Garden 2026 Update #1 - Planning, Winter Sowing & Some BIG Changes!

My garden planning updates are mostly for me to keep a journal of what works, what didn't, and what I can do to improve my efforts.  I've decided to make them public to help anyone who might be along the same gardening  journey as me. I sure hope you find them helpful!

GARDEN PLANNING

Now that Christmas and New Year's celebrations are over, it's time to get back into the garden mindset and get to planning!  While I always look forward to the last few months of the year when the garden is put to bed and things are a little slower, I also look forward to gearing back up and getting ready for another amazing year of growing. 

This year planning it's a little more enjoyable since my sister-in-law gifted me a really cute little, spiral, lay-flat garden journal. She had no idea but over the winter I've been busy creating some custom, personalized garden journals and coordinating garden supplies myself!  For the last few years I've been using a simple, plain 3 ring binder and notebook paper but I've opted to create some custom binders as well as lay-flat spiral journals that can easily be taken out into the garden for quick note taking. Just a little prettier, and personalized so they make a wonderfully endearing garden-lover gift as well.  You can see the newest lay-flat spiral journals and 3 ring binders here at my zazzle shop. 

WINTER SOWING

The first update this year is the winter sown seeds. Last year I discovered winter sowing for the first time and sowed many seed types. It was tremendously successful for my Sunflowers, Yarrow and Chamomile. Much better germination rates and stronger, taller plants than I've ever grown. Checking in with my notes & updates from last year reminded me I needed to add more rain water intake holes in the tops of my containers, and more drainage holes in the bottom. So I've done that with a little help of my hot glue gun by simply melting the holes in my dollar store lidded totes. This year the winter sown seeds are Purple Cone Flower (Echinacea) and Lavender. 

GARDEN CHANGES

My garden plans this year are to make some pretty big changes, that make growing & tending to the garden even easier. Since I built my first garden beds many years ago I've made some pretty ambitious choices but now I'm dialing it back quite a bit. I gave up the "experiment" garden last year and dedicated that space to what I know grows really well here in growing zone 6a. To make that even more useful, my plan is to rebuild that bed and reduce the size slightly to make room for another comfortable seating area right in the middle of the garden. While I will lose a small amount of growing space, I still have more than enough to grow what we eat and what grows well, so adding the seating area is just an added bonus that benefits anyone spending time in the garden.  You can never really have too much comfortable seating tucked here and there in your garden. 😊

This year I'll be growing less than what I've grown before (no potatoes, onions or beans) but will be growing some sweet potatoes in a new bed I built last year & using the main trellis for Sugar Baby pumpkins. I just prepared the organic sweet potatoes today, so they'll rest here on the heat mat & grow their slips, and hopefull they'll all be ready for garden planting come spring. Next to the sweet potatoes are a few pots of cinnamon basil I picked up recently. I love basil but I've never tried the cinnamon variety so I'm really looking forward to that.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope this helps you in some way as you begin to plan your own garden.  Please feel welcome to leave a comment or question & have an awesome day! 💖

Garden 2025 Update #6: My Early June Garden

I composed & meant to update this 10 days ago.  In the last 10 days things look much different so the July update will be a lot of fun, seeing the tremendous difference!

I've used this method before for my beets & carrots and it worked really well so I thought 

I'd see how it might work to protect my onions from the chipmunks. They just love onions.

So far it's a 100% effective deterrant after being in place for the last 11 days. 

Green beans coming up nicely.  

It never ceases to amaze me how drastic the view from the deck can be from one season to the next. 

48 hours of heavy winds lead to an emergency stake-up of most of the garlic. 

It's been a weird spring. The Roma tomato plants are small but they're producing. 

I plan out my garden months in advance and knew a year ago I wouldn't be growing potatoes this year. 

And then I found one tucked away in a veggie basket, out of sight, that had begun to chit. 

Immediate change of plans 😂

This year's potato is a single medium size Russett. 3 pieces in each pot. 

It'll be fun Potato Math to see how many come from a single potato. 

