It is sad that so much knowledge has been lost with our ancestors. Technology has taken over and many skills have been long forgotten. Skills that are still very valuable especially on the homestead! I'm grateful that there is an emerging trend to re-learn these skills. One such being how to make a pectin free jam and preserving other homegrown foods!. 

There is still one thing that baffles me, the copious amounts of sugar. Surely our ancestors did not use this much sugar! One recipe we looked at called for 6-7 cups of sugar to 5 cups of fruit! That much sugar surely erases all the health benefits of the fruit! 

Salads are such an easy meal for summer time and a great way to get all our greens (7 cups a day!). Some people are intimidated by growing lettuce and shy away from it but there's no need, it easy!. Today I'm going to give you my best tips for growing lettuce so that you can have a continuous supply for quick and easy summer time meals that don't heat up the house. 

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 I love to garden. I always have and always will I'm sure. I've done it since I was a small child with my mother and sometimes my dad as well. I can't think of a time when I didn't garden. Even in high school I helped here and there. My first apartment balcony was filled with flower pots, and as soon as spring hit, the side of the steps of my first house was adorned with flowers. 

It started with flowers then I incorporated garden vegetables and now I have the best of both  worlds in this little paradise of a farm we are so blessed to live on! The best part about it is that my kids are right there next to me. And they actually enjoy it! They are just as excited about growing as me! Even about eating all those tasty vegetables!

I'm telling ya people, garden with your children. It can bring them a lifetime of healthy eating habits and endless memories of spending quality time learning something new with YOU!

To get you started I have made a list of the best plants for gardening with kids. The criteria to make this list includes ease of planting, ease of care, kids preference to the flavor, and the abundance of fun it is to grow. This is just a starting point. I hope that once you get going you venture into new things. 

*I've included links to the varieties we use. I am in no way affiliated with rareseeds.com or Baker Creek (same company). I just truly love the variety and quality of their seeds! I know they are just as  much against GMO's as me which gives me a piece of mind when ordering from them. I'm sure you will love them too!
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Gardening season is upon us and we are here to guide you! Many of you may know that I've been working on a gardening book, "Everything You Need to Know to Start Your Garden."  It's done! It will be released on Tuesday May 14th and available for purchase here on our website and on Amazon

To kick off it's launch I thought I would do  book giveaway! Yeah! To be entered into the giveaway is all you have to do is leave a comment below telling me what excites you most about gardening. Simple! That's how we like it and that theme carries through to my book. A simple guide that won't confuse you or give you a bunch of unnecessary tasks. Yuck! My book outlines everything you need to do so you can have a garden THIS YEAR! Yes please! 

There are numerous book on the market about grading-so many that it can be overwhelming for someone who is just starting out. Where are you to begin?
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We are so grateful to be able to share fresh organically raised heirloom produce with our customers. It is truly a blessing. In doing so we pray that more people will learn about the importance of "clean" food, going non-GMO, and knowing where your food comes from. But it all began to provide our family with all that aforementioned good food, so we would know exactly what we are eating and what went into it. So our children can learn how to raise their own food and the difference between homegrown heirloom produce and commercially raised GMO counterfeit food. So far it looks like we have succeed (thank you LORD). Our kids love gardening and eating the vegetables. Heck, they don't even bother washing the dirt off. A few swipes of the hand is sufficient enough for them. Oh, it's great! 

So with this comes canning, drying, freezing and fermenting. That is a lot of work but once again my kids love being a part of it and that helps tremendously. It takes a lot of food to feed this big ol' family!

Well we have made it past the average frost date of Sept 20th. We actually made it TWO weeks past that. That is quite amazing! Thank you Lord for the extra time! This is only the second time we even made it to the average frost date. Normally we get a frost by the end of the first week in September. See, quite amazing! 

Garlic is one of my favorite things to grow. Every spring when it comes up it reminds me that summer is not far off and I'll be outside planting soon. It also seems to withstand hail pretty well. Aren't we happy about that! The stem got beet up pretty bad but the bulb was safe and sound several inches underground.

I started my garlic 4 years ago and have been building it up since then. Each year saving more and more back to plant and thus increasing my stock.

After the garlic is pulled it has to sit out of sun and rain for a few days to a week. When they are done curing then the roots and tops are trimmed. They are then ready for storage. In the fall we will bring out the some of the bulbs to plant for next summer.

In North Dakota it is best to grow a hard-neck variety. This is a long day type. Long day refers to how many hours of sunlight the garlic need. Long day type need more sunlight hours so they work great in the northern parts of the country where summer days are long. Short day is just the opposite and need fewer hours to thrive. They are grown in the southern stated.

The hard-neck refers to the top or stem. It is indeed very hard. It must be cut off with sharp knife or kitchen shears. Hard-neck garlic can not be braided like soft-neck garlic for this very reason.

A few weeks ago we harvested the garlic scapes. Garlic scapes are the blooms of the garlic. They are very funny looking things. The stem grows up several feet then curls over and around with the bloom on the end. You cut them off about eight inches below the bloom and that is your garlic scape. It can be used just like garlic or you can pickle it like we like to do. It is absolutely delicious spread on a sandwich.

They look like miniature garlic cloves don't they. We are excited to grow garlic from these tiny little bubils!

Happy garlic eating!

Jaci


P.S. If you are looking for the post on the hail damage you can find it after the post on multiplier onions. Just keep scrolling down.

Have you ever heard of Multiplier onions? They do just as their name implies- multiply. Instead of planting them in the spring like regular onions you plant them in the fall. Then in the spring they have a race with the garlic to see who comes up first. It's usually a very close race. Once they come up they start multiplying. You can get even ten onions from one. Five to seven is more common and what I actually prefer. They seem to grow bigger when there is fewer.

One of the nice things about Multiplier onions is that they are ready to harvest before spring planted onions. They're not usually as big as spring planted onions but they are very reliable, always tied us over until the spring planted onions are ripe, and have been a part of many, many jars of salsa. I can't see myself ever not growing these.