we're planting a canning garden.

Has Spring come to your part of the world yet? Wichita (and the midwest in general) has some funky weather patterns, so one day it feels like spring and the next it's snowing. Nevertheless, the gardening season has begun! 

There's a lot of gardening talk at our dinner table because Josh and our cousin Lauren work for Legacy Ministries' awesome program called GardenWorks. They employ at risk youth to prepare the soil, plant and tend vegetables, herbs, and even some fruit. The goal is to give these teenagers job experience while providing healthy, locally grown food to the community. It's an awesome program and I could probably tell you more about it, but I really want to talk about my garden.

I should call it our garden because Josh and I are working on it together. Since we will be able to buy fresh produce from GardenWorks all summer long, I thought it would be fun and fruitful to plant a garden that we could eat from throughout the rest of the year. After some dinner table discussion, Josh and I decided to plant a canning garden. I have never canned a single tomato, so I have lots to learn. 

We started from scratch on this garden. Our first step was to dig up a ton of bermuda grass. About a month ago we spent about 16 hours digging and pulling out those wretched bermuda grass roots. We were lucky that the start of my spring break coincided with 70 degree weather, so we could dig in the warm sun.

Our little triangle shaped plot, located in a nice sunny spot across the street, measures 19' 9" x 17' 9" x 15' 5".  We first planted onion sets and then three varieties of beets from seed (colorful beets, candy stripe beets, and bulls blood beets). It's so fun to watch the little leaves of our beets coming up! In addition to beets and onions, our plan is to plant tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, and maybe some basil. The latest additions to our garden are a wood chip path, a barrier of buckwheat around the edge of the path (to discourage bermuda grass from taking root), and a rock wall. We've also mixed in some horse manure with our soil. Since we've never canned before we're starting small with salsa, tomato sauce, and beets (in what form, we're not sure yet). My mind is spinning with possibilities, though! I picked up some books from the library on canning and keeping a root cellar. Now I'm wondering if our little basement could be a root cellar and what foods we'd want to store down there. 

I love both the solitude and the community I find in this space. Our garden is close to the house of some neighbors who have befriended us. Their three little kids love to come over and talk with us while gardening. They are talkers! We show them earthworms and they try to help pull out the bermuda grass roots. I also love the time spent with Josh in the garden. It’s special for us to have a common project and it’s a good space for conversation. However, some days I find myself alone in the garden and the time to lose myself in the soil is also valuable. Watering, digging, weeding- they're all monotonous tasks, but I find joy in doing them and in letting my mind wonder or rest. 

 So this is the start of our canning garden. We hope our plants grow well! If you have any great recipes or tips for canning, please leave a comment.

summer beats/beets

This post is mostly about beets-that awesome purple vegetable that stains everything the perfect purple color- but the pun was so good that I thought I also ought to post something about beats, you know as in music beats.  So here is a really cool song:

 

And now, for the beets.  I LOVE beets. I love their earthy taste and their purpely color. Plus, they are super healthy.  When I studied abroad in Costa Rica I learned about organic farming and more than ever before I began to care about the food I ate.  At that point in my life I was already a vegetarian, but after visiting farms and plantations, I began to care about eating food in season and eating locally grown food.  As a college student sharing food with four other girls, eating local, seasonal food is tough and sometimes expensive.  But as a college graduate living at home for the summer with a vegetable garden in the backyard, this is not as much of a problem.  A couple weeks ago I visited the local farmer's market and picked up many goodies including beets.  I like to boil them and eat them kind of lukewarm on a salad or just by themselves.  Here's my simple, step by step recipe:

Step 1: obtain fresh beets:

  
Step 2: cut beets into chunks:

Step 3: boil beets (covered) for 20-30 minutes until tender or the beets reach the consistency you desire:

 

Step 4: strain beets and run cool water over them several times:

Step 5: after beets have cooled a bit, peel off the skin with your fingers (it's easy!):

 Step 6: cut beets into smaller chunks if you want and enjoy!

Do you like beets?

What is your favorite summer veggie?

our new garden.

 

This spring a bunch of friends and I started a garden.  We built raised beds, shoveled horse manure, dug up the Earth and planted vegetables upon vegetables (all from seed).   Joshua spends a lot of time weeding, watering and hanging out with the plants everyday and I join in on the gardening activities about once or twice a week.  Friday was one of those delightful days.  Classes have ended so we spent a couple hours gardening in the sun. (Sidenote: I'm completely done with college!  All that's left is graduation in a week.)  We've planted squash, tomatoes, beans, peas, lettuce, beets, carrots, zucchini, basil, oregano, dill, and peppers.  So far we've harvested some lettuce for salads and basil for pasta.  I can't wait until the tomatoes are ripe!  Fresh, homegrown tomatoes are my absolute favorite!  That twine thingy you might notice in some photos is for the climbing peas.  Some are climbing, but some are dying :(  We're still learning how to make plants grow!

 

For Joshua's birthday we went to the Botanical Gardens in St. Louis.  Josh's favorite was garden was the vegetable garden (not too surprising).  We were impressed by how productive the botanical Garden's vegetable garden already was!  And for any curious readers, none of the vegetables in their garden go to waste (we asked). I thought this vertical garden was pretty cool too:

Enjoy the rest of this beautiful Sunday!