I picked more spinach today, and it’s just about done for the spring crop. We’d had a short heat burst last week, and it really bolted fast this year. Will try to do a fall spinach planting…but since we’ve said this many years and haven’t ever, will see if we get this far. Usually when it’s time to plant a fall crop, I’m knee-deep in green beans and tomatoes, and I just don’t have the time for more spinach.

Kevin got in the squash this week….he planted zucchini, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, cashaw, and pie pumpkins. I have lots of new pickle recipes that I want to try with the summer squash, as well as the usual and traditional quick breads and baked squash.

He’s also busy rebuilding our wooden tomato cages. We’ve been using these things for years, and they have just about given up in being useful after so many years in the weather. Good news, though, is Kev found an idea using old cattle panels and bending them into tomato cages. He’s getting to them as he can, but when they’re all done, we won’t need to worry about rebuilding any cages for a long time!

I kept busy weeding the peas and cucumbers, and then we put up the pickle fence for the cukes to grow up. Really does make picking cucumbers that much easier…and less back breaking!

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend…we had beautiful weather here in Iowa! We had a nice, quiet weekend here at home with Cody, Travis, and Kelsey….was nice to have everyone here for a long weekend!

We’ve definitely been busy around here the past few weeks in the garden. Since Memorial weekend was so nice, we got a good bit planted. We put in cucumbers (both for fresh eating and pickling), more radishes. The green beans and the lima beans were planted. Kevin planted a few ground cherries and the celery. I got in more garlic, hot peppers (jalapeno, ancho, Anaheim, cayenne, and habanero) and some bell peppers, although the bells aren’t looking too good yet.

We’ve also been eating a ton of asparagus, and I made a huge rhubarb strawberry crumble for supper on Sunday night…yum!!

Thought I’d post a few pics of how the garden looks after the weekend…as Kevin says, as soon as we finish hoeing and weeding, we quick take some pics while it looks nice….it definitely doesn’t look this way all the time  lol 🙂

This one shows the potatoes, broccoli, and cauliflower. There’s a new rhubarb patch, horseradish, and chives to the left of the cauliflower (out of the picture).

This picture is of the “big garden”…I think it’s 75′ x 75′. On the far left (out of this picture) are two 75′ foot rows of asparagus, green and lima beans (newly planted), garlic and more radishes (newly planted), and hot/green bell peppers. This shows a small portion of the tomatoes we have in plus the cabbage and onions.

Closest garden has lettuce, garlic, kale, brussel sprouts, more onions, carrots, beets, spinach, and 4 tomatoes that we planted way back in April….and 2 of them have on blooms finally 🙂  The farther small garden patch has peas, kohlrabi, and newly planted radishes. In the black tubs on each end, I have my herb garden….really small this year, but if it turns into anything, maybe I’ll convince Kevin to till me up a big patch for next year 🙂

I also came across a canning inventory sheet on http://www.sbcanning.com/  (fabulous website), and I thought I’d share it with you. I’m going to try to remember to record everything I can and freeze this year just to see exactly how much we do. I did this one other year a long time ago, and I think I used something like 650+ canning lids and forgot to count how many freezer bags we went through. Anyway…here’s the link for the inventory sheet:

Canning Inventory Sheet

Spring gardening is well underway at the Wood household. We started earlier this spring starting seeds…some of which we’d never started from seed before. I spent the winter looking at seed catalogs and finding companies who only sold heirloom, non-GMO seeds. I firmly believe our health is at stake, and the first step in becoming healthier is to start in our garden. Plus, it was just plain fun again to be picking out seeds 🙂

Kevin and I have been gardening for over 20 years now, ever since we were married. Both our families had gardened and canned every summer, but I was never overly interested when I was growing up. But as we started our family, I became obsessed with making sure I knew where our family’s food was coming from.

This year we are back to our huge gardens again, after taking a couple years off when we really had no time due to us having a quilt shop…and boy do our cupboards show it! So, my goal this year is to fill up all the shelves (and maybe a few more!) with home canned goodies to cut back on our food bill.

So far we have established some grape vines…I actually wanted the grapes for the leaves, as I use them when I make dill pickles, but this year they’re finally setting on some grapes! We have Concord and Niagara varieties, so we will hopefully have some grapes to munch on this year, and maybe even some jelly if I’m lucky!

Our strawberry patch bit the dust a few years ago thanks to the resident deer population, although I did see a few straggler strawberry blooms in the patch this year. We’re not planning on replanting them (have tried 3 different times) as the deer always seem to get to them before we do. I have found a nearby pick-your-own strawberry patch, though, so we will not be going without them!

The fruit trees are all in bloom, and even our newest trees (Stanley plums and Northstar cherry) have blooms this year….I see pies in my future! We also have several apple varieties, pears, peaches, and apricots in the backyard that all produce yummy fruit. Our black raspberries also have sent up new canes, so I’m looking forward to them this year.

New additions to our “orchard” this year include dewberries (Kevin’s favorite), huckleberries, blueberries, gooseberries, and elderberries. Of course, after the gooseberries arrives, Kevin tells me that we have tons of wild gooseberries growing on our place….a fact I never knew! One day he took me around to show me all the gooseberries, and he’s right….if they all produce a small amount, I will be overflowing with gooseberries!! Anyone have any favorite recipes they would like to share??? I have a feeling I’m going to need a few.

For the veggies, we have quite a bit in the ground so far, with the later crops yet to be planted when it’s a bit warmer. Peas, radishes, kohlrabi, spinach, beets, kale, carrots, onions, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, and tomatoes are in and doing pretty well (even after the hail storm this afternoon). We’ve been enjoying our asparagus and rhubarb too. Yet to be planted are cucumbers, butternut squash, zucchini, spaghetti squash, pumpkins, bell peppers, hot peppers, ground cherries, pole green beans, lima beans, and bush green beans. We have grown popcorn in the past but don’t need to this year, and we don’t plant sweet corn because of all the deer and raccoons around. We do buy massive quantities, though, from a farmer friend who has the most absolutely sweetest corn there is so we can freeze a bunch of it. I’m sure I’ve forgotten something and will have to squeeze it in the garden somewhere!

I’ve also planted a big (for us anyway!) herb garden. I use a lot of herbs when I cook and when I can spaghetti sauce and salsa, so why not grow my own to use fresh? I put out lots of garlic, rosemary, basil, oregano, thyme, chives, parsley, and cilantro. I tried growing from seed some medicinal herbs too, but those didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. Maybe I’ll try again next year, as I really want to establish a medicinal herb garden. I do still have calendula and echinacea seeds to put out when it’s warmer, so hopefully they will turn into something yet.