Garden Update

It's Barn Hop Monday #5 so those of you that have been Following my blog for awhile know what that means!!!  I'll be posting about our latest Homesteading efforts.  Today, it's all about vegetables, fruit and herbs.

Spring came to us a couple of weeks early so we're a little ahead of the usual planting season.  The following were sown directly in the ground after our last frost...  green onions, potatoes, garlic, onions, purple hull peas, okra and cucumbers.  (Although we did have a scare one night a couple of weeks ago; temps dropped suddenly to almost freezing but everything is OK, whew!) 

Cucumbers and Potatoes

Garlic and onions

Purple hull peas and Okra

Several tomato plants were rescued from the chicken run and the others were started in the greenhouse in late February and are still in the greenhouse.  Country Boy repotted them today.  Once they get a little bigger he'll transplant them into the garden.  Several of the rescued tomato plants have blooms on them already!

Tomato plant

I planted Basil, Parsley, Chives and Dill in an above ground wooden planter.  They are slowly coming up.  I had several surprise plants coming up as well because I used some composted dirt in the planter.  Turns out they are bell peppers that are doing quite well!  A nice surprise!  Gotta love compost!

We also have wild blackberries and grapes on our property.

Blackberry buds

Grape leaves and vines

We had small caterpillar like worms on our apple, pear, orange and tangerine trees.  I mixed up a solution of 1 tsp. hot sauce, 1 quart of water and 4 cloves of garlic in a blender then strained into a garden sprayer.  Country Boy used this to spray the trees and it has helped keep the bugs off.  If anyone has another all-natural 'recipe' for bugs I'd love to hear about it!

For other great Homesteading tips and projects, please click HERE!  Happy Homesteading!

Till next time,