The Jones Garden Blog

Waiting

Posted on April 28, 2014 by JonesGardenBlog

Patience is difficult. Sometimes life is comprised of a chain of waiting periods.

It’s not a bad thing. On the contrary it builds anticipation and excitement. It means that just around the corner your hopes may all be realized and when they are they seem that much sweeter.

Because you waited.

For the seeds to sprout.

For the sprouts to grow.

For the plant to fruit.

For the fruit to ripen.

Each step has its own reward. Its own realization of the dream. Its own harvest from the seed.

Not just the seed planted in the ground, but the seed planted in the gardener.

Linked On the Homestead Barn Hop

Posted in artichoke, beans, pansie, peppers | 3 Comments

Spring Miracles

Posted on April 24, 2014 by JonesGardenBlog

There is something quite remarkable about spring. It’s a time of new life, new hope, and a promise of things to come. How appropriate that Passover and Easter are in spring.

Each seed that is planted is nourished by the hope of the sower; that what is put into the warm, moist soil will somehow bring forth not only vigorous new life, but a bountiful harvest.

Yes, spring is amazing.

Each seed is like a miracle to me. Each seedling a precious gift.

I love sowing seeds.

Recently God has allowed me to see his power in amazing and wonderful ways.

The worship pastor at our church and his wife adopted a beautiful baby boy. Before he was born they were informed that he had some serious health concerns. When he was born he was missing one kidney, the left side of his heart hadn’t grown, and his lungs were not working properly. His parents were informed that there was a good chance that he would not survive. Prayers went up by the thousands for this precious little family. God not only showed up, he showed off… and that’s a beautiful thing. The left side of the heart grew. Heart diagnoses had to be reversed. He came off the ventilator. He came off oxygen. He went home with his new parents. Doctor’s minds = blown. Our hearts = full. God = AWESOME!

Another family from our church that we have known forever had a son, early twenties, who went to the hospital for an MRI on a Tuesday. They were told to immediately take him to one of the top neurological hospitals in the country where he was diagnosed with a massive brain tumor. The surgeons were not sure that they could get it all or if he would survive the surgery or if he would be paralyzed. Again, prayers went up by the thousands for this young man. On that Thursday he had surgery to remove this massive tumor. Doctor report after 8+ hours of surgery – they got it all. In the recovery room he wakes up and says, “hey, I’m alive”. Full motor control. Sunday he leaves the hospital to recuperate at home. Walking. MY mind = blown. God = AMAZING!

I will praise Him for these amazing answers to desperate prayers.

I will thank Him for the amazing things he does every day because I know that in all things, He is good.

Posted in charleston gray watermelon, Mission Community Church, Old Time Tennessee Melons, prayers, spring garden, sqash, square foot gardening, tomatillos, tomatoes | 6 Comments

Partial Success

Posted on April 21, 2014 by JonesGardenBlog

I spent the better part of Friday evening and Saturday morning harvesting. Leeks and onions were first. The leeks turned out okay. The usable portion was small because I had not blanched the stocks, but… next year. The onions were small, but diced up were pretty good, both the small bulbs and the greens.

Partial success.

I spent a good amount of time trying to dig up every root and blade of grass that had infiltrated bed 2. I promise you that every bit of bermuda in my small yard is somehow connected to bed 2. It was terrible. I did find a couple of bright lights in there to keep me going. Several of these guys were visible as I was clawing my way through the bed.

It may seem funny, but these just aren’t that common in my yard. Unfortunately. But as the soil gets better and better I’m hoping they’ll be regulars. 🙂

As I pulled back some of the other greens I got a pretty good view of my Oriole Orange Chard in all of it’s glowing glory.

I cleaned, chopped, and bagged about as much chard as we are going to be able to take down any time soon and gave the rest to the chickens. They had a pretty good day Saturday.

I got the garden area mapped out and began building my trellis system for the pole beans. When I originally bought these from greenhousemegastore, I thought I was ordering 6 foot canes. Turns out I order 60 inch canes. Just a little bit of difference there. In any case the canes were too thin to hammer them into even the relatively soft garden soil, so I used this medal pole, almost like rebar, but hollow, and drove that into the ground, pulled it up and put in the canes.

It worked pretty good and the trellises went up pretty quick. Secured them with some garden twine and bada bing… all done.

Planted all of the pole beans and a section of bush beans, and by then… I was done. My helpers had started to desert me.

So I didn’t…

– finish planting the melons

– move and install two new 4×4 beds and plant them out

– finish planting out bed #2.

So… still lots to do, but a partial success. Definitely need to finish this week.

Easter celebrations were amazing. Great time with all of the family. Took my boys down to the park to try and fly their kites but the wind did not cooperate. Four very tired kids though running the length of a football field several times. Partial success there.

We had eight services at Mission Community Church, with overflow for some of those. Pastor Lee Strobel laid out the Case for Easter. If you’ve never heard him, you should really go watch the lesson. Former atheist that through historic research concludes, hey this whole thing is actually TRUE! Great lesson.

