Sage Basil Bouquet

I love cooking with basil but sometimes I don't want to run put to the garden for just 1 leaf...problem solved! This smells marvelous too!! Edible flower bouquet
Thanks Jill :) its a beautiful idea and I think everyone should try this!!

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Garden Update

The sun is creeping over the top of the garage this beautiful gardening morning...its so peaceful! I love sitting out at the garden watching the goats and chickens working and playing in the yard with the kids and seeing all the work we've done finally come to harvest!
The beans gave us quite a good crop but they are on their last leg and so is the broccoli so that will open up 2 more areas to get ready for fall planting. The radish bed is empty and getting ready for a new veggie...still not sure what though. I pulled up the rest of the potatoes a couple days ago and got about 20+ lbs which was pretty exciting! The sweet potatoes are taking off and looking good, as well as the tobacco! The squash is hanging in there, but we lost all the zucchini (along with the spinach!) :( We have several watermelons and pumpkins getting bigger and bigger! We have 2 beds of celery that we planted a couple weeks apart and the first bed is almost ready! All the onions and garlic are done...and yummy! Definately have to plant more onions and garlic next year!! The basil, mint and sage are very abundant! I even did a few herb bouquets for the house that turned out real good...the idea was from my Aunt Jill!! Jill was in town for a few days and was able to stop by the house to see our backyard chaos in person. I'll post more on the herb bouquets later...its such a great idea!! The sunflowers in the front yard are just starting to open up and they look fabulous!! I am SO excitted about those sunflowers!! Oh and the carrots! How could I forget about Henrys carrots!! They are getting closer and closer and I cant wait to see the look on Henrys face when all those carrots come out of the ground!
The tomatoes have taken over the little tomato cages and we had to build a 30 foot wall of twine around the whole row to help contain them! (We put 8 foot stakes every 4 feet and attached the twine with galvanized nails every 12 inches up the stake) They are producing quite well and taste absolutely magnificent! I have never tasted anything that can compare to eating a ripe heirloom cherry tomato right off the vine!!
Overall we have had some tremendous success so far (being our first year here and everything) and I look forward to seeing how much more this little area can produce!!
One things is for sure...working the soil with a good amount of compost will really help the garden be more productive. We added alot of compost to the back 4 rows of the garden and those 4 rows are fantastic!! But we didnt add as much to the front 2 rows because we added them later and had ran out of compost...it was a good experience for us to see how much less that area produced and how much slower the plants grew as well. We have quite a bit of compost that is getting ready to throw out there though so we will work the soil good this time!!

ITS PLANTIN TIME!

Ok so it was time to get everything in the ground last week, but its been a chaos of a week here (family members having surgery, other family going to the emergency room, lalala... not your basic stuff). SO I know this week I have to get GOING! All my seedlings have been sitting outside (day and night) for about a week so I know they are all "hardened off" and ready to meet the ground they will be living in. Since our garden is so large I decided to take it 1 bed at a time and have it done by the end of the week...I didnt want to set insainly high goals because after all I know I will be working with 2 toddlers, 7 chickens and 2 goats...they tend to slow things down a bit...but sure do make it alot more enjoyable!

Bed 1:

We have 4 rows. (from left to right) There is arugula, then lettuce, then 2 rows of Tomatoes interplanted with some some basil and chives. Further down the row the arugula and lettuce become celery and carrots...but its not very visible on this photo. All the plants look SO small! But I have to admit I felt so proud of the little plants, we started them all as seedlings and it is great to see them finally going into the ground!!

We did an heirloom salad blend of seeds so we have several varieties of lettuce.

The tomatoes look tiny but you are supposed to plant them all the way down to the leaves to help the tomatoes get a good root system goin on! Hopefully they get growing fast!

The potatoes are comin up!!

I also got some sage planted yesterday and didnt quite get to the broccoli, but that will be today!

My mom had a bunch of sage, garlic and basil from last year that she brought over for us to plant and I am SO excitted about it. This sage is already green!

Yesterday I Also go the radishes going! These are my dads favourite and I Really just plant the radishes for him to enjoy!! I read that if you plant lettuce in with the radish seeds that it will enhance the taste of the radishes and also the lettuce...so I gave it a try! This bed looks really sad right now because all you can see is a few green lettuce heads planted about 3 feet apart...but soon it will look GREAT!! (I hope)

Ok so the end of day 1 I got a little more than 1 bed planted so that is excitting...back at it today!!! I cant wait!!