Hello friends! I’ve been trying to get this garden tour done, but as you know when things start to come in, there’s no time for anything but canning, freezing and battling bugs and blight! Since I shot the photos and video in the last two weeks, the beans have grown at least 6-7′, tomatoes started turning overnight, and I’ve been busy canning beans, squash and applesauce.
I wanted to share how far we have come since spring. The video at the end of this post will show how things looked in the spring and some of the work we did to get to this point.
I rotated everything from last year and also tried no-till in a couple areas. We don’t make enough compost to really enrich the soil that way, and after hearing so many horror stories about people who bought contaminated soil and compost this year, I’m glad I didn’t try to buy it. We also tilled in several areas as well. I put down cardboard and covered with wood chips to keep out weeds, and I also used this landscape fabric in other areas. It really makes things so much more enjoyable to be able to walk through the garden and work without being knee deep in mud:-)
My old scarecrow was beyond repair, so I made this one using things I had plus $3 overalls and shirt from a thrift store. I made the bonnet several years ago, and several followers suggested calling her Sunbonnet Sue:-)
This youtube short video shows how I made her:-)
I very carefully planned out what I wanted to plant based on what we eat, what preserves easily, our location and what would yield the most in the least amount of space. I always draw a map planning out what goes where making sure nothing is growing next to something it will not do well by.
Mother and I both have freezers full of seeds so I grabbed squash, zucchini, cucumber seeds, etc., and planted those on this end of the garden. Although I had to deal with vine borers for the first time ever, I’ve already made two runs of refrigerator dills, and have filled the freezer with squash and zucchini.
**Check out this video for squash and zucchini recipes.**
I also panted mini pumpkins, acorn squash, butternut squash, “Super Freak” pumpkins and candy roasters on this end.
Funny enough this has been the most prolific of all the vegetables in the garden this year! It’s some sort of summer squash – possibly a gray or white zucchini, and I have no idea where the seeds came from. In the video you can see the seeds on the ground as I’m planting my candy roaster seeds. It is delicious and tastes more like squash than zucchini. I’m canning and freezing these as they come in.
These are pink tip greasy beans, and I planted them much later to stagger the canning. I finally finished getting them all tied up, and they have grown at least 6-7′ in the last week!
We planted Kennebec and Red Norland potatoes as well as these are our favorite.
We grow heirloom Silver Queen corn, and it is definitely my favorite as well as our son’s favorite.
It’s so heartwarming to see this field that my granddaddy Knight grew his garden in, full of vegetables! My parents worked this garden too but at least twice the size I am able to handle. Mother helps me oversee everything here as she has very large raised beds to attend to, and daddy got the corn and potatoes in the ground for me.
Mother has all my pepper plants and broccoli in her raised beds as well as 50+ tomato plants, sweet and hot peppers, zucchini, onions, cabbages, herbs, lettuce, etc.
I had some volunteer sunflowers come up, and I’m actually glad they’re not the 12′ they were last year. We had no rain in June, so in spite of my watering from the little spring here, plant growth was stunted.
We have been blessed with pollinators this year though, and they are always beautiful to see.
For the first time I grew birdhouse gourds, and they have really taken off. Daddy helped me build a pioneer-style support structure out of branches and limbs to hold them up. I also have regular gourds growing here, and jack-o-lantern pumpkins behind.
I started all my tomatoes from seed, and chose Bradley, Rutgers, cherry and a yellow heirloom mother gave me.
I grew three short rows of blue lake beans and canned a bushel of those already. For fall I’m planting kale, spinach and beets where the bean plants were.
I like to have flowers for pollinators and these wildflowers were mostly volunteers from last year.
As much work as this has been, and it has been a *lot* of very hard work, there is nothing more rewarding than getting that first ripe tomato, ear of corn or new potatoes to roast. And, of course, filling the shelves and freezers with homegrown food for winter is the best feeling ever. I could not be more thankful for this property and the opportunity to grow my food. I don’t take for granted that blessing and hope I am being a good steward of it. Having my parents here, and my mother to guide me along the way is also a blessing I don’t take for granted. I will never know how she grows and preserves as much as she does, and how my grandmothers did it – and on wood stoves, I’ll never comprehend. I’m certainly thankful for a heritage of smart, strong and determined women who paved the way for me.
I shared some of the behind-the-scenes process in this video, so be sure to watch and give it a “thumbs up.” Also make sure you are subscribed to my channel because you know all my fall and Christmas content is coming soon!
What a beautiful garden! You really are blessed to have family that can help you continue the good work! Would love to see your mother’s garden so we can learn from her also. I am older wanting a garden so bad. So I think a raised bed is a good place to start but would like to see how someone else does it. Your photos are beautiful also!
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Thank you so much Karen☺️☺️ I’ll ask her☺️
Oh how beautiful! And that scarecrow- absolutely adorable!!! What do you have tied to the fence?
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Thank you so much Angela! I’m assuming you’re talking about the pink tip beans?
Your garden and photos are beautiful! Such a blessing to have this place and heritage. I missed my mother this year when canning. She was my resource on all things garden and preserving. Lots of work but so rewarding!
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Thank you so much! Yes I am really blessed to have my mother here and try to learn all I can from her☺️❤️
Absolutely beautiful and mouth watering post. I too would love seeing your mom’s raised bed garden. Reminds me of being young, picking from daddy’s garden and helping can those wonderful vegetables.
Sure wish gardens grew like yours here in Central Florida, without having to enrich the soil so much.
Love your blog!
