How's My Vegetable Garden?

This is our garden as of yesterday--2011.

On Saturday, April 16th, we had planted this garden.  We had planted tomato and bell pepper plants.  What you now see above is the cucumber plants that are creeping out of the square garden.  We had planted the cucumbers as seeds on April 24th.  Cilantro did not fare well inside so I need to try a different method of planting that.

Vegetable gardening is something we've been doing for a few years already, for our health.  If you want to know how we did it this last time, you can view the entries by clicking the above highlighted blog entries.  Some of the plants were bought and some we had planted from seeds and transplanted.  I can't claim to be an expert as my cilantro seeds bear out this truth.  I can say that I am not a quitter and will continue to do new experiments and projects, as far as gardening goes.

Garden planted on April 16th.

Cucumber seeds planted on April 24th.

Cucumber plant grown from seed--date April 30th.

I thought I would update you all on how our garden is doing, since our garden is for our health.  Yes, it's thriving, thanks to my hubby.  He's the one who's been watering the plants everyday.  We live in Texas and are experiencing a drought.  Our city, San Antonio, is currently at stage 2 water restrictions.  

Pretty soon, we could be experiencing 

stage 3 water restrictions.  

I'm gonna show you what that means to our plants:

My shadow encircles a light green tomato.

A green bell pepper is hiding.

This is a closeup of one unripe tomato.

Crunchy leaves manage to still hide our growing tomatoes.

A visible tomato is at the bottom of picture.

Well, you can see that our garden is coming along nicely.  Yes, it is hot in Texas.  We are fortunate to have a long growing season.  With the daily watering, my hubby has kept our garden alive.  I do think we need to add mulch because it might get hotter in the summer months.

San Antonio has experienced 100 degree weather already.  How much hotter is it gonna be in the official summer months is anybody's guess.  I want our garden prepared.  I'll update you all again.  I might even try some other experiments for cilantro, as I did some research about that.

Incidentally, we ate two bell peppers, from our garden, in our cheese enchiladas yesterday.  They smelled and tasted wonderful.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this many-pictured blog entry. I enjoyed compiling it for y'all.

What about you, my readers?  Are you gardening?  What are you growing?  How's the weather where you live?  Is the weather helping or hindering your gardening?  I hope you will consider growing something at least as an experiment for your children.  It's a lot of fun.

I pray God grants you all His wisdom and peace.

This has been part of the Medical Mondays series.
  

You can view the related blog entries at:

Gardening Vegetables and Fruit

Planting Cucumber and Cilantro Seeds

 

Gardening Vegetables and Fruit

Bell pepper and tomato plants needed replanting.

We had a busy day.  I usually like to post as early as possible, but I wanted to blog about our garden which was not ready.  Days ago, my hubby had placed cinder blocks in the shape of a rectangle in the area that we had chosen.  We had even put some garden soil inside the rectangle yesterday.  We just needed a few bags of extra ingredients to finish it up.

Before: Garden soil was bought at Keller Material.

In the afternoon, we went to Home Depot to buy 3 bags of  cow manure, 2 large bags of Miracle Gro organic garden mix, and 1 large bag of cedar mulch.  I also thought to buy 3 pairs of neon green gardening gloves for the three older kids.  Kaelyn had small red gloves. The lonely plant is sage that lived on from last year's planting.  The plant survived freezing and hot temperatures!

Cow manure mixed in the garden soil.

Miracle Gro mixed in the soil.

The kids and hubby mixed in the cow manure and Miracle Gro.  They used rakes and shovels.  I asked them to put on their gloves.  (I don't like the idea of the kids touching manure with their bare hands.)  Then, it was time to plant the bell pepper and tomato plants.

I tapped those baby plants out of their small container.

I estimated where I wanted the plants.  They have to be about a foot apart.  I used empty pots to plot the locations.  I pushed the pots into the ground to "stencil" where the plants were to go.  The kids then dug the hole in those spots.

I placed each baby plant in the hole and the kids did the rest.

I turned the plants upside down and tapped hard at the bottom of the small containers to tease them out.  I placed each plant in the holes that the kids made.  The kids then buried the plant.  We've been through this before so they know to tamp down the soil.  After that, came the mulch.

Cedar mulch keeps the moisture from evaporating.

The kids, hubby, and I mulched the plants.  I asked the kids to first surround the plants.  We started with handfuls of mulch.  Hubby shoveled mulch into the garden bed.  Then, he dumped the remainder of the bag.  We finished by spreading the mulch with shovels and rakes.

After: Mulch surrounds the tomato and bell pepper plants.  

The last ingredient was the water.  Thirsty plants require water.  Water makes the tomatoes plump.  With mulch, you don't have to worry about the plants going too dry in the heat.  We need to mulch for the Texas heat.

Hubby watered the plants.

 

  

We made sure to put our tools and gloves away.  It's important to teach the kids to put away the shovels and rakes.  It's not enough to teach them how to garden.  Little details like that can help to know where the tools are next time.  We will be using the tools again for another vegetable garden.   

Gloves go into a hanging shoe organizer.

I'm so proud of my kids and hubby.

Lastly, we had a little treat because the kids did such a good job.  I had bought some badminton gear.  We played until we got tuckered out.  Not even the darkness could dissuade us from playing.  We enjoyed our family time together.

Badminton gear--some I bought today, as a special treat.

Well, I hope you liked this blog entry.  I wanted to show how easy it is as a family to garden.  Gardening is good for your health because of the good foods you get out of it.  You exercise and get to shop in your own backyard.  Later, I hope to show how to tend and harvest the garden.

How about you, my dear readers?  Do you like gardening?  Are you gardening?  If so, what?    I would highly encourage those who haven't to start small.  Container gardening is possible for those with limited space.

God bless you all with His peace and wisdom, my beloveds.

This has been a Saturday Spreads entry.

Healthy Soup

Healthy soup with many ingredients.

This is a soup I had made when the weather was still cool.  Whenever I make a soup, I add whatever ingredients I have on hand.  I start by first browning the beef or boiling the chicken.  In this case, I made a chicken soup.  I also love adding all kinds of ingredients.

Healthy soup includes wet vegetable ingredients.

I made the white rice separately.  I opened the cans of tomato paste, corn, diced tomatoes, and mixed vegetables.  I also added some frozen bell peppers.  I had bought and cut the various colored bell peppers and had frozen them in their individual plastic baggies.  Doing the cutting and storing into the freezer always cuts down on cooking.

Healthy soup includes these dry spices.

Spices add wonderful taste to soups.  In the soup, I added lemon pepper, cumin seeds (which I placed in the used bottle of minced onions), salt, celery salt, garlic salt, and dried cilantro.  Dried cilantro is good for detoxification.  Cumin is a good source of iron and aids in digestion.  Garlic helps the immune system.

Healthy soups can be accompanied by other foods.

Finally, I served myself.  I put some of the white rice within my bowl of soup.  I warmed up some corn tortillas.  I added some lemon juice, which has vitamin C.  The soup was delicious, and I definitely did not feel guilty eating it.

How about you, my readers?  Do you like soups?  Do you like to make soups?  If so, what do you like to put in your soups?  I hope you add lots of healthy ingredients.

This entry has been part of Saturday Spreads series.  I hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: The viewpoints that I discussed here are just my opinions.  Please consult your physician before altering anything relating to your health.  I am only suggesting here to take charge of your health.  Don't just leave your health in the hands of your doctors; become your own advocate.  You know best how your body is doing.