garden Archives - Our Homestead Adventures

How to grow a garden through plastic sheeting

Two things that can frustrate a hopeful gardener are weeds and slow growing plants. Planting your garden through agriculture plastic can be a cure for both of those worries. Here’s how to get growing.

Dilly Beans Recipe, Small Batch

A good green bean harvest meant we could feast on dilly beans this year. This was our first season of pretty good success with beans. At least in our eyes. Success looks different to different people. Let me explain that last year we were only able to save 11 ounces of beans… carefully packed away…

Lemon Balm Tea, aka Melissa Tea

Herbs have so many uses, you should grow some. Herbs can be used for so many ailments as well as for enjoyment, that’s especially true with Lemon Balm. Our herb garden started out small, with the herbs that were most familiar to us. As we began learning more about homesteading through taking classes, listening to…

Growing Coriander in the Garden

You may be growing Coriander and not even know it. It’s what comes after your cilantro plant bolts Our coriander was truly a “learning by living” experience. We had an extended cool, spring season. Many of our herbs thought summer had gone and started “bolting” into flowers. It took about a month after the white…

Sweet Potatoes Sunday

Hunting for sweet potatoes on a sunny Sunday. Sweet Potatoes are one of Amy’s favorites. The kids like them too, especially with a little cinnamon. Our summer crop yielded a handful of the red-orange beauties. Most of them were found peeking above the heavy clay soil (we mixed in a heavy dose of compost this…

Jalapeño Poppers on the Homestead

Jalapeño Poppers, with or without the heat. When we lived in Arizona, we had access to heat, both in temperature and in foods (especially jalapeños). We ate with friends who would joke about spicy foods- “That’s not spicy! That’s like toothpaste!” We’ve had deep fried jalapeno poppers with oozy yellow cheese from restaurants- this is…

Beauty in the Fade, Fall on the Homestead

Finding meaning in fall. The leaves swirled down from our persimmon tree with a wind rushing up our hill. The chickens have lost quite a few feathers, as a palette of various shades have been wind-blown lining the sides of the chicken run like a tossed feathered boa. Our majestic sunflowers with multiple heads of…

Candied Jalapeños Recipe

Call it “Candied Jalapeños”, “Jalapeño Candy” or “Cowboy Candy”, it’s just yummy! Our nephew’s family joined us for a gathering and brought a tray, a block of softened cream cheese, and a jar of sliced jalapeños in a sweet, clear syrup, and dumped it over the cream cheese. There were crackers and tortilla chips to…

Garden Fresh Tomato Soup Recipe

There’s nothing like garden fresh tomato soup. After a couple sessions of canning tomatoes from our garden, and a few rounds of B.L.T. sandwiches, we needed another way to enjoy them and boy did we find the answer with this tomato soup recipe. Our dining room table has become the place to unload our rolled…

Corn Success Despite Adversity

1st corn crop brings less than an ear-full but more than “needed”. We are celebrating, knowing that we can check off one more item from our Homegrown Thanksgiving Menu! Corn! This success will taste so much sweeter come Thanksgiving when you consider how much adversity we faced with our crop this year. Second time is…