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Thank you so much Gwen! Your memories sound amazing☺️☺️
Oh Wow. your garden is wonderful. It is Perfect! The scarecrow, the support for your birdhouse gourds, tomatoes from seed, That basket of beans, sunflowers, garden flowers, the corn, well..ALL of it. It is really really a delight to see, and just awesome. Thank you for sharing with your readers. Love it, Bonnie in WI
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Thank you so very much Bonnie for your kind comments☺️☺️ It is a lot of work but it is rewarding work☺️
Oh my, young lady, you have really been busy! Beautiful garden and I really, really like your scarecrow. This is a really great video.. Thank you for sharing. I am definitively going to try your recipes.
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Thank you Nancy! Yes we love the squash and zucchini recipes particularly and of course I have make a lot of zucchini lasagna and just plain zucchini noodles out of it as well☺️☺️
So true, you have a blessed life dear Anita, thank you for sharing with us via your stunning photographs!
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Thank you so much Sue!
What a beautiful and luscious garden!
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Thank you so much Briana!!
What a beautiful, abundant garden! And Sunbonnet Sue is adorable 🙂 I admit to being more than a little bit jealous – I expanded my raised bed garden to about 16 large containers (55 gallon food grade barrels cut in half) and was very hopeful for at least beans, cherry tomatoes, and zucchini. Unfortunately, we have been at or over 100 degrees here in central Texas since May. I have shade cloth, which has helped so I’ve gotten a few handfuls of tomatoes, but that’s about it. I hope the heat breaks by September and I can replant with some fall crops. If not, there’s always next year 🙂
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Thank you so much Patty! Yes it has been a horrible year in so many places, and it has definitely not been normal here for some crops including our candy roasters which are not as prolific as they were last year. Thank goodness we have a spring here, and I was able to water through June, but now we’re getting so much rain, blight is really spreading – particularly in the tomato plants and squashes so it is a never ending fight just to keep the harvest ahead of the blight. Praying that you get the right weather for a good harvest🙏🙏🙏
Beautiful Anita! Everything is so lush and green. Thank the Lord you had rain!
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Thank you JoAnn! Yes I am truly thankful🙏🙏🙏
You are very blessed. I remember the garden days with my parents years ago. We ate healthy then but now I buy from grocery stores. I was reading recalls on foods yesterday and thought you never heard this years ago. Love the scarecrow. My daddy wore overalls his entire life. He was a farmer. The good ole days…..
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Thank you so much for sharing Nancy! My uncle Tommy pretty much always wears overalls too, and he is a farmer☺️☺️
Anita, thank you for taking the time to photograph and video your property. So beautiful and special! I love gardening, it is so rewarding.
Can you do a tutorial on your hair tie? It’s cute and looks practical for yardwork.
Thank you! Enjoy your harvest…the fruit of your labor!
Christine
New Hampshire
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Thank you so much!! I was actually thinking about doing a tutorial, but I will tell you that generally what I do is find a piece of cotton fabric that is not slick and cut it to the length I want with pinking shears so that it stays on my hair. Any kind of scarf or material that is slick, slides off my head so I have found that just cutting a nice piece of cotton the length I want makes a nice wrap☺️☺️
Hi Anita, I enjoyed that beautiful garden tour, so much inspiration! I’m already planning for next year. You know this year has had some challenges and my garden, sadly, is not going to provide like it has in previous years. I’m trying very hard not to let it get the best of me. I absolutely adore your scarecrow, just so cute. I love your idea of the cardboard and mulch too. I’d love to learn more about that! Do you find that not tilling produces the same results?
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Thank you so much Carol!! It’s been a strange year here too – I have zero candy roasters – after them finally seeming to be pollinated, the fruit just dies off, and in general most of the pumpkins were not as prolific as years before.
For no-till – I don’t know – theoretically you’d put cardboard down then at least 4” + of compost then plant in that, and the work involved with that every, single year seems exponential. Not having access to that volume of compost makes it almost impossible. I feel like the no-till tomatoes are slightly larger and fuller plants, but the ground was like a rock and it was a lot of work to get the holes in the ground. Also I read if you’ve had an issue with hornworms, etc., tilling is good to disturb their habitat before planting again🤷🏻♀️ My uncle, though, who is a farmer said no-till is the way to go, and for example, just to pull up the corn stalks and put tomatoes in the same spot so I’ll try that there but it seems like sooooo much more work🤷🏻♀️🤔
Hi Anita, Your garden is beautiful and your harvest is huge. What a blessing! As you know, my green beans did not produce this year and my cucumbers were slim pickens too. However, I harvested so many tomatoes and peppers, onions, potatoes, butternut squash, and zucchini. I just planted some broccoli, brussel sprouts, and cabbage today. Hopefully, I’ll get a nice crop before it freezes. Thanks for posting such lovely pictures. I think your garden is dreamy! God Bless!
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Thank you so much Sally! Your garden sounds absolutely wonderful, and I certainly have some things that did not do well, and others that outdid themselves🤷🏻♀️ You never know how a garden will produce, but we sure are thankful as I know you are too☺️☺️🙏🙏
What a gorgeous garden! I’m curious about your comment regarding you and your mother having freezers full of seeds. Would you expand in that? Do you store garden seeds in the freezer? For how long are they viable? Thank you.
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Thank you! Yes, we store seeds in the freezer for years, and have actually taken seeds from the 90s and had them produce. That’s actually how they save seeds for the future — there is a global seed vault in Norway:-)
https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/food-fisheries-and-agriculture/svalbard-global-seed-vault/id462220/
Hi there! Your garden is inspiring! My husband and I moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina two years ago and have been working the land. We had a small garden this year and I am pleased with how it turned out. We have a larger area that I want to plant on next year. Thank you for sharing your garden! You have given me lots of great ideas. 🙂
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Thank you so much!