#urbangardener — Public Fediverse posts

The Magic of a Front Yard Edible Garden https://www.allforgardening.com/1929369/the-magic-of-a-front-yard-edible-garden/ #birds #EastCoast #EastCoastFrontYardGarden #EastCoastFrontYardGardening #ecosystem #EdibleGarden #FrontYardGarden #FrontYardGardening #FrontYard? #GardenDesign #GardeningZone #GrowingFood #insects #irrigation #monarch #MonarchWaystation #neighborhood #neighbors #planting #pollinators #RaisedBeds #RemoveGrass #UrbanGardener #wildlife

Baby cucumbers 🥒

We have baby cucumbers! 🥹 I discovered about 10 cucumbers growing in our back patio garden.

Why is it such a thrilling feeling to discover your fruit and vegetable plants have started to produce food? I had the biggest smile on my face when I saw the tiny cucumbers. ☺️

A couple of weeks ago, I was worried the cucumber flowers weren’t going to get pollinated because I hadn’t really seen any bees in our patio garden.

But last weekend, I noticed a few honeybees flying back and forth to the cucumbers. 🐝 I felt relieved.

Gardening is teaching me to be more patient and have more trust.

And I loved showing the kids the little cucumbers!

They were excited to search through the big leaves and count how many cucumbers they could find.

I can’t wait to harvest our cucumbers once they’re ready! I told the kids we’re going to use the cucumbers to make homemade dill pickles. 😊

💜 XO

Baby cucumbers 🥒

I discovered about 10 cucumbers growing in our garden! 😁

Drawing with the kids 👩🏽‍🎨

There’s something unexpectedly joyful drawing and coloring with your children. ☺️

Somewhat clear skies

It feels good to be back outside now that the air quality is improving.

A front porch garden harvest 🫑

One of the things I love about growing food in a small space is I can walk out onto my front porch and harvest foods we need for the next meal.

This morning, we harvested from our front garden a green bell pepper (first one of the season!), two jalapeños, a banana pepper, and black seeded simpson lettuce.

And from our back patio garden we harvested romaine lettuce, cilantro, oregano, and sage.

It wasn’t a big harvest, but it was the perfect amount we needed to make tacos for dinner! 😊

It makes me happy to grow a simple kitchen garden. At first, I didn’t think it would make much of a difference because we don’t have a regular sized yard.

But this gardening season has taught me it doesn’t matter if you have acres of land, a big back yard, or just a small patio, you can grow something!

If you have a small space, you can focus on growing kitchen ingredients like peppers, lettuce, herbs, and carrots for home cooking. You can even grow these plants on your front porch (like I do)!

Every little bit helps, and it will bring you so much joy! 😊

💜 XO

📸 feature image taken by Zaya 🥹

A front porch garden harvest 🫑

Enjoying a small garden harvest right from our front porch! 🫑🥬

Attack of the ravenous cabbage caterpillars 🐛

My broccoli never stood a chance. 😏🥦🐛

Air quality

Canada and Minnesota wildfires lead to an air quality alert for our state.

Flight of the bumblebee 🐝

I never thought I’d be so happy to see a bumblebee buzzing beside me, but I suppose that’s where I’m at now in my gardening journey! 🐝😆

About a week ago, it occurred to me I hadn’t seen any bees in the garden, even though I have plenty of pollinator flowers.

This morning, I was again thinking about the bees because I have a lot of flowers on the cucumbers now.

I started worrying what if the fruit and veggie plants don’t get pollinated (I know we can manually do this, but I’ve been waiting for nature to take its course 😉).

And then later this evening, Zaya (5) came running through the front door into the kitchen.

She excitedly yelled, “Mommy! Mommy! I saw a bumblebee! There’s a bumblebee on a white flower in the garden!”

So, everyone rushed out to the garden, and the six of us (me, Travis + 4 children) huddled together to watch this little, fuzzy bumblebee wiggle its tiny behind from flower to flower. 🐝😄

💜 XO

Flight of the bumblebee 🐝

Finally! Our first bumblebee sighting of the season! 🐝🌻

Church hop ⛪️

The unexpected blessing of attending different churches for Mass. 🙏🏽💜

Happy 4th of July! 🇺🇸

Wishing you a happy and safe holiday! ❤️🤍💙

A little garden harvest 🌶🫛

Just a little garden harvest of banana peppers, green beans, and basil (to season tonight’s lasagna dinner).

