YEAR ONE
So this is what we started out with... just a small 8 x 8 raised flower box. We live on a MOUND of Yazoo City clay, so nothing really grows in the dirt. We had to build up. It is so funny to look back and see what we started with!
Still from the first year, but we added flowers to help get rid of bugs.
Some of the crops later on in the season
YEAR TWO
So I can't find a picture of the actual garden, but we expanded it to a 16 x 16 raised bed and added several different types of vegetables as you can see from the pics above.
YEAR THREE: SPRING
One half of the garden. We ended up expanding it to a 32 x 36 raised flower bed. We grew tomatoes, green beans, zipper cream peas, okra, cucumbers, and butter beans. We had a VERY successful year and had more crop than we could fit in our freezer!!!
Second half of garden
Just some of the many harvests we had this year!
We have also planted a fall garden so there will be more tips and pics to come! :)
WHY GARDEN?
For Jeremy and I it was simple! We both grew up in families that valued gardening and the morals, values, and other things it can teach someone. We wanted to not only live off of the land like our families had for literally hundreds of years, but we wanted to instill in our kids the same values that our grandparents instilled in us. We both learned very early on that working for your food makes you appreciate it a WHOLE lot more! :)
We also wanted to incorporate gardening into another opportunity to spend time with our children and each other. We both have wonderful memories of sitting on the front porch with our grandparents and cousins shelling peas and butter beans and listening to the "good ole days" stories, etc. Those are some of my favorite memories from childhood and I would love for our children to have some of the same.
We also felt that this is something God intends for his children to do. God made this earth and the things in this earth to GLORIFY him. Take corn for example. You plant one kernel of corn, it grows into a huge stalk, and eventually produces an ear of corn with silk on the end. EVERY silk that hangs off of the end was once attached to a single kernel of corn. That single ear of corn produces enough seed to provide your family with the seed needed for corn the next year. Even the way a corn stalk is shaped to funnel water to its roots is AMAZING! Jeremy and I are amazed every year at how the earth cries out in praise and glory for God.
There will be more tips to come in the next couple of weeks, like... how to start seed in a paper towel, how to root your own tree from another tree, and how to can and jar your veggies you harvest! Just wanted to give y'all a little taste and show you that if we can do it in our own back yard in the middle of the city, so can you!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stay tuned!!!! :)
13 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? 14 The farmer sows the word. 15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. 20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”
Mark 4:13-20
