Prepping for our Garden {with help from my boys}

 

I’m a little late posting today because I am worn out from another fun weekend at the Ky Opry!  Jonathan sang his heart out and made it into the finals this coming weekend!  I’ll share the video as soon as it becomes available.

 

But for now, I wanted to tell you how excited I am that we are going to have a garden this year!

I wanted to start one last year, but we had sooo much going on last summer (since we had just moved into our house) that I couldn’t quite get it together.

So this year, we decided to give it a try.  There is a spot in our back yard that we think used to be a vegetable garden and maybe a flower garden?  Not sure.

But there is a long, raised garden area that was overgrown with trees and brush.

My husband, boys, and I have spent hours clearing this area of our yard up!  Here is what it looked after several hours of clearing out this area…

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I thought I took a “before” picture of what it looked like, but I couldn’t find it.  Just imagine tall trees and lots of overgrown brush growing up in that area.  Smile

If you look in the picture below, you can tell where this garden is located in respect to our house.  There’s our house with the addition on the left, and you can see our red barn behind the trees on the right.

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Can you tell what this is?   Look closely and see if you see something growing in there…

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Yup!  Grapes!!

 

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We saw this grape vine last year, but it had so much other stuff growing in and around it, we just left it alone.  But this year, we started clearing it out.  Jonathan helped Cy with the work.

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Now you can see our grape vine! 

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It was such a beautiful day, and we had so much fun working together as a family to get this done.  I am so proud of my boys’ hard work ethic!  They are such a great help to us!  We carried a ton of limbs to the “burn pile.”

 

Jonathan

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Adam and Luke

(Carrying some stuff to the burn pile)

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Adam

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Eli

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Whew!  That’s some hard work!!!

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When we were finished, we had a beautiful place to start a new garden!

 

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After we cleared everything out, we found this…

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I think the wood crosses on the right were maybe for green beans?  There is some wire between the poles.  What do you think they planted there?

Here’s another picture that gives you an idea where this garden is on our property.  You can see our “guest house” on the left.  (Oh ladies!  I cannot wait to get my hands on that little cabin!  We just have to get our house finished first!)

 

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Of course, we had to celebrate our hard work with some roasted marshmallows!

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(Oh, Adam and those silly faces he makes!)

 

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Good times, good times!

Are you planting a garden this year?  What will you be growing?

 

 

If you want to see more pictures of our property when we first moved in, click HERE.

21 Comments

  1. That is just exactly how we spent our weekend too! We rototilled that patch of land about 18 times I swear. And the weeds! It’s great to have little hands to help though isn’t it? Good luck with your planting!

  2. Congrats to Jonathan!!! Can’t wait to see the video. I have seriously been thinking this garden thing for a long time. My dad use to have one in our back yard every year, and we lived in the city!!! But he had some fantastic tomatoes!

    Can’t wait to see more updates on your gardening, house projects etc. Love that your boys have a good hard work ethic in this day and age. I think that is so important.

    Have a fantastic week!!!

    Marilyn C.

  3. Ah! They are so cute helping like that. How long did it take you to clear all of that out? So much work! It looks amazing though! Gonna be a HUGE garden!

  4. I absolutely love that your boys helped you with the prepping of the space for your garden! And I have to admit that I’m jealous of the open space you have for a wonderful summer garden, too. :) We’re currently living in a rented home, so I’ve got a ton of potted plants as my garden this year. However, next year… well, next year, we’ll have a HUGE garden.

    What are you planting?

  5. I am ecstatic to have a space tilled and ready this year for a garden. We have been in our home for about a year and a half now, and I had a garden at our old house and have been missing it! I envy the size of your garden! While we have a large lot (1.2 acres), a bulk of the land is in the front yard, which really isn’t conducive to gardens. The back yard is great, but too shaded. So, I have found a couple of plots on the side of the house and I’m just happy to have them. :-) LOVE having a garden though – it’s so rewarding!

  6. GOOD JOB, Traci!!!
    You have a wonderful place to plant a garden. A lot of work has gone into this area. Beautiful property you have.

