Planting is done!

Whew, we finally got everything in the ground last week and it is all blowing up already! We can barely keep up with the lettuce bed, cabbage and the potatoes are huge! We already have broccoli heading up!

We have 20 tomato plants and in between them we planted Basil (makes the tomatoes taste better and keeps bugs off) and other herbs like parsley and dill.

We have 10 watermellon plants, 4 different varieties, and several pumpkins and Okra in this row that is mounded up and covered in plastic to keep it wet and warm.

We are now just watering and waiting to start Picking! Thankfully we have some rain barrels that we collected rain water off moms garage and that has been a life saver the last few days since is is 80 degrees and DRY! We will need to get 5 or so more barrels to get us through the summer. Its amazing how fast a 55 gallon barrel fills up in 10 minutes of rain. We feel like w are wasting it when they overflow!

We will keep updating as it grows!

Oh and a pic of the pups... dont want to leave them out!

All Ready for Planting!

We are finally ready to plant ! The sprouts are big now and ready to go in the ground. We had to finnish getting the garden ready though. We made two raised rows of soil for the tomatoes so their roots can grow deep and strong and lined them with soaker hoses and then covered them with plastic to keep the soil warm, water in and weeds down. We have space for about 16 tomato plants and one row for about 15 pepper plants.

We also made the same type of row for all the melons.
Our Potatoes are sprouting great and the lettuce bed is already supplying Adam, me and my mom fresh lettuce daily.
The peas are about 4''-6'' tall and starting to climb the trellises we made on our greenhouse frame.
We seeded the beans Monday night and we have about 11 different varieties of beans and about 10 of each variety.
The Cabbage and broccoli and cauliflower are all getting huge and they look really healthy. We are impressed with our twine fence, the deer have stayed away and the parameter of the garden is lined with onions to keep the little rodents out, seems to be working so far, we will plant about 200 more onions this weekend.
We had fun last weekend, we went south to Springfield then east to Mansfield Missouri to the Baker Creek Spring planting festival. They opened at 10 am and we pulled up at 10:15 then sat in a long line of cars for about 50 minutes just to park.
They have some new buildings this year and one is a restaurant. We didn't go in because the line was out the door. It rained all day and people still turned out by the thousands. Adam picked up some new seeds (the seed store was cram packed)he wanted and he found his volcanic and glacier rock dust he's been looking for. Its great for the soil and add tons of good minerals back to the dirt. They have a stone oven in the middle of everything baking fresh bread, smelled sooo good.
We also picked up a red raspberry bush. He is a happy boy.
Tomorrow night we are planting all the tomatoes, peppers, melons, okra, and pumpkins. All the herbs we started will be planted in between everything strategically to keep out bad bugs and draw in good bugs to certain plants.
We have been working till dark every night after work and we are tired but excited to see everything coming together so well. (Adam is actually asleep on the couch with Rudiger right now he is so tired. )
I believe it is my bed time too....

April Showers....

We are busting at the seams! We are almost ready to put everything in the ground in another week or two. We have 34 Tomato plants and 32 pepper plants, basil, lavender, okra, eggplant, watermelons, lemongrass, dill, chamomile and pumpkins.

We have seeded everything inside that needs to be started. We will put squash and beans outside soon too. We cant wait to start eating all of this.

We have a nice lettuce bed that we started eating from yesterday, and the peas and cabbage are a few inches tall now and doing great.

We do have visitors in the garden. A little mouse was sneaking around and a snake was hiding under a bale of straw.

This weekend we are headed south to Mansfield Missouri to the Annual Baker Creek Spring planting festival to stock up on some new interesting seeds and maybe some small fruit trees or berry bushes. http://streetsofbakersville.com/village/

They even have 9'' tall baby goats, Izzy would love a playmate her size!

Maybe next year Izzy....

Garden is ready for spring!

Well we spent all last weekend and every night this week getting the garden ready for spring plantings. It is 2 1/2 times the size it was last year. We have 9 raised beds, and an area for tomatoes, beans and melons. Adam took the day off Thursday to till the garden and get it ready before it rained . We used the frame from our makeshift greenhouse to twine between the frames for the beans and peas trellis, it looks like it will work perfectly.

The garden is about 40 feet wide and 70 feet long. We made a barrier with twine to keep the deer out and planted a parameter of onions, marigolds and aramanth to keep the smaller critters out.

We planted our Cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage seedlings yesterday and seeded the lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, kale, radishes, beets and peas. We are planting some items in plastic covered dirt in an attempt to keep the weeds down, soil warm and dirt off the plants.

We also seeded our tomatoes (12 varieties) and peppers ( 5 varieties) inside last night and they will go out in a month and a half.

We will have abut 21 tomato plants and hope to have enough of a few things to try out the market this summer.

