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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Hidden Art of Homemaking - Gardens and Gardening

Chapter 6:

I like the smell of the freshly turned dirt!  I like the sense of accomplishment after planting a row of seeds.  It's exciting to see the first sprouts and watch the plants grow.  It's fun to watch the bees and other insects enjoy the flowers.  Then to pick the first vegetable or flower is rewarding.  Having enough produce to put some away for another day makes me feel good knowing that I will be able to taste summer in the winter.


Gardening.  God is the Master Gardener.  He created the first garden and it was Good!

My parents have always had a large garden for putting up much of the vegetables we used for the winter.

I remember the very first garden plot that my Daddy tilled for me when I was a girl.  I planted green beans and carrots.  I know I planted more, but I don't remember what.  It was fun tending that little garden.  Even pulling the weeds was fun for at least a little while.

After I got married we lived in an apartment.  We had a couple of flower pots.  I found that I'm either not very good with flowers or I'm not very good with pots, but I enjoyed them while they lasted.  I usually forget to water them and they don't forgive me.

When we moved into our first home, we started a garden.  That first year many of the plants didn't do well, but I didn't give up.  I know the soil was poor.  We moved the garden to a different location and kept working on it.  I was able to grow okra and cowpeas very successfully every year.  I also found that cantaloupe grew pretty well.  Anything else I planted just depended on the year whether we got much produce from it or not.

April 9, 2010

Last year we moved in the spring and Clark was born in June, so we didn't try to put in a garden.  I really missed going outside.  It was a very hot summer and I wished I had a garden just so I had a reason to go outside for a little while everyday.  In the fall we built our raised bed frames, as I don't want to fight with the poor rocky soil.  The frames are finished, but we haven't put the weed barrier and dirt in them yet.  I need to get busy working on them so I can get my garden planted for this year.  There are plenty of weeds growing in the frames that need to be pulled before I can finish.

October 8, 2011


You can read all my other posts on The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer here.

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6 comments:

  1. I stopped in of the party and have enjoyed reading and now following. Please visit me at:
    http://theredeemedgardener.blogspot.com/2012/03/hugelkultur-raised-bed-experiment.html

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  2. While I've always loved caring for a flower garden- this is the first year since my kids were little that we'll actually have a vegetable garden. I can't wait to get started! I love the idea of raised beds and would love to go that route, but this year I think we'll take it one step at a time and use the garden that's available for us. Thanks for linking up to the book study. I'm sorry to have gotten off track a bit, it's been a different couple of weeks. :) I've got my post ready to go for next week though so I'll be ready on Tuesday. Have a great week!

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    Replies
    1. Tonya, enjoy your gardens. Thanks for hosting this book study.

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  3. The Master Gardener must be pleased with how you love His dirt! I agree - it smells and feels so wonderful, after a long, dormant winter.
    Love the raised beds - hope they bring an amazing harvest for you this year.
    I'm looking forward to raising okra for the first time this year, but what are cowpeas?

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  4. I hope you do as well with okra as I have. Cowpeas are the easy to shell, purple hulled, black-eyed peas.

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