Looking to add some pretty pops of color, I added two new Butterfly Bushes. 

I can't describe how magical they smell other than to say it's birthday cake & love. 💖

Another new addition this year are these adorable pansies. 

I've transplanted nearly 100 strawberries this year and there's 4 different kinds.

This pretty, deep pink blossom variety is so pretty! 

The oldest garden tool in my possession, from back when things were made to last.

This is entirely made from diecast metal, handles to blades, springs, levers, nuts & bolts.

One of my grandma's most used, she parted with it & gifted this to me in 1983.

I grew up in her back yard and watched her use this tool at least thousand and one times. 

 I've never oiled or sharpened it, and would love to restore it one day. 

I used it today, and it works just as awesome as it did 42 years ago. 

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you're encouraged by what you've read here, and if you have any thoughts or suggestions please feel welcome to leave a comment. 😊

Garden Basics: Getting Started - Easy Tips for Best Success

While I'm not a professional grower/gardener/homesteader by any stretch of the imagination, I've been growing quite a lot of my own food for the last 6 seasons and have been asked a few times to share my experience in urban gardening. So I'll try to keep this really short and share what has worked best for me.  I hope this helps & encourages anyone looking to begin the fun, rewarding and exciting experience of growing their own food. 

• Find & Follow YT channels

Whenever I first decided I was going to turn my back yard into a food forest, I sought out urban homesteading videos to see what others were doing & how they were doing it.  I literally typed in "urban homesteading in [my city/province] what grows best". If you do this, it will start you down a really great path to see what others are doing and how you can learn from them. You'll learn a lot, so I highly recommend subscribing and following. Doing this will also help you learn what hardiness zone you're in - which essentially means your last & first frost dates of the season and helps you plan your garden overall, based on those *rough* dates. 

• Start Small & Learn All the Things

The first year I grew anything I built 2 small tomato boxes and had 6 pots of peppers, and 4 hanging baskets of strawberries. All season long I researched everything I could think of for tomatoes, peppers and strawberries. I watched all the videos & read all the articles. From fertilizer suggestions, soil amendments, composting suggestions, and just about everything in between.  I've since learned digging deep like that, you'll learn a lot of basic gardening info, that really applies to all plants.

• Composting

There's a thing called "lazy composting" and I'm a part of that community even though I agree composting is literally invaluable in home gardening. I have a compost bin I toss all my kitchen scraps & garden waste into.  I never turn it like you're supposed to, and I never water it like you're supposed to.  I pile it deep and once every year or so, the most amazing, rich, nutrient dense dirt comes out the bottom, that I use to top dress all my garden beds. There are definitely better ways to use it, but this is what works for me. If you're looking for best practices, dig a bit deeper into the topic and you'll find lots of ways to really boost your composting efforts!

• Grow What's Native & 2.What You Eat

While it would be wonderful for folks in Alaska to be able to plant pineapple & have it grow well... that's just not how it works. Two of the most important questions to ask yourself when growing, is what's native & grows well where you are, and what do I/we actually eat & enjoy? The answers to both of those questions will be what gets you really excited about growing.  Does your whole family love peppers and do they grow really well where you are? If you can answer an exciting YES to those questions, you've just hit a jackpot in planning your garden. 

•  The Dirty Dozen

Every year the list goes out on the top 12 fruits and veggies highly contaminated with the most toxic pesticides.  These are the fruits & veggies you're buying from the local grocery store. (There's also a Clean 15 so be sure and google that list as well!) If any of the items on this list are items that you buy often (grocery store strawberries are almost always at the very top of the list!), you may want to consider a way to incorporate these fruits and veggies into your garden planning, so that you and your family can still enjoy them without all the toxic pesticides they come with, from the local grocer.  

