{McCusker Journal} Our First Harvest

I love our garden this year! We put a lot of time and effort in it and are already reaping the benefits! This past week we had our very first harvest. It was so much fun to go out with our basket ready to bring in the fresh vegetables and herbs. Zoey couldn't wait to be a part of it either. She is learning the art of gardening at a very young age, it is priceless!

Stephen shows Zoey how to know when the vegetables are right for picking. Our cabbage, as you can see on the right of the top picture, is just now starting to head up. However, Zoey can already see how the plant is growing and forming. We have many tomatoes, but they are still green so will need a little longer before we pick them. We did get several onions and a couple jalapenos. It was perfect to make salsa. The only thing we had to add was tomatoes, garlic, salt and lemon juice, everything else was from our garden!

Our squash will be ready to pick any day now. We are waiting until we can eat it for dinner the day we pick it. It is going to be delicious. We picked on of the Cajun bell peppers, top left picture, to try minced and mix with our beef for tacos. It was really good, an almost sweet and spicy flavor. The majority of our harvest was herbs. The basil plants are doing spectacular. We come out to the garden anytime we are having Italian meals and pick fresh herbs to go right into the sauce. 

Zoey was so excited to bring in the first harvest. The vegetables are on the bottom and there are many herbs overflowing the basket. We had cilantro, basil, parsley, lavender and oregano as the bulk of the first harvest with several peppers and onions to go with it. 

We brought it all in and cleaned it up. Zoey loved helping with all of the prep work. We ended up eating the peppers, onions and cilantro immediately in a homemade pico de gallo salsa. Most of the herbs we dried in our dehydrator. The basil, parsley, oregano and even lavender did great and now we can use them in any meals and they will stay potent for a good long while.

Our garden is such a blessing. Zoey and I go outside and work in it a little almost everyday. I enjoy the upkeep and the peace that it brings. I also love reaping the benefits of all the hard work. 

Blessings,

{Garden Tales} Green Thumb?

One of my favorite things about spring is planting a garden. This year we made some drastic changes to our previous gardens. We moved it in the front yard (because we couldn't keep our dogs from eating the plants.) We made raised beds. And we planted more than we ever have before!

We began this project in March and finished planting the first week in April. It has been just over a month and I want to share the progress. I put the planting photo on the left and the recent photo on the right. (I actually took all these more recent pictures last week...it's amazing the difference a week can make because there is already more veggies coming in!) So the difference is really about 5 weeks (give or take a few days.)

Garden Bed 1

In this first garden bed, I planted from top to bottom: tomatoes, bell peppers, cabbage and sweet onions. Tomatoes and peppers are our favorite things to grow because we use them in everything. This bed is the least complicated and is one of the best growing. Everything is really coming along nicely.

Garden Bed 2

This bed has (from top to bottom): tomatoes, jalapenos, broccoli, flowers and basil. A couple of the broccoli plants died quickly so we replaced them with catnip on the left and chives on the right. Out of four small catnip plants only one survived, so I will probably put something else there soon. The chives, however, are doing quite well. I believe our flowers are getting too much late afternoon sun. It seems the ones in the front of the beds (which gets more afternoon sun) are withering and the ones in the back of the beds (which get more morning sun) are doing great. I am most excited by our basil in this bed because it is our most used herb. We are encouraging them to grow in bush-like form by harvesting from the top. I am very pleased to already be using most of our herbs!

Garden Bed 3

From top to bottom in this bed we have tomatoes, habanero, chili pepper, flowers, spinach, peppermint, cilantro, and flowers. We are having no luck at all with the spinach. With only the exception of a few spinach sprouts, we have replaced it. The spinach is one of the few plants we began from seeds, though it is the only one that failed in such epic fashion. It was replaced with dill on the left and sage on the right. So far, so good. The sage is especially taking off.

Garden Bed 4

This garden bed has (from top to bottom): cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, parsley, flowers, oregano and rosemary. The squash family is especially taking off. There are already several flowers budding of them, though it is hard to see in the picture for the leaves. The parsley is also doing great. We have used all the herbs so far.

Garden Bed 5

This final bed has (from top to bottom): bush green beans, flowers, iceberg lettuce, flowers, lavender and strawberries. The beans were from seeds and sprouted really quickly. They seem to be doing wonderfully. They are just now starting to flower, so hopefully we will begin to see little beans soon. The lettuce was also from seeds and it is doing okay. We have never had very good luck with lettuce, but we wanted to try it in our new garden. We'll see. All the plants are growing, but I don't know how much we will actually be able to harvest. I love having the lavender right by the door. I get a whiff of it every time I leave or enter the house and it is so calming and happy. And it is thriving! Last time I tried lavender it died almost immediately, but this time it is beautiful! The strawberries are wonderful. We have already eaten three off of it. Zoey was excited to eat the first one a couple weeks ago right before her baseball game.

Zoey still helps me water the garden all the time, but this picture was taken right after we planted.

I absolutely love our garden. I don't have a green thumb. I have been know to kill flower plants in days. However, it seems that when I can harvest food and herbs from it, I do okay at keeping it alive at least. It is a wonderful thing for Zoey and I to work on together during the week. We go outside and weed, adjust and water the plants at least two or three times a week. It is nice to get outside because of course when we are done we play, which is always a joy.

I am glad to share this love of gardening with Zoey at such a young age. My mom and dad shared a love of gardening with me ever since I was born. I loved being outside with them helping out and reaping the benefits with a plenty of fresh grown veggies. I am glad I can teach Zoey what my parents taught me and be excited with her as we learn about and experience nature.

photo credit

Happy Spring!