All in all a great weekend. Total success. 🙂

Posted to the Homestead Barn Hop.

Posted in beans, chard, Mission Community Church, spring garden, trellis | 6 Comments

I am the king

Posted on April 18, 2014 by JonesGardenBlog

The king of over planning that is. I will find 15 minutes of possible free time and I will try and cram at least two hours of work into that time. Not that I ever GET the two hours of work done… but it is ON THE LIST.

Lists. I love them. It’s almost as if the task is complete JUST because I wrote it down.

Keep that in mind when I tell you what’s planned for this weekend. Granted my weekends are normally busy. Sundays aren’t a day for gardening; they are a day for worship, so my Sundays are busy without any gardening involved. That being said, as I’m sure you know, this is also Easter weekend. That’s kind of a big deal. Granted we actually celebrate Jesus’ resurrection EVERY week, because when something is the MOST IMPORTANT EVENT IN ALL OF HISTORY, you gotta talk about it. It IS the GOSPEL. Jesus is the Son of God. He came to earth, and according to God’s plan was beaten, mocked, and crucified, put in a tomb, and on the first day of the week, rose from the dead victorious. A game CHANGER! A LIFE changer! A UNIVERSE CHANGER!

That’s a big deal.

So, yah, this weekend will be busy with church activities and family celebrations on Saturday and Sunday. But Saturday morning… before all of the awesome craziness ensues… this is what I need to get done:

– Complete the planting of 2/3 of the main garden, and one 4×8 bed.

– Move, assemble, fill, and plant two more 4×4 beds.

At the end of the morning on Saturday, I hope to have everything planted except the (stupid) corn. (Sorry, still a little bitter from last year)

That means between now and then. In the limited time available. I need to stake out the main garden (kinda all over the place right now). Create 30 feet of pole bean trellises. Plant nine types of melons, four types of beans, two types of squash, tomatillos, cucumbers, and eggplant.

Yah… like I said… the king… of… over(bad)… planning.

Quick tour:

half of the sunchokes with a dill plant hiding in there too.

little chokes

no, I mean, LITTLE chokes

toms!

chamomile and a free plug for J. Lohr.

Celery! It’s not huge, but… it’s coming out… tomorrow.

Have a blessed weekend!

Posted in Arizona Garden, artichoke, celery, chamomile, dill, spring garden | 1 Comment

I’m Scrambling

Posted on April 16, 2014 by JonesGardenBlog

I’m not talking about eggs. Unfortunately, because that would be good about now.

The temps are going up and my spring garden is less than half planted.

Yah… bad move.

I’m working on it though. Last night I got bed 1 planted out with ollas.

One more 4×8 raised bed to go, but I’ve been waiting on the onions. I’m not sure why since in my mind they are a bust. Their position in the winter garden put them without sun for too long. The untended grass has been choking them. All bad things. Technically I could let them go for another month and hope that they fattened up, BUT… isn’t there always a but… I really need the space for summer stuff, particularly beans and squash. Ugh…

Yah, looking at the picture, those are pretty bad. Bermuda grass has to be the worst weed ever! I’ve been pretty good at keeping it in check in the other three beds, but this one… not so much. It’s kind of tough to pull among the onions.

Once the summer garden is all in I need to complete the beds that I talked about last fall. The ones that were vertical on the back wall. That would be a perfect spot for the onions… and maybe some garlic… leeks… man, it’s a slippery slope. It would definitely be easier to keep the grass out.

What I really need is someone with a good chunk of open land that gets full sun during the winter, and then I can just plant a huge winter garden and split it with them. THAT would be awesome. I buy the seeds, amendments, and do the work. They supply the land and water and we both get a great harvest.

Okay, less dream, more work.

Here are a couple of pictures around the garden.

Part of the main garden. Leeks are good, but I need to do better at blanching the stalks next year. Lesson learned. The spinach in the middle are either bolting or just dying. The chickens have been enjoying these. The collards and chard are in the back and going CRAZY.

The Old Time Tennessee vines are coming along. A LONG way to go, but coming along…

I have two non-fruit trees in the back yard that are big and give some good shade. I put the peppers and tomatoes that are in containers underneath them. All are doing quite well, they get some full sun, but lots of filtered light.

Just on a whim I took one of my longer tomato prunings and put it in a beer bottle with some water. It’s been a couple of days now and is starting to develop some roots off of the stem. I’m going to see how this goes.

Loving the basil. I love how it looks, I love how it tastes. Love the basil.

Another choke picture. They are smaller, considering these were the side chokes, but there is just something about the look of them in this metal bowl. I don’t know. I just like the look.

In any case. So much to do. Fortunately I got a little break this week and the temps dipped. Last week we ALMOST hit 100 and that’s a whole lot of NO BUENO. I would really love to see a mild summer after the scorcher we had last year… but I probably shouldn’t hold my breath.

BTW, my dream of edible front yard landscaping did not die with the rabbit buffet on the first artichoke plant. Actually, they didn’t even kill the plant, although they gave it their best shot. It has rebounded and seems to be a little too big for them now. Yeah! 🙂