• Vertical Gardening

With limited space these days in a lot of places, vertical gardening is super popular.  One of my favorite ways to utilize this method is what are called Galvanized Steel Wire Mesh panels from Home Depot here in Canada.  In the states, these same panels are called Cattle Panels and made of the same material. In my garden I have 2 of these for my cucumber trellis, and 3 of them bound together with 4 t-posts for my green bean trellis, and then another one for my blackberries.  It's a very simple and easy way to make the most of the space you have by growing vertically. There are many other options with tower raised pots but I've only ever utilized the wire mesh panels. 

• Raised Beds

While raised beds are certainly not required, if your growing space is filled with rocks or clay or similar unfriendly growing material, raised beds may be your best option. In my case, my land is filled with old fieldstone and there's so much of it, it was hard to dig or plot to grow anything.  So, I built two 4'x8' raised beds and filled them with rich, dark garden soil & compost, then planted tomatoes and peppers. They exploded the first year and have ever since, so now I know what those plants love the most. 

Thanks for stopping by, and if this post helped you in any way, then I'm really glad.  💖

Please feel welcome to leave a comment or question. 

Status Report: January 2025

It's a little hard to believe 2024 is already over, but here we are. With Christmas already a month in the rear view mirror I've been thinking a lot about the 2025 garden as well as all the projects I'd jotted down for myself in my journal to take care of over the winter months. I know a lot of people use the new year as a jumping off point for all sorts of things, and recently I saw a comment "with 2025 they hit the ground running!"  I read that and just had to laugh. At my age, if I hit the ground for any reason, I'm at least a week with extra visits to the hot tub and easy things for dinner, like soup or "check the freezer y'all, fix what you want". 😂 There will most certainly be no running, whatsoever. 

I've started the year off a little slower than usual but there are several project on the go. So getting right into it:

Sitting: Finally, after an already long day of working on various projects.  I told myself last spring that before I plant seeds again this spring, I'd tidy up the grow room, paint the floor & make my space more enjoyable to work in. My grow room is the south end of my laundry room that I converted last year and while spacious enough, it's kind of ugly.  It has a concrete floor and the previous owners must have used that room for various projects that they didn't mind if they stained the concrete floor because it's very, very stained. My solution was a good cleaning and dark gray floor & porch paint. I'm about half way done with a couple of coats of paint and it already looks like a brand new floor.  

Been busy with: A completely unplanned furniture flip. I bought this old dresser from a thrift store many years ago, knowing "some day" I'd strip it and see what kind of wood was under all that ugly paint.  I knew it was solid wood because of how heavy it is but at the time I just quickly sanded & sealed the top and tossed on another coat of paint on the rest of it, and then put it into use in one of the kid's bedrooms. Getting the grow room cleared out & tidied up meant I needed to move some extra things in there and this was one of them. I'd already planned to turn this into a coffee bar eventually, but since I needed to move it I figured now is as good a time as any to strip it, and see what we've got. So far, things are looking promising!  (In the first image, there's that nasty laundry room floor I mentioned).

Excited about: Garden plans. Regardless of what I said last week or 6 months ago, the garden plans tend to change all the time and I'm okay with that.  I do still plan to keep things much easier this year but it seems like every time I turn around I find something else I'd like to try growing! 

My garden is a rather compacted, wee plot of land behind and beside my house.  There's a lot going on out there in such a small space so it's really helpful for me to plan it all out like this, before I ever plant anything.  I have 3 new beds going in this year and I'll be tackling bed #6 (finally) with some sort of shade loving plants. 

Thinking: Quite a lot about Titus 2, once again.  The "Titus 2 woman" subject comes up rather often in the circles I'm in. Recently someone on social media made the comment that if older women in the church were took being a Titus 2 woman seriously, then there'd be no need for women's conferences (highly paraphrased, but that was the gist).  Well, as you can imagine, many had thoughts. 😁 I know many older women in the church that take it very seriously, but that certainly doesn't stop women from enjoying their conferences. I don't think a lack of mature Christian women in the church is the reason women's conferences exist, but I do think (as long as they're teaching sound Biblical doctrine) they can certainly be a great encouragement to all women who are able to attend. 

