Tag Archives: Vegetable gardening

Victory Garden Update

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I can’t believe I have forgotten to post about my garden this year. I am fully embracing the victory garden life this year. Mentally changing my gardening experience to embrace the idea of victory gardening has changed my perspective. Growing food as a hobby is one thing. Growing food to survive and as a necessity is another.

Here are a few snapshots of what my garden has grown into this year.

What I am growing so far includes:

  1. Lettuce
  2. Shallots
  3. Red Onions
  4. Basil
  5. Parsley
  6. Lemon Balm
  7. Sage
  8. Rosemary
  9. Thyme
  10. Chives
  11. Pumpkins
  12. Red Raspberries
  13. Sour Cherries
  14. Peaches
  15. Pears
  16. Apples
  17. Yellow Squash
  18. Zucchini
  19. Eggplant
  20. Green Onions
  21. Peas
  22. Green Beans
  23. Dry Beans
  24. Jalapenos
  25. Sweet Bell Peppers
  26. Lunchbox Sweet Peppers
  27. Roma Tomatoes
  28. Purple Cherokee Tomatoes
  29. Butternut Squash
  30. Lavender
  31. I am foraging black raspberries, wild ramps, wild garlic, and dandelions

I still have time to get some other things in the ground like beets, and carrots. I hope to use some season extenders as well to grow into December.

Another mission I have in regards to my growing food this year is to document how many pounds I harvest. I am trying to prove to the naysayers that say growing your own food is too expensive for what you get out of it and too much hassle when you can just go to the store and buy it. Yeah that’s a bunch of bullshit in my opinion. I intend to prove my point by the end of the season.

Total harvested so far this season since starting to document it May 26th is 417.1 oz. which is 26.06 lbs of food. These foods include: Lettuce, Lemon Balm, Peas, Yellow Squash, Zucchini, Black Raspberries and Sour Cherries.

I’ll try to update more regularly! Hope your gardens are all doing well 🙂 -MM

Re-Purposed Outdoor Brick Fireplace

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It’s a fact –  I need more planting space in order to meet my 2017 Gardening Goals.

With that being said I got inspired this week to do something with our unsightly old outdoor fireplace. About 15 years ago an apple tree fell on it during a storm and crushed most of the left side. I would have taken the whole thing out but the right side of it has an electrical outlet on it and I didn’t want to mess with having to remove the power line and to tell you the truth it comes in handy when I need to plug in power tools and Christmas lights.

Without a lot of funds and a need for more planting space I decided to gather all of the old bricks that were scattered around the yard and turn them into a potato planting bed.

Potatoes need a deep planting bed. As they grow they need to be continuously buried in order for them to form lots of underground potatoes.

Check out the before and after pics. I even threw in a couple of short videos.


After a couple of hours of work and lots of back filling of a combination of soil and sawdust it was ready to plant. I even planted a few flowers at the base of it. The only cost was the seed potatoes. Everything else I had.

This is a pretty good sized space. I am excited to see how the potatoes do in their new home. As the seedlings start to sprout I will add a few more layers of bricks and more soil until they reach the top of the bed.

I don’t plan on mortaring in the bricks. Right now it is a semi-permanent bed and I plan on keeping it that way.

2017 Gardening Goals: Plant Potatoes– Check!

I’ll keep you updated on this project. Let me know what you think! -MM