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In order to grow a healthy garden that gives an abundant harvest we must prepare the ground or planting area. Next we need good seed that will germinate (take root). All this is done in faith believing we have prepared our soil and chose good seed. Faith is so important in every aspect of our… Read more: Gardening by Faith

My new project is growing Microgreens on the kitchen counter. The advantage of growing inside you utilize the heat that you already have in your home on cold, snowy, winter days. My son found some really unique planters with lights. My first try, I placed the plastic planters on top of heating pads, but that… Read more: Growing Microgreens on the Kitchen Counter

We have been growing a small patch of wheat for 3 years, but have grown only enough to replant the next season. This year, we grew more, but we have not mastered the technique of extracting the wheat berries, so we will use them for replanting next year. This is a chicken picker that my… Read more: Wheat From the Field to the Table

My previous posts have been about our efforts in gardening and growing our own food and herbs. It is a challenge to grow without using pesticides. The fruits and vegetables may not be as pretty as the ones in the store, and the fruit you may have to share with a worm. Growing up on… Read more: Living Healthy and Growing Food without Pesticides

It started with a few baby chicks from the local farm store. If I had been innovative, I would have set up the incubator and hatched those little chicks from our own chicken eggs. It is a lot of work and 21 days to hatch chicks. It was so easy to go to the store… Read more: Cycle of Life on our Hobby Farm

When you wake up to frost over everything, you know winter is coming. It was a beautiful sight in the garden. There is so much more to do, but not much time before we get snow. Calendula flower, Blueberry plant, Lemon Balm leaves. My Gingo tree will keep its leaves until all the other trees… Read more: Late Fall on the Hobby Farm

No pesticides used – the bug is extra but not included in the harvest. Passion Flowers & Fruit The Passion flowers are grown on a vine, and the fruit can be eaten. My granddaughter enjoys eating the pops but usually buys the matured fruit since her mom’s pops end up as Passion flowers before they… Read more: Growing More Herbs from Start to Finish

Ashwagandha The pictures and information were submitted by my daughter; she does the work, and I write about it. Ashwagandha is harder to grow than most herbs. It starts with seeds we saved from last year’s plants. The seeds are carefully removed from the covering shown in the first picture. They are planted, and once… Read more: Growing Herbs From Start to Finish

It all started with just one small plant from the farmers’ market. This is my daughter’s project. Luffas, also referred to as loofahs, are fibrous fruits, a member of the cucumber family. The first luffa that I saw was in my mother-in-law’s shower many years ago. They are commonly associated with personal hygiene as natural… Read more: Growing Luffas

In a previous post, I mentioned that by using fishing string above the 4-foot-high electric fence, we were able to trick the deer. It worked for 2 years, but not this year. We didn’t make it visible enough, so now we are using colored string and taller sticks so they can see it better. Gardening… Read more: Gardening by the Rules

One of the most useful tools that I use in my garden is a garden knife. I couldn’t do without it. I could use a hoe, but I found this garden knife to serve my purpose better. I use it for a little digging to make holes for planting, digging out some unwanted grass, or… Read more: Gardening Tools & Material for the Hobby Farm

Holy Basil – Lemon Grass – Lemon Balm Herbs are an important part of our garden. We grow everything without pesticides, which can be a challenge, even though many things are grown inside a deer-proof fence. The weed control paper helps to keep the herbs clean for picking. The featured photo is picture of the… Read more: Harvesting Herbs

There are several things that need to be done in the garden to prepare for next year’s crops. The ground should be prepared, and some plants and seeds should be planted. Now we are planting the strawberry plants. The first picture is the strawberry patch in June, during the peak of the picking season. The… Read more: Preparing for Next Years Crop

September is almost here and we have enjoyed the fruits from all our hard work in the garden. We saved several packages of green peas from the 2 rows that were behind the electric fence to keep the deer out. Green peas are an early crop, so the plants have now dried up and were… Read more: Summer and Fall Harvesting

Now that summer is here, I will update you on our gardening efforts. We are so thankful we don’t have potato bugs. We had a good year for potatoes last year so we decided to plant more this year. Last year, we had a huge problem with slugs. They made lace out of the cabbage… Read more: Summer Gardening

How did it all happen? They met and fell in love. His English was limited, and her Spanish was limited. There were no arguments because neither knew the other’s language well enough to argue.  Maybe that was a good thing, home life was peaceful. Time was spent learning about the culture and traditions of each… Read more: Bilingual & Multicultural Living

Everyone has told you to have a financial retirement plan. I know that is important, but I believe there are other retirement plans just as important or more important. These are the mental, physical, and spiritual retirement plans. You can have a million dollars stashed away, but without a plan, you will wonder what to… Read more: Read Only Retired or the Retiring

We start our Spring gardening in the fall of the year before. We have been successful growing garlic and very successful growing grass where we don’t want grass, so we are trying something new that we saw on the internet. We are limiting the space that grass can grow and I will just show you… Read more: Spring Gardening

How important is family? I realize that most of my values and beliefs are rooted in my family. This makes me think of those that have no family. Money, yes that is good to have but it doesn’t bring happiness or satisfaction. I am thankful every day for my family, sure they aren’t all perfect… Read more: Family & Plants

Our corn crop for 2024 was good. I want to show you the process from beginning to end. Step 1: The ground was prepared using our small tractor, a great addition to our Hobby Farm. When we first started trying to grow our food we used only hand tools such as hoe, a pick, a… Read more: Growing Corn on the Hobby Farm