Some had thoughts about the whole Titus 2 Woman premise in the first place. To me it's very simple. Paul writing to Titus instructs him in the very specific qualifications of elders (chapt 1 verses 5-9) and then goes on to tell him why those elders must be qualified in these areas because of the sinfulness and deception that abounds - to be able to both encourage in sound doctrine and to refute those who try to pervert it.  Moving on to Titus 2, Paul shifts and speaks of how we live our lives is proclaiming sound teaching. For mature Christian women particularly (verses 3-5), for young men (verses 6-8) and for slaves/servants (verses 9-10) and then exhorts all to remember the grace of God in what Christ did for all of us, and that should be more than enough to motivate all of us, elders, women, young men, servants to live a life that honors God and proclaims sound teaching.   How we do that will of course look a little different based on our station in life but that we do it, is the entire point. 

Wondering: how I lived until 60 years old and never knew you can actually make cream cheese at home with just... milk & lemon juice. Someone on social media posted that she was making cream cheese and suddenly I was reminded of a recipe I'd recently come across but hadn't tried yet. So, I decided to try it.  

The recipe calls for whole milk and what I had was 2% so I went ahead anyway, and what I ended up with was... a cup of lovely cream cheese 😋  It was much easier than I expected it to be.  Here's the recipe, along with a video. I did a quick cost breakdown and where I live if I bought a 2 liter (8+ cups) carton of whole milk at $5.44  I could make 2 cups of cream cheese for $2.72 each. Compared to a 250 gram (1 cup) of store bought cream cheese at $4.49.  Clearly it's much less expensive to make it at home and I'll definitely be trying this again, and adding some lovely herbs or maybe even some berries.  

Looking forward to: Winter being over so I can get to work outside! I'm a little grumpy if I can't be barefoot in my garden so our long winters are a challenge for me. It's a good time to stay busy with all sorts of indoor projects while I wait for the warmer weather. 

And with that, this month's status update is a wrap. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you have an incredible, blessed and fantastic day. 😊

If you have any thoughts or questions, please feel welcome to leave a comment. 

Garden 2024 Update #13: A Garden & Kitchen Tour

It's hard to believe it's already September. The growing season always seems so short, and over way too soon.  While it's not quite over yet, it's coming quickly and the chore of "putting the garden to bed" has already started. 

Come join me on a walk through the garden & peek into the kitchen:

Mid August when the garden is most lush. 

I love the way it looks when food is spilling out of the raised beds the way the carrot tops are.

I've been working on beautifying (as much as possible) the inside of my wee cottage. 

As I always say, it was really nice of me to buy this hot tub for my cats. 😂

My 2nd to last Mars Madness Hibiscus flower this year. 

They cast such a gorgeous pop of color in the garden. 

Yet another contender in the "mutant tomato of the year" contest. 

All the green tomatoes are growing on a single stem that appears to have grown out of the red tomato. 

Terra Cotta Yarrow - orange blooms are new - they yellow out in about a week. 

Apparently the carrot heard about the mutant vegetable of the year contest. 

What you get when you leave your wee bunch of carrots in the box lid. 

Scarlet Runner Beans were late bloomers but look at 'em go now!

The grape vines are taking over. 

My Cherry Wine at 8 weeks.  It's fantastic! 🍷 Recipe is here.

Sometimes the harvest looks like this. 

New Fridge Pickle recipe I'm trying from here

The spear on the left is 1 day old. 

The one on the right, the more olive colored one, is a week old. 

Perfectly pickled & garlicy goodness. 

25-ish pounds of tomatoes 

A year's worth of ketchup (more or less) and 2 quarts of rich tomato juice.

I use Sarah's recipe here

The late summer clear up has begun. 

Out are the butternut squash (non-producers this year) and blackberries are now in their place. 

Clear up continues with the removal of the last of the vines on Cucumber Lane. 

This whole section is being planned for renovation for next spring. 

One of the last berry clusters this year.  

The bushes were HUGE procucers and I couldn't be happier.

Thanks for coming along on a tour through the garden & the peek into the kitchen. 

