Wow!  Its been a minute...or a few years.  

Perhaps I should get back to it?  

Still gardening, but lazily this year.  Still homeschooling but now a 7th grader.  

Still creeping along...

THRIVE Market!

Have you heard about Thrive Market yet?

They are a wonderful company that sells healthy and natural products and brands you love at wholesale prices.  Think Costco but better!  We don't buy much in the way of packaged foods anymore but the few items we do we get from Thrive now.  

When I first learned about them I compared the prices on the items I would buy the most between our local Kroger and Amazon.  Thrive won out every time.  They deliver straight to your door and offer free shipping on any order over $49!  So, about once a month we place our order with Thrive and then we can avoid the store (except the Farmer's market) except for those occasional items you need ASAP. 

Thrive is also a company with a great mission and a commitment to providing a family in need with a membership for each paid membership.  That means, when you join not only do you get the benefits of discounted healthy foods and products...but you are giving that opportunity to another family as well.  I like the sound of that!

This morning we received another order from Thrive.  All this for less than $45! 

That's two bags of organic oats, three packages of wild rice cakes, two huge bags of cereal, pancake mix, two boxes of crackers, baby wash, toothpaste and they included a recipe for blueberry muffins ♥

If you'd like to give Thrive a test drive, you can try them out without paying for membership for 2 months.  You will also get 25% off your first order and free shipping over $49!  Give it a try and let me know what you think.  If you have any questions, let me know! 

Try THRIVE now!

Fig!

Summer is starting its wind down here at our little house.  The pool hours are cutting back, public school started back today and most of the Summer crops in the garden have already been pulled to make way for Fall plantings.  Its a bittersweet feeling to see the sky darkening sooner and to see the first leaves already beginning to fall (even though its still in the 90's here today).  Its that mixed bag of being eager for my favorite season to arrive and being a little sad that Summer is almost gone.  Truly, Fall doesn't really get going around here until October...but I am already dreaming of pulling the scarves back out and mixing up batches and batches of pumpkin bread.

Today in honor of the pending close to Summer and the welcoming of Fall we made fig jam.  We have a fig tree or two in our backyard but they are still green.  I am afraid they are not going to ripen properly due to how dry it has been and Mr. has been eyeing them like crazy.  So, when we went to the market this morning and saw they had buy one get one containers of figs that was that.

 You can tell we are jonesing for Fall here, right?

While the baby napped I whipped up two jars of fig jam, one with cinnamon and one without.  Hopefully we will still get our own figs from out back, but in case we don't...this should do the trick.  

Fig Jam Recipe:

24 ripe figs

One Lemon

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon (optional)

2 cups water

Wash and allow figs to air dry 

Chop figs and place in large sauce pan

Add 2 cups water and bring to a low boil

Add sugar and turn up heat

After about 10 minutes mash if you like

Continue to stir frequently to avoid sticking

Add lemon juice 

Continue to simmer over medium heat until it thickens to consistency you like 

Add cinnamon if desired

Allow to cool then add to clean jars

Will keep in refrigerator for 10 or so days

July Garden Update!

I decided to get myself on the ball and get this done a few days earlier rather than later this month.  Things have been coming in slow but steadily in the garden this month.  Not the windfall that I had hoped...but its early still...and HOT!  I think many of the plants have slowed production because its just too...damn...hot.  Temps will be in the mid 90's this week but we are looking for a few afternoon showers which should help the water bill.  I put some DIY ollas in the pumpkin patch box over the weekend. Mine aren't as pretty or as nice as the clay ones...but they were also made of leftover gallon water jugs so there you go!  Hopefully they will help regulate the water disbursement in that box.  

The garden has been seeing its fair share of pests this month too...beetles eating the leaves and pickle worms invading my cucumbers (EWWWWW).  We have also has the barrage of ants and aphids that are expected in pretty much any garden.  I HATE...DESPISE bugs.  Pretty much anything besides bees, butterflies and lightning bugs grosses me out.  If it resembles a maggot or nasty little worm (or huge grub) its only worse.  So...that all being said I have sprayed the garden twice with a neem oil mixture I made myself using some oil I ordered online.  It smells like rotten peanut butter but its safe (you can harvest the same day), pests supposedly can't stand it and its one of the only things you can use on crops if you are USDA certified.  So far, I still see beetles and worms the most...but I have read it is not an immediate thing and you have to wait for the effects to come about.  I am also accepting of the fact that the produce from my yard will have bumps, bruises and bugs.  That's garden life y'all.

And now for some garden pics:

You can see the damaged leaves on the cucumbers from those darn beetles

cucumber almost ready to pick

more cucumbers that have taken over the trellis and shaded out the peas

First of the Autumn sunflower mix has finally bloomed

Strawberries, basil, greens and sunflowers

Sincere pumpkin patch with hillbilly ollas, oregano and marigolds.

Total food grown so far this season is now 10.78 lbs.  This has mostly consisted of cucumbers and tomatoes and one lone zucchini.  There are 16 tomato plants in the back of the house and a patch of zucchinis that I ignore.  The zucchinis that were in the front met their demise from vine borers and powdery mildew.  I plan to try again with a July planting of zucchinis in buckets since I now understand that July planting is better to try to avoid borers and since we are int he South there will still be plenty of time for harvest before it gets too cold.

