Hearts in Service Blog

For the past 3 months, I've been going non-stop with retreat/event planning.  I still have a couple more to go, but there is some space in between, so I  have some time to get to odds and ends around my house.  Apparently, weeds sprung up overnight in the flower beds around my house and barn and it's a jungle out there!  Totally overwhelming.  And my house feels the same way.  There are piles of papers and "stuff" sitting everywhere.  So I'm weeding out both inside and out.  It kind of reminds me of my life.  If I'm not attentive weeds begin to spring up - bad habits and attitudes.  If I don't pull them immediately, a jungle of them begin to take over my life and I end up with a giant mess. I decided the outdoor weeds are too much to tackle all at once so I'm trying to spend about 20-30 minutes a day out there, pulling them up.  Just doing it the past few days has made a difference in some spots.  Obviously, behin...

I love being outdoors because all around my yard is a fragrant scent of growing things.   The morning is especially nice because everything is fresh and clean.     My garden looks good, except for my tomato plants which all have blight.  An older gentleman in our church who has farmed for years suggested taking off all the infected leaves and spraying them with a solution of milk, so I am trying that.  Hopefully, I can salvage some.  They are looking pitiful. It's been so rainy and cool that the things that are doing the best are all the cold weather plants.  So far the pumpkin and squash and peppers are doing well.  The cucumbers are not so great.  If I continue to garden next year and at this point I have my doubts, I really am going to have to do something to enrich the soil.  As it is, I'm not going to be able to grow tomatoes for a while.  Blight has been a problem here for a while ...

I've been able to get outside and start cleaning up my flower beds the past few days.  It felt so good to be in warm sunshine and smell the earth and newly growing things.  While I was there I started planning in my head what I want to do with my garden this year. If you've read this blog for any length of time you know 1. I hate weeding.  2.  I'm bad at consistent watering.  3. I'm always distracted with 1,000 other things and 4.  I LOVE the end result.  lol    This year, I'm determined to stay focused on making the garden better!  My desire is to get out there and weed a bit every day so I'm not spending hours and hours trying to play catch-up.  We shall see how it all works out. I was so pleased to see my parsley, thyme, and sage springing back this year.  Lemon balm is in abundance each year, as is the dill which reseeds and grows in the main garden.  So I just want...

  I live in such a beautiful area.  The sky is ever changing and wildlife is abundant.   The flowers in my garden are blooming and every week, new ones are popping out.  I'm in heaven with all the beautiful colors!     The soil is rich and black and fruit is abundant.  A lot of that has to do with being so close to Lake Ontario.  It truly is amazing to see hundreds of apple and fruit orchards, every where you drive.   I have tons of wild blackberries in my backyard and can't wait for them to ripen.     The apple tree is loaded with ripening fruit.   My garden is doing fantastic!  The tomato plants are loaded.   Kohlrabi.   Yellow squash.   Even with my weeding fiasco at the beginning of the season, it looks beautiful. I can't wait to taste the yummy goodness.  I'm loving the summer!

When I planted my garden on Memorial Day weekend I had visions of the juicy, red tomatoes that would grow.  I looked forward to the wonderful taste of fresh green beans and turning all those wonderful cucumbers into pickles. I love fresh veggies from the garden. But that requires work.  A LOT of work.  And I'm not a big fan of weeding.   At first, I couldn't weed because I didn't quite remember where everything was and didn't want to pull the wrong thing.  Then it rained or was very humid and I also am busy with many other things. Then one day, I looked and my garden looked like this.... I've had plenty of opportunity to think of some life lessons as I have weeded this week.  Of course, we are in the midst of a heat wave and so I've been out there very early each day and trying to spend at least a half an hour to an hour weeding. It's hard work because I waited so long.  Which brings me to some spiritual lessons. 1.  Don't let w...

This was the first year that I ever grew potatoes and after looking at a few books, and talking to people I decided to go ahead and give it a try.  They looked pretty easy and everything went well.  The tubers sprouted and grew into lush looking plants.  Because I grew them in buckets, the woodchuck we have living here left them alone.  I was told that when the tops die off it is time to dig them up. Because I grew them in buckets, all I had to do is dump them out and pull out the potatoes. I had 3 very large 25 gallon buckets.  And wow!  What a bumper crop!  I had to share the picture and let me apologize for the blurriness of it.. Wait for it....... Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   I actually burst out laughing when I saw it! Bumper crop?  NOT!    My whole garden started out looking really good but has gone the way of these potatoes. To sum up... 1. Huge beaut...

