How does our garden grow?

First peach blossoms of the year!

When you have been blessed with 4 beautiful daughters like I have you soon realize that these amazing little creatures who bring so much joy and purpose to your life... EAT and I mean EAT a lot! They are hungry all the time and groceries aren't cheap.  We have, as you know from my earlier post found here http://kyliebyerly.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-taj-macoop-project.html, purchased 16 chickens so we will be eating eggs for every meal... forever and that will help cut the grocery bill a bit but we needed to do something more to lower grocery costs each month.   (Partial) Solution: massive vegetable garden!   

My handy hubby tilled up a large rectangle of ground roughly 24' wide and 100' long while daughters #3 and #4 supervised.  Yes daughter #3 is wearing the baby's blanket as a cape and rocking a pink plastic pirate eye patch.  She's dramatic.

After my handy hubby tilled we began planting.  After all the seeds/bulbs are in the ground we have a row of tomatoes, a row of yellow tomatoes, a row of white potatoes, a row of red potatoes, 3 rows containing 6 types of peppers, 1/2 row radishes, 1/2 row of broccoli, 1/2 row of cauliflower, 1/2 row of garlic, a row of white onions, a row of yellow onions, a row of carrots, a row of celery, a row of iceberg lettuce, a row of romaine lettuce, 2 rows of cucumbers, 2 rows of watermelon, and 5 rows of corn!! We will also have beens and peas but they will be planted on the side of the house where there is more shade.

 

It was breezy and cool on planting day so we had to "build" a wind wall to protect little baby from the elements. 

Winter before last my handy hubby and I "remodeled" the stair case in our living room.  We replaced the wooden balusters with decorative metal ones and resurfaced the hand rail and step edges with a darker color stain. After the project we had more than 40 wooden balusters that we no longer needed, but being my father's daughter and my grandmother's granddaughter (thanks for the packrat gene!) I couldn't bring myself to junk them.  Thankfully I did listen to my grandmother's voice in my head and kept them because they make great row markers!  

In addition to our awesome vegetable garden we also have some fruits: 3 peach trees, 2 blueberry bushes and 4 raspberry bushes.  Our next project is to demo 2 sections of yard to be replaced with strawberry plants.  Yummy!

Feeding 4 Little Byerly's isn't cheap but between our chickens, veggies and fruits we are off to good start!  Also, I feel that working outside, in the dirt with our hands is beneficial to us all.  The girls learn just how much work it takes to put food onto the table and we all get to spend quality time together.    Daughter #1 loves that she gets to get muddy and daughter #2 loves that she gets a tan.  She is 11 and priority #1 is appearance.  Daughter #3 absolutely loves picking raspberries with her daddy and riding the tractor with him.  Daughter #4 loves just being outside!  My handy hubby and I love that we don't have to pay $4.99 for a tiny box of blueberries or $12.99 for a 5 dozen pack of eggs.  I also love that I know exactly what is added to the soil and sprayed onto the plants that my family eats!