The kids helped me water the front garden (because of this excessive heat 🥵), and they noticed a few beans and peppers looked ready to harvest.

All week the temps have been in the high 90s. 🥵 We’ve had to deep water the gardens—the front garden in the morning and the back garden in the evening.

I based the watering schedules on when each garden gets full sun. It’s been working pretty well for the plants, too!

I noticed my energy has been low all week because of this excessive heat.

I focus on working in the garden early in the morning and later in the evening when it’s not too bad out.

I’m ready for it to rain so I can get a break from watering the garden and the temps will hopefully go down. 😆

💜 XO

A little garden harvest 🌶🫛

The kids loved harvesting a few green beans, banana peppers, and basil. 🥰

Tough day 😏, so let’s enjoy some flowers 💐

Sometimes you really do have to stop and enjoy the flowers. 😌🌸

Purr my last email 😹

It’s “payday” for the kids, so I took them out for a fun day of shopping. 💰🛍

The cucumbers have flowers 🥒🌼

Our cucumbers have flowers now! 😍🥒🌼 I noticed the bright, yellow flowers this past Saturday.

Travis and I were geeking out about it. Lol! 😂This is the first time we have grown cucumbers, so we are very excited!

We’re growing eight pickle cucumber plants. I plan on making dill pickles with our cucumber harvest, so I’m also growing dill in the same grow bags.

The cucumber plants are also showing signs they’re ready to start climbing. Thin tendrils have emerged and started curling around the trellis. 🥹🌿

I think it’s just amazing how the plants know to reach out and wrap itself around nearby objects. They’re like little hands searching for something to embrace. 😄😍

Over the weekend, Travis installed a simple homemade trellis behind the cucumbers. He just used nails and twine. Super easy!

We also ended up transplanting a few of the plants into separate grow bags so they don’t crowd each other and have enough root space to grow.

I can’t wait to see the cucumbers start growing! Shouldn’t be too much longer now. 😊🥒🌼

💜 XO

P.S.—here’s my midsummer seed order and a few new blooms in the garden.

Brunch, Garden, Mass, and H-Mart

Homemade brunch, time in the garden, Saturday Vigil, and a favorite stop at H-Mart.

Even the public library has seeds 😲🌿

The library offers a seed catalog, so I couldn’t pass it up! 😂

Midsummer seed order

Getting the garden ready for fall crops!

Even the public library has seeds 😲🌿

I went to the library to drop off my returns, and I discovered they offer a seed catalog! 😲🥳

So naturally, I grabbed a few seed packets to add to my midsummer seed order. 😆🌿

The seed packets I chose were Chinese giant sweet pepper, okra, cilantro, and parsley.

I know it might be a little too late to start the Chinese giant sweet peppers, but I’m going to try planting a couple of seeds.

The other day, I accidentally spilled some of my cilantro seeds, so that’s why I grabbed another pack.

I went ahead and planted the pepper and okra seeds in seed trays. Then, I added some cilantro and parsley seeds to the herb pots I currently have growing.

Just making the most of this growing season! 😁🌿

💜 XO

Midsummer seed order

Getting the garden ready for fall crops!

Toad pool

Such a funny surprise—a toad swimming in our rainwater bucket. 🐸💦

Low energy day, so let’s make pancakes!

Just a chill day of low-energy activities.

Midsummer seed order

My midsummer seed order has arrived, and I am excited! I took advantage of MIGardener’s 20% off sale because the deals were really good. I was impressed with how quickly I received my order, too! 😁🌿

I love watching their YouTube channel. I have learned so much about gardening and growing food within a year’s time all thanks to Luke, owner of MIGardener!

The seeds I bought

Parisian carrots, purple carrots, midori soybeans, painted pony beans, flor de mayo beans, light red kidney beans, midnight black turtle beans, Charleston Wakefield cabbage, gold rush wax bush beans, sugar beets, peach melba nasturium, and Tom Thumb dwarf pea.

This time I focused on foods we can grow in our grow bags and get started end of June.

We also wanted to try crops we haven’t grown before such as sugar beets, painted pony bush beans, and midori bush soybeans.

It’s all a learning journey

Last year, when I did a late summer seed order, I bought fall crops such as lettuce, green onions, spinach, carrots, bok choy, and collard greens.

The problem with that was I planted the seeds too late in the growing season, so we didn’t have a fall harvest. 😕

It was a learning experience for me, though, so I wasn’t mad about it. It taught me how and when to plant seeds for a fall harvest.