I hope you were encouraged or inspired in some by your visit today. 

Garden 2024 Update #12

Mid August is also mid season for harvesting & canning. I've been busy with a lot of both, from my own garden & the local farmer's market for the freshest possible goodness. 😍 Canned so far this season have been garlic dills, bread & butter pickles, peach sauce, blueberry sauce, fruit syrups, peaches & pickled carrots.

Well then, let's go on a walk through the garden:

I couldn't be more delighted with this year's blackberry yield so far. 

This is year 3 and so far it's produced 1.5 pounds of berries. 

By comparison, last year it produced a handful. Literally 😂 

Looking forward to enough for a lovely, late summer blackberry pie. 

Lemon Balm on the left, was growing in a pot. 

The one one the right, I planted from seed last year, indoor greenhouse overwintered, 

then planted in the raised bed in the spring. If plants could talk? 

The yellowing one on the left would say "I'll have what he's having!" 😀

My Scarlet Runner beans never fruited this year but they did provide this lovely, living decor 

over the arch trellis. Over the last few seasons this trellis has had pumpkins, squash & beans.  

Next year, I'm looking forward to trying something different.  

Some days the harvest looks like this. 

Tomatoes, sweet roasting peppers, jalapenos, pickling dills and some chamomile flowers. 

I counted and tried to be accurate and I *think* there are 46 jalapenos here on these 12 plants. 

I've already harvested a handful so that's a pretty good return. I'm seed saving this year so, 

next year, Lord willing, the entire bed of peppers will be 100% homegrown. 

I finally got my act together (mostly) and tidied up the dining room canning shelf. 

I'm going to add another shelf to divide the section 2nd from the top. 

(More space for jams, jellies and sauces!)

Home grown & home canned food is not only better for you, it's also really pretty sitting there on 

your pandemic era lockdown project #436 "canned food shelves" mostly with lumber you had on hand. 😁 

My new Hibiscus Mars Madness bloomed today. 

Flowers will be used for tea blends. 

Concord grapes and sweet potatoes are both doing really well this year. The grapes will be 

generously pruned this fall and the grow bags for the sweet potatoes were just a test. 

I may be replacing them with a permanent raised bed this fall or next spring. 

First time Elderberry grower. I have 2 plants, and they're both doing amazing.

Terracotta Yarrow early blooms. So adorable. 💗

Thanks for stopping by and going on a pictorial trip through the garden. I hope it encourages you to use whatever space you have to grow what you love! 

Garden 2024 Update #7

It's been rainy and windy and just overall ugly weather the last few weeks.  So much so that sadly I've lost half of my pickling cucumbers to swampy, wet soil.  I'm not clear on what's happened but the spot I've successfully grown cucumbers in for years now, has turnd into literal swampland with about an inch of standing water, when I dig down 6 inches or so. 

I've replaced the ones I've lost and planted them into 5 gallon grow bags, so we'll see how my cucumber harvest pans out this year. Garlic dills, sweet relish and bread and butter pickles are a must around here, so hopefully I can harvest enough for those 3 types.  

Some current pics of the garden:

Garlic scapes ready for harvesting, drying, and turning into garlic powder

Cherry Tomatoes

Sweet Red Roasting Peppers

The new meets the old green bean vines.  

A new variety for me this year sent to me by my sister, and they're called Scarlet Runner beans. 

Poor germination rate, and out of only 12 vines, only half have survived.  

Of those that have survived, they're doing fantastic!    

Not a view I share often, but after dark, my garden looks quite magical. 

I have a somewhat weird fascination with outdoor accent lighting 😊 

so solar lights are the way to go, if you only have one exterior outlet. 

Dutch Clover filling in nicely around all the rubber pavers.

Last year I had a grand total of 2 Honey Crisp apples on my new tree.  

This year I have a grand total of 6, so things are looking up, for sure! 

As always, I hope you're blessed and encouraged to start your own back yard food forest! 

Please feel welcome to leave a comment with any gardening questions you might have.