Weekend Garden Update

I know, it's odd that I have been quiet for so long. I apologize for not posting recently. I've been busy with the garden and getting my plans together for a new homeschool year.

The garden is growing like crazy and so are the weeds. I am having a hard time keeping up with all the weeds this year. It could be because the garden is bigger or it could be because once I get the garden all weeded, it rains again and they grow back over night.

I've harvested the spinach a few times now and even given a bunch of it away. I still have a ton more left. I think I went a little crazy with it this year. LOL

We caught the little bugger visiting our garden. Cute isn't he? We moved him/her to a better place to live. Since then, we have been helping a neighbor on the other side of the park catch a family of them that are tunneling under her home. We caught one and one got hit by a car. We have a feeling the one we caught at our place was living under her home.

I picked our first strawberries last night. Of course it looked it perfect until I turned it over.

This side was on the ground. I do have straw surrounding all the plants, but it still managed to find the dirt.

I replanted our window boxes with some wave petunias with a little red, white and blue theme. Granted it is a purple petunia and not blue, but I have never seen a blue petunia before. Then again, I have never seen a black one before and I managed to get one this spring.

From top to bottom: pole beans, tomatoes, spinach, romaine lettuce with garlic mixed in, ice berg lettuce, beets, brown onions, shallots, yellow onions, green peppers and more tomatoes.

From top to bottom: cucumbers on the top left, garden peas in the top middle and corn on the top right. Summer squash on the left going down, zucchini on the right going down, and more green peppers on the bottom. Oh and more tomatoes mixed in.

From top to bottom: Sugar snap peas on the trellis, bush beans, butternut squash, and corn.The corn is a lot bigger now since I took this picture.

Strawberry patch that needs to be weeded badly. My chore for today.

Potatoes growing in some buckets.

Some curly parsley and dill growing in more pots. I started growing in pots before raised beds.

Some mint, thyme and oregano. These are much bigger now too.


So this is what is going on in my gardens these past few weeks. How are yours coming along?

"Adventures" with a Groundhog.....Year 2

Last year was the first year I had a battle with critters in m garden. We caught 5 or 6 groundhogs. I honestly forget how many. They are rather cute and funny to watch, but man are they stinky. They can also do some serious damage to your garden.

Our next door neighbor told us a few weeks ago that he has a groundhog living under his shed. We took out the fencing that we put around the garden last year. While walking around putting the stakes in the ground, we noticed a few of the snap peas had been nibbled on.

No big deal really. Only a few were nibbled on and I had planted double what we had last year. Most of those never made it into the house because I kept eating them while in the garden. LOL. None of our spinach or lettuce had been touched. I am thinking it is because I planted garlic and onions around and between the lettuce.

The hubby found a few holes around our shed. We have since blocked them all and haven't seen anymore dug since. This hole is behind my blueberry bushes, which were never touched. I need to weed out the blueberry area badly.

The pansies I had planted in the strawberry pot in the front of the shed had been eaten however. No big deal because they were starting to be past their prime. I rather have the ground hog eat the pansies than my veggies.

Now the fence is all up, the trail cam is set up and records all day long. We want to get one that records at night and only snaps a picture when something moves in front of it. The one we have now snaps apicture every few seconds and only between 5am - 9pm.

We haven't seen any signs of the groundhog or any pictures of him on the trail cam for the past couple of days, but it has been raining. I did see a dead ground hog not to far from my house though. Poor guy got hit by a car. I am wondering if that was him. If we don't see any signs of him on the trail cam by Monday, I bet it was him. The fence and trail cam will remain up until we clean up the garden in the fall.

Used Homeschool Curriculum for Sale

Prices do not include shipping. I will be shipping USPS Media Mail with delivery confirmation. First come, first served. I will email totals with shipping. I except Paypal only. Order will ship out as soon as payment clears through Paypal. Please email me directly at duncanheather@live.com with any questions. 

Apologia General Science 1st ed. Text and Test/Solutions books         10.00

Climbing Higher  Hardcover book, workbook & teachers edition.      8.00   

Christian Liberty Nature Reader Books 1-5     15.00    Sold

Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading     10.00    Sold

Busy Times and More Busy Times  Hardcover books, workbook for More Busy Times and Teacher's Edition for both.                  10.00  

Saxon Math 1 Teacher's Guide and Meeting Book     10.00    Sold

Saxon Math 2 Teacher's Guide    10.00

Saxon Math 3 Teacher's Guide    10.00  

Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times  Hardcover book and Test/Answer book   12.00 Sold

Story of the World Volume 3 Activity Book        15.00   

Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages  Hardcover Book  10.00   Sold

Story Starters by Karen Andreola    15.00    Sold

Learning Language Arts Through Literature Orange Book Teacher's Edition & Student Book  10.00   Sold

Learning Language Arts Through Literature Yellow Book. Teacher's Guide Only    5.00

First Language Lessons Level 3   10.00

Famous Men of the Middle Ages   8.00  

A History of US by Joy Hakim Volume 7  Reconstructing America  Book & Teacher's Guide for Middle/Highschool Grades          15.00

A History of US by Joy Hakim Volume 6  War, Terrible War  Book and Teacher's Guide for Middle/Highschool grades       15.00

Few little garden projects

The garden is going great. Everything is up and growing. I hate how we had to plant a little later this year due to the cold.

A couple of weeks ago we did a couple of little projects for the garden. We needed a new pole bean trellis. The one we made last year broke and it wasn't tall enough. So the boys made me a new one.

We have a nice tree line in the back of the yard. There are a few little trees there that are in the way and need to come out. So, those are some of the trees we used to make a new trellis.

Matt and the hubby cut the trees down. That fallen tree bent and broke a bunch of trees when it fell during a storm years ago. It is also what we use to cross the little stream behind the house. Eventually we will have an actual bridge

Picking up the cut off limbs while hubby is using loppers to cut them off.

The three poles for the trellis. We had a four legged one last year, but three is fine. We had to cut like 3 feet off each of these because it was so tall, I would never be able to get the beans at the top.

The trellis up and with guide strings added to each side. All the beans are now about 3 inches tall and just popping out their first set of true leaves.

The hubby and I also made up some plant labels to help identify where and what the plants are that I planted. I have a ton of used canning lids. I figures they could be used for something else after they have already been used for canning. The can only be used once for canning. This is what we made:

Not my original idea. I got the idea from the blog, Hickory Holler Farm. The sharpy marker has faded a little bit, so I had to rewrite on some of them. I know what each and every plant is, but the hubby doesn't and I get tired of telling all my neighbors when they come over to see.

I even had a neighbor buy me some snap pea seeds, a tomato plant and two bell pepper plants. So now I have 11 pepper plants and 13 tomato plants. I always share with my neighbors anyway, but this one will get extra from his plants.