Wordless Wednesday- Leave me alone! I'm sleepin!

See those little yellow eyes in there? Long story short... this bird house was out for decoration because silly me thought the hole was too small for a robin to fit in. Hah! It fell off the tree in a huge storm, I went to rescue what I thought was an empty house and found it to be not empty! So I left it alone until the baby flew away!

Strawberry Pickin' Time!!

Well it's that time of year again! I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but we belong to a CSA farm here in Wisconsin. That being Community Supported Agriculture. From May to October we go to the farm that we are a member of every other week and pick up a box of fresh picked organic veggies!

It's strawberry season! Our farm lets us go pick strawberries! It was the perfect weather for it this year!

We picked about 2 buckets full! We love strawberry jam! And strawberry shortcake..... and strawberry pie... and strawberries and ice cream... you get the picture!

I found a new kind of pectin, Ball Instant Pectin..The recipe they use was so easy. 1 2/3 cups of mashed fruit, 2/3 cups sugar and 2 Tbsp pectin per pint of jam you want to make. So we got to mashing!

It's a no cook recipe and was so easy to make! In about an hour we had 6 jars of jam for the freezer! And boy is it delicious!

Next week I'm going to make peach jam! our second favorite.

Wordless Wednesday - 100 MPH winds can do this and more!!

groOrganic Garden Planner!

In April I posted that 'I Can Garden!' now since we have moved from the hot dry desert to the farm country of Wisconsin.

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Since I haven't lived near fertile land in over 15 years, I needed some help to get my garden started. groOrganic was kind enough to give me a 30 day trial of their Garden Planner to try out. Visit their site at www.groOrganic.com, by clicking the photo above or call them at 888-947-6674.

It is great!! It is so easy to log in and get right to your 'plan'. I decided I wanted to try planting radishes, green onions, artichokes, some kind of melon, beans and soy beans. Also a little lettuce mix and we had asparagus last year from plants already here.

A bit optimistic for me! LOL! So I put it all into my plan which was fun!

It is larger than my spot is, but that's because I decided to make it look like the whole yard and put the deck in. I also decided to plant some flowers in pots on the deck. This is what it looked like when I was done.

Now the hard part... I have no idea when to plant these so that they don't die right off the bat! We get frost here and that's not good for plants right? This was the best part about groOrganic's garden planner:

It tells you when to plant, type of soil, sun or shade, spacing, everything you need to know! And it knows all this because when you do your setup you tell it where you live so it is specific to your area! How great is that!

There's also a graph that shows what months you should plant everything and harvest it.

So since I did all this, I've changed my plan some, but it is so easy to do in the garden planner. It's too late for me to plant an artichoke from seed so I'm trying to find an established plant and having no luck. Our asparagus didn't come back up this year, I don't know what's up with that. The rhubarb is back but I have no clue what to do with rhubarb! I went to the farmer's market and bought the cutest brussel sprout plant so decided to plant that in a container on the deck. My flowers haven't popped up yet and I'm not sure if I should plant the onions because of my dog ,and it's too early to plant the radishes.

groOrganic also sends you an email every 2 weeks to remind you what can be planted that week. And the emails have great recipes in them.

All in all, this is a great program! I wouldn't have known any of this without it. I would have planted the radishes already and they would have died since we've had frost since I got the seeds. groOrganic also sells raised bed packages in some states, bee hive equipment, emergency packs and more. Check them out! www.groOrganic.com

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I Can Garden!

Not much you can grow in Arizona, although I did have 2 artichoke plants that did really well. Now that we are in Wisconsin.... I can garden!

We belong to a farm co-op (CSA or Community Supported Agriculture) but there were a few things last year we'd have liked more of. So I am going to try and grow them! Green onions, radishes, artichokes, cantaloupes and some soy beans.

groOrganic has kindly given me a 30 day trial period on their Garden Planner in exchange for my reviewing it.

I have just started and let me tell you... it is very easy to use! I've put in my little plot area and added some for some containers that I am going to plant. I think I need to actually measure now!

Stay tuned for more as I plant and grow!