    God bless and tasty green beans to ya!
    d from home haven

  7. Can I borrow your boys to help me clear the weeds in my yard? :D I’ll pay them in as many smores as they want!

    I have dreams of having a container garden… but my black thumb must be rearing its ugly head. My seedlings haven’t sprouted much at all, my strawberry plants that I bought aren’t producing berries bigger than my pinky nail and the tomato plant is either over or under watered… can’t get it right. lol.

  8. What a perfect garden spot. Doesn’t it make you wonder about the hands that worked the garden before? What home grown food was eaten by that family? And yes, what grew on those strung wires? Enjoy the fruits of your effort and keep putting all that good stuff…work ethic, family time and “can do” spirit into those boys. Hats off to you and Cy.
    Sarah

  9. Gosh, I wish my kids would get out there and do that! You must have missed the torrential thunderstorms that hit Illinois and Indiana over the weekend. It is STILL raining, although the big booms have stopped. A friend of mine without much money starts growing her garden plants under an artificial light with seeds in February. They are as big as the ones at Home Depot now and had cost her less than ten dollars for about three hundred dollars worth of plants! Of course, she had to buy the light and she did that years ago. She said it paid for itself the first year. I laugh when I see her kitchen covered in plants! They are ready to go in now. I hope you don’t dig up any old pets; another friend of mine did that when she planted her garden! Me? I am lucky to get enough tomatoes for one salad. Cy and your kids sure look “clean” out there doing grunt work!!!! They are in nice clothes too! You surely are living what others just dream about. Good for you!

  10. Congratulations to Jonathan and congratulations in getting all that cleaned up! It looks soooo much better! :-) We are planning to do a raised bed next year. We just had too much going on in other parts of the yard this year.

    Can’t wait to see the video!

    MIsty

  11. You really have a beautiful piece of property..perfect for your energetic boys! They will each have a heart full of happy memories made there!

  12. I’m so proud for Jonathan!! How exciting. He’s such a talented guy. He deserves to win!

    Love the way your guys have such a strong work ethic. I know you’re proud of all of them. That Eli, though–he’s such a ladies’ man! Look at him with his shirt off!!! :)

  13. Oh! Grapevines! (swoon…) We are lucky enough to live in the great lakes wine country so we have a lot of grapes in the area – and we can our own grape juice with as much as we can get our hands on every year. It is so easy to do and the kids like it so much more than the grape juice we get at the grocery store. I have to admit to being a bit envious of having a vine right in my backyard!

  14. Oh where do I start.. Congrats to Jonathon, I know you are so proud.. Well I can’t have a garden as the deer would eat everything. I can’t even plant flowers. I planted flowers one year and within a week they were all gone. :( You are so blessed to have the little family you have. I am sure this is not new news to you but you are so sweet how can God not bless you. Can”t wait to see the video, it is so great to see a young man sing praise to our Creator. What is he going to sing for the finals? What ever, I know it will be great and straight from his heart.

  15. We just moved into our house last summer and we found a raised garden bed as well. Our was completely overtaken by two GINORMOUS rosemary bushes and one HUGE lavender bush on one side and weeds and such on the other. We did this exact project as a family two weeks ago. This is our first garden too. :)

  16. It looks like you’re going to have quite a nice garden, & look at at all the “weeders” you have! LOL!
    ~CAS~

  17. Hi Traci

    Looks like a great spot for a garden…Just make sure the timber’s around the spot are not treated i read recently the stuff the treat with leaches into the soil. :(…maybe your are old and they didnt use that kind.

  18. Oh my – how cute are your little helpers?! I just started my very first garden ever and I can’t wait to watch it grow. I hope!

  19. I would guess that the trellises were for tomatoes… or melons… or cucumbers… My husband is a huge gardener and though my blog is mostly cooking you have to grow the food you make right? So we are doing a weekly gardening post as well. He has developed a method of gardening that is a combination of the square foot gardening method and the Mittleider method. We have 4 posts so far on gardening but I would suggest you grab some of the books on Mittleider if you can find them. You can trellis melons (water melons are kind of the exception unless they are small, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Beans (look up the three sisters) and more. It sure saves space and keeps your veggies away from a lot of the bugs.

    Ruthie…

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