The Fall seeds have come in.  We are planting radishes, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, kale, lettuce, carrots and potatoes again.  Oh!  That's right...the failed potatoes from earlier.  They were infested with termites when I dumped them over and were super small.  I think they were too hot as well and the plants dies off before the roots had time to really develop.  I am going to try waiting until colder temps and move the can they were in.  We should get a harvest for Fall.  

That's all from the garden for now.  Hopefully next month will see us harvesting more goodies and preparing for Fall planting. 

Gardening Can Be Weird

June Garden Update...In July

Better late than never...that's what they say.

June was a busy month...full with swimming, pizza nights (at the pool), homemade popsicles and more swimming.  You'd think the kids would be water-logged...but we still have a lot of Summer to go!

June started out with a bang in the garden and then ended with some complications, mostly of the buggy and hot kind. 

This being my first year of having a REAL garden means there is quite the learning curve.  Being a newbie coupled with my almost visceral reaction to researching anything before doing it means we are learning on the fly y'all.  

That being said...Lessons learned in June:

Plant your zucchini in mid-July to try and avoid vine borers that will suck the life right out of your plants and leave you with wilting, sad shells of zucchini plants and if you manage to get ONE zucchini it will have a gross grub in it.  :( 

Also, make sure your soil has enough of the right minerals and such to avoid blossom end rot.  (Gotta get a soil testing kit)

Peas don't like it when it gets too hot and will start to brown and die.  Replant in Fall for more pea goodness!

Cucumbers don't typically like it when you transplant them.  I got lucky with one batch but the ones I moved to the pumpkin patch...no dice.

DON'T plant your carrots too close together or you will end up with something more like microscopic carrots...not even on the baby scale.  

Plant your onions sooner after you purchase them than later...poor babies didn't make it.  

This month I tried to wrangle the cucumbers that have taken over everything, keep all plants watered as best I can, planted more carrots where the failed onions lived and did  lot of looking up ways to control bugs naturally in the garden.  We ordered neem oil to try and get rid of all the pests eating my sunflowers and peppers and our Fall seeds and a good ground cover for Winter.  

 Here are some pics (only from the front of the house...no backyard pics yet): 

 The sincere pumpkin patch with failed transplanted cukes in the middle 

 Struggling jalapenos, basil, rosemary, strawberries, sunflowers and greens

 Box #2: Sunflowers, marigolds, cosmos, newly planted carrots, cuckes, dying zucchini and dill

Box #1: Jalapenos, carrots, zucchini, cukes, marigolds, peas

Visitor

Will be back with pics of the tomatoes and backyard zucchinis.  Looks like we may get to harvest potatoes this weekend!  

Total food grown this year:

2.93 lbs

Garden Update

This is our first year of REALLY planting a garden.  In the past I tried to grow a few things (one year even in the square foot box I ordered online).  Usually it was just a few pots of herbs and some failed tomatoes.  My problem is I get lazy and forget to water everything and in the Georgia summers that just doesn't cut it.  

This year will be different though.  I am determined to grow something of substance and begin learning about growing my own food.  That, combined with the 9-year-olds (be it short-lived) desire to have a garden had me placing a decent sized order for seeds in the late Winter.  We combed over our High Mowing Seeds catalog and chose what we wanted to grow and what we thought we had enough sunlight for.  

We started with trying to start a few seeds indoors.  That didn't turn out so well.  Our tomatoes and Iko Iko peppers just didn't do so hot so, I abandoned starting them inside and just waited until it was warm enough to throw everything outdoors.  I ended up having to purchase small tomato plants since I wasted all our seeds trying to DIY it.  We ended up purchasing a mixture of plants from the big box garden store and through our CSA market.  

Once it was warm enough we started with green arrow peas, zucchinis, cucumbers, spring mix, carrots basil, rosemary, spinach and jalapenos.  In the back of the house we planted our tomato plants in buckets and some organic potatoes I had saved in a large garbage can.  We quickly ran out of space and added a second box of onions, sunflowers, cosmos and some thinned cucumbers and zucchinis (I went a little crazy with the seeds).  We were also gifted some free strawberry plants and raspberry plants from a kind neighbor and added more strawberry plants, all in pots next to the boxes.  

I ended up having to thin the cucumbers and zucchinis big time so some zucchinis were moved to a spot in the back yard under this strange flower pot thingy that is filled with basil seedlings. 

 (first box with jalapenos, carrots, spring mix, zucchinis, peas, cucumbers and spinach)

 (potato can)

 (thinned zucchinis underneath weird planter thing filled with basil)

 (second box with onions, dill, sunflowers, cosmos, more zucchini and cucumbers)

(16 tomato plants of various varieties)

Now one month later, things are coming along pretty well.  I managed to rehab the fledgling cucumber plants and zucchinis that looked a little rough in the beginning.  Here is how things looked over the weekend:

(Various strawberry plants, basil, rosemary and wildflowers in pots.  newish greens and spinach along with some extra sunflowers in gifted pallet)

 (salvaged cucumbers in long pot)

 (second box still coming along with added marigolds)

 (original box with added marigolds, re-homed jalapenos and some cucumbers that need to be thinned again badly)

 (peas coming in)

(more peas and cucumbers on back deck)

There you have it...one month of work and growth.  Still doesn't look like a lot, but its improvement.  We have been weighing and tracking all that we harvest so we can see at the end of the year what we have grown.  SO far we have a whopping 1 lb of berries, a few ounces of spring mix and a gallon freezer bag of basil that I haven't weighed yet.  Creeping along y'all, creeping along.