Even though I haven't been updating much about it, our garden has kept us busy through the summer and into the fall so far.  (See what we planted here.) We've had many days where we sent Jonah out to go "shopping" and he returned with a bowl full of good stuff! Even though we only planted one cucumber plant, it took off!  We've gotten more cucumbers than we could keep up with some weeks. We've also gotten enough tomatoes that I was able to try my hand at canning them for the first … [Read more...]

One of my favorite ways to save money on food is to plant a garden and grow our own.  Even with my hereditary brown thumb, I've managed to be somewhat successful at getting a few things to grow. We got most of this year's garden planted at the end of April.  Last year's garden was fairly successful, bringing us 100 pounds of fresh produce.  This year we're hoping to top that, and we were a little more selective in what we planted and how we're doing things. We planted: Potatoes … [Read more...]

After the past few cold blustery days, and a few overnight freezes, I think it's safe to say growing season is officially over here in northern Iowa.  I wrote down the last few jalapenos and peppers that we harvested last week (including several jalapenos from a plant that grew in our compost pile), and entered the totals in my spreadsheet. Here's how we did: Total produce: 99.65 pounds. For the sake of easy reading, I'm going to round the decimal points.  But the specific total was just … [Read more...]

At long last! Another update on our garden! Our apple trees have apples!  I'm pretty excited for that come fall.  We love applesauce. Here's our grapevine: ...and a close-up of a bunch of grapes!  They're not ready to eat yet, but they're growing great! The raspberries are just about done ...although there's still a few last berries to grab.  The kids have basically been gobbling these up as soon as I bring them in, so we didn't end up making anything with them this year.  Snacks of … [Read more...]

Little plants are growing!  Vines are growing!  Trees are blooming!  Flowers are pretty! One of the cool things about moving to this new house has been seeing all the things that were already planted that we get to enjoy now.  The previous pastor and his family did a lot of landscaping and planting, and I feel a bit spoiled that we get to just come take over.  We're trying to add to it and make it even better. Let's start with the purely pretty things.  Last month the tulips were in full … [Read more...]