Above, you can see what has been planted so far. (used an old pic of the full garden but just know the trellis are there now)

And then I have this oddball picture that I wanted to share. Last fall, the kids were being grounded from electronics and so I had them do all my "seeding" on the corner of the porch. We pulled tons of seed off of old dead plants and saved them for future plantings. Funny thing is, they must have dropped a bunch of cilantro seed and some of it fell in the cracks. Now, I have some awesome cilantro growing in the most unusual place! I have even taken cuttings from it. It also makes a nice bug repellant for when we're sitting in those chairs.



In the blue bowl on the left, it a pineapple that needs planting. I'm up to 5 pineapple plants now.
In the white bowl, water run-off caught from the bottom of the staghorn plant. I try to recycle rainwater whenever possible. It's so much easier than grabbing the hose to water the couple of potted plants on the porch. My biggest worry with that is making sure mosquitos don't begin to grow there.

Tomorrow, we go off to hydroponics class #2. I will have to blog up pictures of that class. We are planting seeds! Lettuce, to be exact.

God bless & Happy Gardening.
Robin

SEEDS

by Robin

I ordered seeds from Burpee!!

Normally, I go to the local fix-it store or WalMart to get my seeds & seedlings, but I had such an awful past couple experiences with Jalapenos being mealy, non-producers (last year) and my bell peppers seedlings fizzled before they barely got going. The years before, I had great production from seed, so I wanted to stay away from the Bonnie products. I also wanted to explore the idea of high-producers, heirlooms and exclusive varieties.

I didn't bother to cut/paste Burpee's pictures but here is a list of what I bought, in no particular order.

* Kale, Red Russian (heirloom). Starts green and turns purple in cold weather, which won't be happening here. Good flavor.

* Cucumbers, Sweet Burpless Hybrid. High yields!!

* Spinach - Dark green & upright. (Going to try this now that I have the new garden, different soil & more irrigation than previous years.

* Squash, Summer sunray Hybrid. Beautiful straightneck with buttery color.

* Sugar Snap peas. All-American winner.

* Jalapenos, med-hot peppers. Thick-walled, 3" long, 1" wide. Should make great poppers! My goal was to find the least hot.

* Porterhouse Tomato Hybrid - Greatest x-lrg tomato they breed. 1-2 lbs!!!

* Black Krim Tomato - Heirloom, med-size, bred for rich flavor.

* Big Mama Tomato Hybrid - Enormous Roma, great flavor, made for making sauces & pastes.

* Sweet Bell Peppers - Carnival mix. Used this before and loved it.

Of course, I still will have my regular characters in the main garden. My hurricane cherry tomatos, the Big Ugly, ? Walmart big tomato - the will all be producing well in no time.

I will be planting more sunflowers too. I'm going on my 4th year of this in order to attract bees to my area. Sunflowers are great companion plants to the cucumbers & squash because they bring the bees into the area for pollination.

When I first moved here and began gardening, I couldn't pursuade a bee to visit my veggies. I had to hand pollinate with a q-tip. It will be very interesting to see if I have made progress with luring the honey bees in. It also seems that my purple heather & thai basil bushes are keeping the bees happy through the winter.

God bless & Happy Gardening!

HARVEST

by Robin

Had a good harvest today in the garden.

We are eating broccoli weekly and even when I think I've picked it all, it grows right back like a weed. We were fortunate to have our first cauliflower come due today. The pictures does not do it justice. I have another small one that is developing, too.

My overall cauliflower production will be poor because I had some problems with those worms that eat the roots. (root maggots?) I may have only 4 or 5 left. Next year.... we'll kick butt.

My big tomato plant died for no good reason. Oh wait,... I know, it wasn't on the drip irrigation line and we've had no rain in what seems like months. These were ripening and so we'll enjoy them. However, I do have new big tomato plants that are growing in pots, under the drip irrigation. I think I saw buds developing on them. I want so badly to put them in the ground but am unsure if we're done with freezes or not. This weather is so beautiful. The plants are very confused.

My cherry tomato plants are producing like crazy. I have several ripe every day. This is just not normal for February. BUT, I will not complain. I prayed for God to spare my tomatoes this winter so I could have a HUGE production in the spring. I think my prayers have been answered.

I hope to install the 2nd irrigation system (fully) tomorrow afternoon. I have been "baking" nematodes for 2 wks and so it is ready any time now for tilling, irrigation and then seeds. I'm beyond excited at what this year will bring! I want to have plenty to put up in jars.

On a separate note (pun intended), I had my 2nd violin lesson this week. We had our Fiddler's Guild today. On Saturday, the kids go to a Historic village to play & work for tips. Two of them have upcoming ministry trips. Must. Earn. Cash!

All else is well on the home front. Schooling is booking along (I'm just filled with puns today!) Before long, it will be time for Spring Break, testing and then the last days of school. Yeah. Spring just flies by.

God bless,

Robin