Growing My Own Food

Growing your own food is a great way to save money. I dont normally buy organic food, but I was checking out the prices of it and it is always more expensive. I am growing my food organically, using no pesticides and I am having so much fun in the process!
I plan on canning my green beans and maybe some of my tomatoes. We will eat a lot of things fresh, which saves on your weekly grocery budget.

We moved to our new house in November last year, and ever since, I have been so excited to use the raised garden bed that is in the back yard. It's a small garden maybe 6' x 6'. I have never had my own garden, so I have been wanting to try my hand at it. So in April, I prepared the dirt and added a product called Bumper Crop. The dirt looked old, and part of the raised bed was full and part was not. It looked pretty hopeless at first but when I added this in and started working with it, it really started looking good!

Potato

While I was preparing the soil, I found two seed potatoes that had been left from a previous garden. They had small sprouts, so I decided to plant them. They did so well! I ended up finding 3 more, so I have 5 potato plants in all.

I have also planted iceberg lettuce. This did not do so well. It never formed a head which I'm told can happen if it get's too hot, but I don't think that was the case here. I asked our local garden center and they said iceberg lettuce doesn't grow well here in the region of VA I'm in. I've been eating the leaf lettuce that has grown and it's ok, but I'm not a huge fan, so I'm pulling it up one by one and I'm planning on trying another crop in it's place. Maybe a fall carrot crop.

Iceberg Lettuce

I planted 3 rows of Blue Lake bush beans. They took a little over a week to pop up but they are growing like crazy.

Green Beans

I have two tomato plants, and two cucumber plants. I have one strawberry which had been in the garden and wasn't doing well. I transferred it to a pot and is doing so much better. I planted some creeping lemon thyme in it's place. This stuff smells so good. I used on some baked chicken last week. I'll have to share that recipe soon.

Strawberry

Thyme

Do you have a garden? What are you planting?

Tomato

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