And I still have a bunch of seeds from last year’s order, so I am ready to plant our fall crops on time this year! 😁

💜 XO

P.S.—here are our new garden blooms so far and the new herb shelves Travis built for me. 😊

Toad pool

Such a funny surprise—a toad swimming in our rainwater bucket. 🐸💦

Low energy day, so let’s make pancakes!

Just a chill day of low-energy activities.

New blooms in the garden

The garden is showing signs of new life.

New blooms in the garden

I love how one day I will check on the garden and I can’t seem to find a single new bloom.

But then the next day, all of a sudden it seems like a flower has bloomed, there are green beans growing, and little green tomatoes have appeared. 😅

Yesterday, I noticed we now have green beans growing. 😍 I am so excited to see so many green beans sprouting, even though I don’t like to eat green beans. 🤣

My kids love fresh green beans, so I am excited to grow a food that I know they love. I can’t wait to harvest the green beans and cook them for the kids!

This is the first time I have grown spider flowers (cleome). I found the the unique flowers at a local farm store.

I intentionally planted four spider flowers near the food plants so it could attract pollinators to the garden.

I wanted to add something different to the garden this year, and I think the spider flowers were a perfect addition. The magenta petals are so beautiful!

And the tickseed flowers have bloomed, too. I actually planted these seeds last summer, but the flowers never grew. So, this was a nice surprise!

💜 XO

New herb plant shelves

My husband built the cutest herb plant shelves for our patio garden. 😍🪴

Homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

Delicious homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookies—good luck eating just one! 😋🍪

Pizza Friday

Trying a new (delicious) pizza for Pizza Friday. 🍕

New herb plant shelves

I’m so excited because I finally have outdoor shelves for my herb plants! 😁🪴 Travis worked on building the shelves all weekend, even on Father’s Day.

He was so proud of his work that he snapped a picture of the shelves and said, “Now when I go to work and someone asks me what I did this weekend, I can show them I built garden shelves.” 😄

We’ve been finding more efficient ways to grow food in a small space. Growing vertically, like with our new herb plant shelves, makes it possible for us to grow a great variety of herbs without taking up a lot of ground space in our small patio garden.

Now when I am cooking and need herbs from the garden, I can just walk out on the patio and reach for the pot I need on the shelf.

I love my herb plant shelves! 😍 Travis did a great job building the shelves. I said, “Now that I know you know how to build shelves, I’m going to ask you to build more shelves all the time!” 🤣😁

💜 XO

Homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

Delicious homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookies—good luck eating just one! 😋🍪

Pizza Friday

Trying a new (delicious) pizza for Pizza Friday. 🍕

A lot of time in the kitchen today

The heart of our home is the kitchen.

Our Happy Place This Spring

All we do is spend our spring days at local greenhouses, and I’m perfectly happy with that! 😊🌿

Soon it will be officially summer (next week to be exact! 😲), and I’ll be focusing on maintaining the garden and transplanting some of my plants that I started from seeds.

Also, the season for buying fruit/veggie plant starts is starting to wind down. It’s a good time to catch deals on leftover plants.

Today, I stopped by one of my favorite farm stores and took advantage of a BOGO sale. I bought candy onions, celery, romaine lettuce, Italian parsley, and asparagus (just for fun 😉 because I know this crop won’t be ready this season).

I’m trying to fill in some empty spaces in our garden! 😄

How’s your gardening going so far?

💜 XO

P.S.—here’s what we bought at the beginning of garden season.

Sunflower Rescue

We found volunteer sunflower sprouts growing in between the sidewalk. It was such a random thing to see that at first I thought they were just weeds.

But as the sprouts continued to grow taller, I inspected their leaves and told Travis, “I think these are sunflowers!” 😲🌻

I didn’t even know sunflowers could grow in such a tight space. Haha! But some plants are known to grow just about anywhere, I suppose. 😄

I do wonder if we hadn’t of “rescued” the random sunflower sprouts, could they have survived growing in between the sidewalk?

We did have two sprouts that needed more time to grow their roots, so I’ve been giving them some TLC in a repurposed honey jar.

This morning, I checked the sprouts, and one is finally ready to go in a pot of soil. Once it outgrows it’s pot, I will transplant it into a grow bag.

We have five of the volunteer sunflower sprouts currently growing in our garden beds.

They weren’t too happy about being transplanted, but after a few days and some good rainy days, they perked up and are now happy and thriving in the garden!