Every year I plant a fairly large garden and every year it produces basically enough to eat from all summer.  Most of what I put by comes from the generosity of friends.  It's frustrating because I have visions of tons of vegetables, enough to get us through the winter.  I want to be able to grow enough to live on in order to save money in this area. This year for the very first time ever a friend donated a truckload of compost from cow manure.  Wow!!!  What a difference.  I planted three weeks ago and my plants are giant size.  This is the first time that I actually have tomatoes on the vine in the middle of June. Big full, beautiful heads of lettuce. Tomato plants loaded with blossoms. Potatoes growing well in buckets. Beans & squash growing too. The only thing that makes me sick to my stomach is that there is a very large woodchuck who found a way under the fence.  I caught him today sitting in the middle of the cabb...

I tried my hand a new kind of cucumber this year - lemon. They are round and yellow like a lemon and are supposed to be a bit sweeter. To me they taste like a regular cucumber. The one difference I noticed is that the skin is tougher and they are full of seeds. You can make pickles with them. I won't be growing them again next year, but I enjoyed the experience. The rest of my garden is iffy. Let's just say I hope there isn't a famine or we will be eating dirt! LOL!!! I've only gotten 2 eggplant, a handful of peppers and beans. I have tons of green tomatoes but many of them are getting blossom end rot. I have 1 measly little pumpkin growing and 1 butternut squash and some regular cukes. The only thing that keeps on producing is those lemon cucumbers!

I was looking at pictures from last year's garden and I am waiting with great anticipation for this year's crop. I planted the following this year... 2 kinds of cucumbers 3 kinds of tomatoes 4 kinds of peppers Eggplant Cabbage Swiss chard Lettuce Onions Green beans Butternut squash Sugar pumpkins Cilantro Basil Parsley Oregano Thyme Rosemary Sunflowers I planted all the warm weather seeds on Memorial Day and within 5 days the plants were poking up through the ground. I'm so excited to see how it grows this year. I'm especially happy that we got the fence up a few days before I planted, as I've seen 5 or 6 bunnies hopping around, a pheasant and 3-4 large deer!

Yesterday started the first day of our Spring break. I've gone back and forth the past few months about whether I was going to actually do a garden here this year. We just moved in and have enough to do with unpacking and adjusting to a new place. However, with the cost of food going up I decided to go ahead and start one. I had toyed with the idea of raised beds, but the reality is that we do not have discretionary funds to play with. So I have to do it the cheapest way possible. So yesterday the boys started digging for me. They ended up making a plot that is 385 square feet. It's not huge, but it is a start and I figure we can always expand it next year. It was a big job, because they basically removed just the top layer of grass with the shovel. We don't have a rototiller so today they are going to go out and turn over the soil. Again, I don't have money for fencing and deer are a huge problem here. I've also seen a stray bunny or two hopping around. So...

There is a little nip in the air and I have a free day today with nothing to do. I'm in the mood for fall! I have three large mum plants in my flower garden and even though the other flowers are dead or dying, these are loaded with yellow flowers. They are one of my favorite flowers and it's probably because autumn is my favorite season and they remind me that it's here. I'm going to spend some time putting out my autumn decorations today.

My garden is coming to the end now that Autumn is on the way here. I have a patch of Swiss chard and two teeny-tiny pumpkins. Everything looks shriveled and bare. However, there are a couple of things that are still producing fairly well. I have tons of grape tomatoes ripening every day. Also, there are quite a few Roma tomatoes left. My pepper plants are still doing well. The habanero plants are loaded, though I notice they are not ripening as quickly with the cooler weather. There are also many green peppers to pick. I had put in a late planting of beans and peas, but I think it has gotten too cold for them. It has been a good year for the garden. I do need to improve the soil in my front garden before next year though. I'm sad to see it almost over, but I won't miss the hours of canning!

This has been a great year for the garden and it is humming along nicely. I'm starting to harvest some of the veggies out of it. There is nothing like biting into a vegetable fresh off the vine! The peppers are coming in nicely. I harvested my onions and the skins are drying in the sun. There are a ton of little cucumbers growing on the vine. I'm starting to get beans. We ate our first cabbage yesterday. Yellow squash. The tomatoes are growing and I can't wait for them to ripen. Hopefully, we will have a large harvest this year. The grape tomatoes & roma plums are coming in nicely but my Big Boys seem to only have one or two blossoms and no tomatoes yet so we'll have to wait and see how they do. Other things maturing: peas, zucchini, pumpkins, kale, kohlrabi, spinach, lettuce, eggplant, basil, mint, thyme, rosemary, oregano, dill, parsley, sage, and tarragon. Before Saturday we hadn't had rain in about three weeks so I was doing a lot of watering. I didn...