Today was our day of rest. We took a nap with the pups and went for a long walk in the 75 degree weather.
It is going to be stormy this week so everything will get a good water and we will get to rest at night.

Until next time......

Ahhh Spring is coming.....

We think we made it through the winter and finally Spring is almost here. The weather has been much better, it was 80 the other day and we can finally get outside to start getting the garden ready for another season. We are enlarging the size of the garden, we plan to double it this year and have more raised beds. We have already started our cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower inside and the sprouts are almost ready to go outside in a few weeks.

Sunday we built 7 of the 10 raised beds and started plotting out the garden so next weekend (if its nice out and dry) we can till and get the onions in the ground. We spent the winter making compost so we have lots of good nutritious dirt to start the season. We also left the frame from the greenhouse up so we can climb the beans and peas on it. We lost the greenhouse to some strong winds back in December. We are doubling the size of the garden this year. The one we had last year will be all tomatoes, peas and beans and the new one will be all raised beds with lettuce, onions, squash, cucumbers, radishes, beets, watermelons etc.

Its still to iffy to plant much right now, this March is colder than normal and we still have the threat of cold nights and frost so we will keep our fingers crossed it will be warmer soon.

Adam is crawling out of his skin waiting to get out and plant. He has all kinds of ideas this year and wants to get started.

The dogs are ready for spring too, they added on a few extra pounds this year. Izzy is now 9 lbs and Rudiger is 20lbs. Fatties.....

They will be happy to start walking again when its warmer.

Uncle Danen comes over and plays with them a lot. Izzy likes to sit right on top of tummies. Rudiger likes to stand in front of whatever we may be trying to watch.

That all for now. We will be updating more as we get the garden going and can get out more often.

In Memory of William Logan Burt

Pop was the reason Adam loved to garden. He used to keep rain water in old whisky jugs with funnels in the top. He grew all kinds of vegetables and such in his back yard and Adam would help him pick Okra, and collards and learned to compost. He always gardened as organically as he could and that intrigued Adam. He looked up to pop and respected him for his toughness, knowledge and Adam always wanted to impress him. Pop was proud of Adam for wanting to start this farm and so we thought it would be fitting to write about him in our blog.

Pop passed away on Wednesday Morning January 7th while sleeping at John Knox Care center. He enjoyed watching old westerns and the birds in the back yard. He also loved chocolate, woodworking, Outback Steakhouse and collecting knives (must be where Adam gets it....)

He loved being near his family and has lived with Bev and Rick for the past 9 years. We enjoyed the time he spent here in Lees Summit with us and are so glad he was able to see us carry on with what he taught Adam as a little boy.

We love you pop and we miss you.

Winter is approaching....

Izzy and Rud are keeping warm by crawling into fresh piles of clothes right out of the dryer. They dont like cold weather at all, so they snuggle alot.
The like to sleep on daddys lap while he watches tv.

We got the greenhouse done just in time for cold weather.

We have two layers of plastic over a frame and straw bales around the parimeter to keep the frost line higher. We have carrots, squash, broccoli, califlower, pumpkins, basil, and about 1,000 tomatoes sprouts although the tomatoes wont make it in the colder nights.

It stays about 80 degrees during the day and gets cool at night but for now is working really well. We just want to see what it can do.

We just had a storm with 50 MPH winds the other night and the greenhouse stood strong, test #1. Cold is next.

Bree got a new car this month. It's a 2009 Honda Fit. Small and gets great milage ( about 35-40 MPG) and it has much more room than the little fairy car. It was a sad goodby to the little show car but its time for a more useful car now.

Thats all for now, hope everyone is well! Keep warm!

Been a while.....

Well, Its almost the end of October and its been a while since we wrote. Its starting to get cold at night so we have been busy getting the garden ready for winter. We are building a homemade green house out of things we found around Mom G's house. We have the frame built out of re bar we found and tied it together with zip ties. It is about 25 ft long and 15 ft wide. We still need to get the plastic on it but we are almost done and we will hopefully have a quaint little green house for the winter.

Adams birthday was last Tuesday the 14th and we spent the day together going to his favorite restaurants for lunch and dinner and we took a hay ride and picked pumpkins from a pumpkin patch at a big farm here locally. He was a happy boy....

He got a dehydrator from his parents so we have been drying all our herbs from the garden and made our own hot Sage tea tonight...yummy!

We are getting ready to pick crab apples from the 5 big trees my mom has and dry them for crab apple tea, and jelly and canned candied crab apples.

We will post the final pictures of the green house when it is finished, hopefully this weekend if the rain holds off for a bit.

Its time for bed, the little ones told us to get off the computer and tuck them in. Izzy's pooped, she had a long tough day at work we assume.

Goodnight...