Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Earlier summer garden notes

A post I just noticed not sent from earlier on this summer: (an update: the garden is almost gone! All we have left are some peppers, basil, and possibly watermelon! We are making plans for a fall/winter garden now. )

How are you?
Share from your kitchens!
Share from your living areas!
Share from your gardens!
Share, share!

How is your homemaking?

Things here are overflowing with blessings.
There have been some scary situations… some sad moments and reflections and things haven’t been perfect. What I’m choosing to focus on is the light flowing through our lives and that light is from the Lord. He pours it down from heaven and surrounds us with beauty so bountiful that the world’s countless words cannot come close to explaining it.  Here, we  are growing our best gardens ever, we are happy in our new (to us) home and still studying nutrition in research, reading, and almost living in the kitchen some days.

My husband lost 41 pounds and won a Biggest Loser contest at work and since I started my weight loss journey three years ago… I have lost 36 pounds. I prayed over this and I believe God has been showing the way to go and it is an ongoing thing… not just a one ditch effort.

We have tried herb gardens, vegetable gardens, berries, flowers, you name it over the years. With all we put in… we haven’t yielded a great deal of harvest. The closest was one of my many herb gardens but something happened the next year and it never did well again. This year, I prayed over our seeds, seedlings, soil, land, and on and on and the Lord just blessed and blessed and blessed some more! I honestly don’t know that we have lost ONE plant! We WAY OVER PLANTED in hopes to have at least some success but every spot has not only survived but THRIVED! I even won a contest from www.seedsofchange.org (I think that is it) and got 50.00 worth of seeds for FREE!
We have three kinds of watermelons, three types of cucumbers, cauliflower, broccoli, yellow peppers, red peppers, rainbow chard, yellow squash, carrots, purple pole beans, basil, parsley, okra, egg plant, pineapple sage, sage, rosemary, lemon balm, dill, cilantro, several kinds of tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, banana peppers, specialty peppers, cantaloupe, honeydew, nasturtiums, zucchini, beets, sweet potatoes, oregano, chives, chamomile, lavender, sweet mint, peppermint, German thyme, lemon thyme, hanging strawberries, and some flowering beauties left here by my beautiful MIL when she moved.

We are so in awe of God’s work every time we mulch, weed, gather, water, and so on.
I am also doing something I have tried for around 15 years now without the first sign of success …ever. I am growing aloe! Everyone I EVER had died no matter what advice I followed or how I followed it! Now? I have so many and more being potted every few weeks! I have two nice sized ones in pottery pots on each side of our back door (inside) and another one in a planter basket on one of the end tables. I have a stone fire place front/floor/shelf and there are a row of them there. I have a huge one (a gift someone had for like 10 years) in a terra cotta pot in the dining room, a vintage bowl full of little pots of them and some on the front porch! I used cacti soil mixed with some organic potting soil and some in regular soil and others in just organic potting soil. They are doing SO well!

My daily rhythm is basically:
Getting up around 4:30 or 5:00 am with my husband and making his coffee for then and a cup to go as well as a cup for me ;) I make his breakfast (oatmeal, eggs and garden squash with onions, or grits) and sometimes a smoothie or juice.

When he leaves, I have been sitting down with my coffee and doing my quiet time… reading the Word, praying, prayer journaling and so on. This morning I changed the schedule around. Now, I am heading to the gardens before Bible time to beat the heat. I may start reading but as soon as the sun rises, I head out with my garden hat on and hand shears in gloved hand ;) I take a good look at everything, weed here and there, mulch where needed, water if necessary, and gather anything ripe and ready! I want a lovely basket or something for gathering new cucumbers, basil leaves, pineapple sage, tomatoes, okra, rainbow chard, peppers, peppers, and more peppers! 

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