So, where did the volunteer sunflowers come from? My winter bird feeder! 😂

The birds/squirrels must’ve dropped the seeds, and once the weather warmed up, the sunflower seeds germinated! 😲🌻

What makes this sunflower rescue story even funnier is I said I wasn’t going to grow sunflowers this year.

We grew beautiful sunflowers last year, but I didn’t think we’d have the space for it this gardening season because we needed the room for our grow bags.

I guess the sunflowers said, “Make room for us!” 😂🌻 #sunflowerswin

💜 XO

P.S.—the feature image is of one of our sunflowers from last year.

Patterns in the Garden

A math discovery at a local greenhouse…

Gardening Season is Here!

Excited to grow more edible crops and take another step toward urban homesteading!

Maple Sugaring

Learning all about maple sugaring for a homeschool nature science class!

The sun is out! And my garden is calling me. The ground is too frozen to dig anything, but I cut back buddleias and other stuff. There was a squirrel running along the fence, and a fox peering at me through the fence from the neighbouring garden. And the first coffee of the year outside is heaven! A cold one, but.... 😎🥶😂

#urbangardener #gardenlife #songwriter #poet

Reflections on the meaning of reciprocity and relationship with nature. My garden still only tolerates me I think, but I most definitely love it.
💚💚💚
#naturepoetry #gardenpoetry #gardenlovers #poetrycommunity #reciprocity #connectwithnature #urbangardener

Two morning haiku:

Plant your own Eden
and follow its life and deaths
like your own soul breaths.

You are not alone.
The trees, plants, insects, birds know you
if you give them time.

🌺🌸🌻
#haiku #naturehaiku #poetry #poetrycommunity #urbangardener #gardenlife #naturelover

A perfect morning.
Garden, coffee and sunshine;
My soul is warming.
☕️😎☀️
#haiku #naturehaiku #poetrycommunity #morningcoffe #gardenlover #urbangardener

Made a small hedge with bamboo from the garden and recycled parts of a baby enclosure. #diy #bamboo #urbangardener #recycling #gardening

Outrageously excited!
#garden #urbangardener

CaliKim: From our Garden to Yours… https://www.allforgardening.com/683882/calikim-from-our-garden-to-yours/

##gardenersofinstagram ##organicgardening#organicvegetables ##urbangardener #gardentips ##veggiepatch #backyardgarden #CaliKim #CaliKim #CaliKim29 #CaliKim29Garden&HomeDIY #gardening #gardenlife #groworganic #growwhatyoueat #growyourown #happythanksgiving #lovegardening #organicgarden #thanksgiving #urbangardening #vegetablegarden #veggiegarden #VLog

A while back I showed you my chili pepper plant, it was time to harvest! This is the result. DH dried them in the oven to make them into chili powder 😃

#chilipepper #chilipepperplant #chilipeppergarden #growingchilipeppers #urbangardener #ChiliPepperHarvest

New garden pics: One of the blueberry bushes is ready for picking. The strawberry patch keeps giving. It's tacos for late dinner followed by garden berries for dessert. Waiting on tomatoes, peppers and other veggies I planted. Garlic ready for harvest in a few weeks. #urbangardener #urbangardening

The Siberian Irises are amazing this year. And having a little fun with ipad photo editing. #UrbanGarden #UrbanGardener #Boulder #Colorado

We've had some apocalyptic weather here in #Colorado recently. Surprisingly, my roses survived the freak hail storm we had about a week ago. The tomatoes and hostas, not so much 😣 #UrbanGardener #Boulder #roses

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a chili pepper plant. It has since tripled in size and it's now flowering! Perhaps it will even give me some chili peppers 😃

#chilipepper #chilipepperplant #chilipepperbloom #chilipepperflowers #chilipeppergarden #growingchilipeppers #urbangardener

Documenting the phases of the garden for 2023. All the veggies & herbs are in and I look forward to posting pictures in a few months of the growing plants that actually take up more space than the dirt 😆
#garden #gardening #UrbanGardener #UrbanGarden

There is already life in the garden, in spots that have been protected.

Catnip, chives, strawberries, and marjoram, which made it through the winter.

1/2

#ContainerGardening #Spring #Gardeners #UrbanGardener

my affinity for plants with quirky names has brought me...."better boy" tomatoes!

#balconygarden #urbangardener #gardening #homegrown #torontogardeners #balcony #zone6 #garden #tomatoes