Top Ten Gardening Tips

I love gardening! What I love about gardening more though is learning new tips and tricks to make it more successful and fun! I wanted to share with you some of my favorite tips and tricks! They are must haves in my opinion!

1. Plant Basil and Lavender. Not only is Basil super yummy and I love to make pesto but Lavender is a great smelling plant. These two plants help to keep mosquitos away. Where I live…this is a must.

2. With Vegetables that vine like squash, cucumbers or green beans I grow them in a large pot but have them climb up a trellis. Not only is it beautiful and easier to find the veggies but its space effective.

3. I like to save money where I can. You can make your own miracle grow to have healthier, brighter and yummier plants. It’s super simple. 1 Tbsp of Epsom Salts and 1 Tbsp of sugar in each hole that you plant.

4. I hate pests and bugs. I love garlic though! Growing onions, garlic or chives around your garden helps keep the pests away. Also gives you a great crop to add to any recipe.

5. When growing carrots, grow them in pvc pipes in the ground vertically. Add great soil and the miracle grow mixture in each pipe. Your carrots will grow straight and very orange. Love the smell of fresh garden carrots.

6. Where I live it gets hot. Also let’s be honest…I hate weeding. Spread 1-2 inches of untreated mulch around your plants. It helps keep the weeds down and also plants moist in the hot sun.

7. When planting tomatoes, cover with soil up to the first leaves to make them stronger. It helps the root system grow also.

8. If you are new to gardening. Plant things that are easy to grow such as beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, corn, kale, lettuce, okra, peas, potatoes, radish, spinach, squash and tomatoes.

9. Plant peppers with a box of matches since they like sulfur.

10. Use dental floss to tie plants to sticks, or trellis.

 

I wanted to include some extras also to help you anywhere you are. These are my two favorite gardening apps and they are both free. I like free!

Garden Compass- you can post disease, bugs or questions that you have and experts will tell you what it is and what to do!

Sprout It- It gives you step by step instructions based on where you live, your climate and weather for planting. Gotta Love Free

Please feel free to share some of your tips and tricks with me! Subscribe to my blog via Email at the top of my home page, Google+, Bloglovin app or even by coming back over and over. Remember also if you share a post this week tomorrow someone will be winning a Amazon Gift Card! Can’t beat FREE!

 

Gardening Happiness

Basil! Love the Smell of it

One of my favorite things to do when I have time is Garden. I had an amazing garden two years ago and wish for it back. Last year with my Brain surgery coming up from my tumor I was too weak to even have one. Now I am cured! Stronger and Healthier! Today was a day with two of some of my favorite people in the world and really a feat in my head of the recovery I have had!

We definitely aren’t going big. Especially since we moved we don’t have time to till and make a huge garden. I mean its already the end of May and the growing season here isn’t that long. Most years my tomato grow big and delicious but never are able to really turn red before the first frost.

 

After planting. Love getting dirty

No longer will that happen! NO! NO! NO! We have a greenhouse at this new house and they will blossom and flourish there and turn million shades of red. Take that frost! Ok I have to admit though that we have 20 tomato plants so really I should start thinking of more salsa recipes right? I mean there is only 6 of usJ I kind of went a little crazy.

Jason getting ready to plant all the Tomato plants

In front of our house we put cabbage, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, kale, and cauliflower. YUM! They are just little plants now but will become big, delicious and dinner at some point. My good friend Helen supplies us with organic yummy starts for us to garden. I didn’t have a greenhouse till a week ago so she helped me out. She is an amazing gardener that I look up too and sometimes wish I could go to her house, drink coffee, look over her garden and secretly pretend its mine. Love ya Helen!

Jason with some more herbs

We also have a bunch of herbs to cook with that we are setting up in the green house too. Basil (love that smell of basil), rosemary, thyme, etc. I can’t wait!

Cassie planting Kale and Cabbage

This was just the small start of our gardening this summer. I of course have gone crazy in my head and will be getting more. I need to plant green beans, lettuce, zucchini, radish and spinach! YUM!

Cassie passing us more dirt

My favorite time with gardening besides the sun and the smell of fresh herbs was working with Cassie and Jason. They are such great help and not worried about getting dirty at all. Love them! We only have one week before all four of my teenagers go to their other parent’s house for the summer. We are trying to do as much as possible with them. Jack and Jason will be at their moms for half the summer and Cassie and Josh at their dads. I miss them already and they aren’t even gone yet. I am thankful that they will have fun with their other parent however. It’s just so weird going from 4 noisy, fun teenagers to a quiet house. Ryan says it’s just another Honeymoon for us but I still feel the piece of my heart missing when they are all gone.

So sad but first time I saw a baby Chipmonk

Ok, Ok back to happiness before I put myself into a motherly pout. It was fun gardening with two of my kids. I laughed because Cassie is such a particular gardener. She has a method. Jason is more of the gardener that waits for instruction the whole time. He did save me from the baby chipmunk that we found however. So sad it wasn’t aliveL  I think this is the first time Jason has planted tomatoes. He likes the smell of the garden too. I told him he was meant to do this then. Cassie is so meticulous that it just helps the garden look that much better. Love these two! Out of the four of my kids Cassie and Jason are my quiet ones that are more chill. Jackson and Joshua are definitely my more active children that are all over the place and always bored.

Yep..another tomato plant Jason

I have already looked at the garden like 500 times since we planted it. I swear its growing already ha! I think my favorite part of putting it in was the love from my kids and the smell of the veggies that will come! Summer is here! Bring on the good cooking and Veggies!

 

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