Wordless Wednesday: Spring Flowers

Our Fairy Garden

Lovely place for the fairies to play (or Pokemon)!

Fairy Ivy Meets a Mermaid! Wooden Dolls sold here.

The Making of The Fairy Garden

A Fairy House made of twigs and Bark

When I was a little girl, no matter where we lived we always had a garden. No matter the size, there were always certain rules that were followed. One was that Marigolds were always planted with the vegetables. As a little girl I thought it was just to make the planting beds look pretty. Now I am older and understand the relationship that marigolds have in the garden.

Marigolds are easy to grow and they help keep the away aphids, the relationship between plants and insects is known as ‘companion planting,’ and it has been passed down for generations as the safest, most natural way to garden. Our new buzz word for it is organic.

Marigolds were first discovered by the Portuguese in Central America in the 16th century. Marigolds are hardy, annual plants. There are two genuses which are referred to by the common name, Marigolds viz., Tagetes and Celandula. Tagetes includes African Marigolds and French Marigolds. Celandula includes Pot Marigolds. Tagetes are used in the garden to repel insects and Celandula is an extremely effective herb for the treatment of skin problems .

Marigolds can be planted anywhere in the garden to deter Mexican bean beetles, squash bugs, tomato hornworms, and whiteflies. They are also known to repel harmful root knot nematodes (soil dwelling microscopic white worms) that attack tomatoes, potatoes, roses, and strawberries. The root of the Marigold produces a chemical that kills nematodes as they enter the soil.

Other plant that help with pest control:

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  Peppermint repels ants, white cabbage moths, aphids, and flea beetles.


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  Garlic discourages aphids, fleas, Japanese beetles, and spider mites.


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  Perennial Chives repel aphids and spider mites.


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  Basil drives away flies and mosquitoes.


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  Rosemary and Sage repel cabbage moths, bean beetles, and carrot flies.

Ladybug, Ladybug ...

Ladybug, Ladybug Nursery Rhyme
Ladybug! Ladybug!
Fly away home.
Your house is on fire.
And your children all gone.

All except one,
And that's little Ann,
For she crept under
The frying pan.

We have ordered ladybugs to add to our garden. When gardening in an organic way, we want to work with nature not against her. There are lots of great plants and insects who will happily come work for you in your garden to keep away unwanted dinning guests. Ladybugs are beneficial because they feed on aphids and other soft bodied insects that feed on plants. They feeds on these pests as the adult ladybug and also as the larva. One ladybug can eat as many as 50 aphids a day.

We have also ordered a lovely little house for them, it will be a sweet addition to our garden. A Ladybug House encourages these beneficial insects to take up residence in your garden and provides a safe roosting place during chilly months.

History of the ladybug:
In Europe, during the Middle Ages, insects were destroying the crops, so the Catholic farmers prayed to the Virgin Mary for help. Soon the Ladybugs came, ate the plant-destroying pests and saved the crops! The farmers began calling the ladybugs "The Beetles of Our Lady", and they eventually became known as "Lady Beetles"! The red wings represented the Virgin's cloak and the black spots represented her joys and sorrows. They didn't differentiate between males and females.


For more information check out these websites:

http://www.growquest.com/ladybug_page.htm

http://www.ladybuglady.com/

http://butterflywebsite.com/Articles/MQuinn/MQuinn1.htm

http://www.coloring.ws/ladybugs1.htm

Wordless Wednesday: 1st Harvest of the year...

April Showers bring May Flowers

A small flower bed near the kid's playhouse.

Family Work

This past weekend we enjoyed some official Family Work. It is a time when we work together, even the little ones to clean up or help improve our family in some way. This weekend we worked on our garden and planted strawberries.

Everbearing strawberries to be exact; they will produce from spring to fall and come back stronger each year! In the past we have always spent Mother's Day or what ever weekend they were ready, at a local pick-your-own farm. Last year they started charging a picking fee per person no mater what size the person. Well for a family of six those ended up being some very pricey berries. Now we will have our own strawberries all season long.

Next week we will put in our other seeds and look into container blueberry bushes. Each week we will add more stones and more items to the garden. I love the idea of Edible Landscaping!

Want to know more? Check out these links.

Websites:

http://www.ediblelandscaping.com/

http://www.garden.org/ediblelandscaping/

http://www.plantea.com/edibleland.htm

Books:

Landscaping with Fruits and Vegetables by Fred Hagy

Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn by Fritz Haeg, Diana Balmori, Rosalind Creasy, and Michael Pollan

Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden And Your Neighborhood into a Community by Heather Coburn

Simple Fruit Salad

This is a family favorite! I like to use a mix of canned and fresh fruits.

1 can of diced pineapple
1 can of pears in juice (dice if needed)
1 can of peaches in juice (dice if needed)
1 can of mandarin oranges
1 package of blueberries (washed)
1 package of strawberries (washed and diced or sliced)

Mix all together in a large bowl making sure to add juice. Enjoy!

It's the most wonderful time of the year.....

No, I don't mean Christmas, it's seed catalogue season. Any homesteading family worth it's weight in Zucchini knows that gardening takes planning! All my kids love to dig in the dirt, but my second son, Max, is going to be a farmer when he grows up. If you saw him reading the seed catalog you would think he was reading the latest Toys’R’Us flyer! Ooh’s and Ah’s can be heard throughout the house!We start out by earmarking the pages of the new seeds we want to try like, dragon carrots ( they are purple inside) and Easter Egg Radishes ( grow in a pretty mix of colors). We dream and talk of the growing season. We set a budget and then scale back to stay in it. We start out our seeds in clear egg cartons in a window sill and let nature do it's bidding. We eagerly wait for the weather to get warm so we can plant our seeds. We then plant, water, weed and trim all while waiting for our bounty! It is wonderful to get to cook fresh items but best of all it is something wonderful to share with the whole family. When our bounty gets too big we share with the neighbors. This year we hope to add strawberries to our home grown produce. Watch for updates on our garden!