Category Archives: Garden

Bugs

When the summer heat arrives, so do the bugs. Since we try to avoid the use of any chemicals in the garden, there are some battles that just aren’t worth fighting. When deciding what to plant, the susceptibility to insect … Continue reading

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Switzerland, Chickens, a Garden, and Ronda

The lovely Southern Lady on this magazine cover is Ronda – the step-daughter of my best friend from college. Ronda and her husband live in Lausanne, Switzerland – an incredibly beautiful place that looks more like a dreamy postcard than … Continue reading

Posted in Chickens, Garden | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Gardening in West Africa

This is a follow-up to a previous post in which I mentioned that some of the seeds that I have been collecting from my garden would be sent to Sierra Leone, West Africa with some of our missionary friends. These … Continue reading

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The 33 Golden Rules of Gardening

Carol Deppe is, without a doubt, one of my favorite authors of gardening books. We’ll talk more about her books in a future post, but I wanted to pass along the 33 main points from Chapter two of her book, … Continue reading

Posted in Garden | Tagged , | Leave a comment

How Big Does Okra Get?

On October 20, I began removing all of the hot weather crops from the garden. The next step is to add and mix in some more compost and prepare for the cool weather crops. When it came time to remove … Continue reading

Posted in Garden | Tagged | Leave a comment

Soil Blocks Update

On the Starting Seeds page, I showed how to use a soil block mold for starting seeds. After much experimenting, I have made a few modifications to the process. I no longer try to pack the soil mixture in tighter … Continue reading

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Sweet Potato Update

Our first crop of sweet potatoes was a major disappointment. Although the plants were extremely vigorous, they produced only a few potatoes when it came time to dig them up. In addition, their extensive root system seemed to take over … Continue reading

Posted in Garden | Tagged | Leave a comment

Saving Eggplant Seeds

Eggplant seeds are processed much like tomatoes. The main difference is that tomatoes are allowed to ferment in the same liquid that is used to separate the seeds, while eggplant fruit is rotted first and then added to water to … Continue reading

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

How Much Okra?

Sometimes it just helps to see how much a given area can produce rather than reading numbers on a spreadsheet. Okra, beside being something I thoroughly enjoy, is a very prolific producer. Here are two photos – the first showing … Continue reading

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Three Tools

There are three basic garden tools that I consider to be necessities. These are the ones that I use constantly. Stainless steel garden trowel. I have several garden trowels around, but this is my favorite. It is solidly made and … Continue reading

Posted in Garden | Tagged , | Leave a comment