Welcome to our annual summer garden tour. As I look back on our spring and summer garden season it has been a good one. We have had quiet a bit of construction and remodel on our grounds, but we managed to produce a really nice harvest with some beautiful plants to enjoy. In gardening the weather is always a challenge, and this year has been no different. We are actually in the last half of our August heat and it is hot, but it will soon start to cool with the dog days of summer. We will soon be preparing the ground and planting our winter garden and the seasons continue on.

It has truly been an outstanding summer garden harvest this year. We had early and late rain's along with cooler temperatures that we had never had in recorded weather history for our area so we really didn't know what to expect in the final outcome of the harvest. We have had what the farmers would call a bumper crop. In order to keep up with the harvest we have kept the canner's going full steam ahead. I am excited to share with you the summer garden harvest time.

In February we experienced a historical snow storm with temperatures dipping below zero. We were so concerned that some of our trees and other planting's might not come back in the spring. Our electric grid in Texas failed and we were without electric power for over 12 hours at a time. It was a long week, but thankfully we did not have the damage that some encountered. We were checking our trees and plants almost daily to see if they would have any sign of life and or new buds. We were so grateful when we began to see signs of life and new growth. We have now broke new ground for a garden extension and are beginning our spring plantings.

I love my Garden Gate which is an old fashioned screen door painted in bright colors giving the garden just a bit of whimsey. We have have some really good rains this year so our vegetable garden is looking really pretty right now and we are sure enjoying some of the bounty of the harvest. I thought you might enjoy spending some time in the garden with me today so please join me for a little garden tour of our Mid-Summer's Garden.

Photo  Top Right: Miz Helen Age 7  Bottom Right: Great Granddaughter Ella June Age 7 When I was a young girl, I went to the garden to help my Grandmother with the planting and harvest of the wonderful vegetables. That set in me a desire to have my own garden someday and my love for fresh fruits and vegetables. Each year when my Great Granddaughter Ella visits for her summer visit we get to share the garden with her, passing on the hope that someday she to will have a desire to have her own garden and pass this art of gardening on to her Granddaughters. We are very blessed in our generation to be able not only to pass this along to our Grandchildren but also our Great Grandchildren. Gardening is truly an art that we are so honored to have received from my Grandparents and to pass on to the next generations.

We finally had a break in the rain so we could get our spring garden planted and we are so excited! We are planting real late this year because our area has been having historical rain breaking weather records. Some of the plants have loved all the water and others have had delayed growth while some have died because of to much water. Because the planting has been so late this year, we completely changed our garden plot plan. That's the fun of gardening it is ever changing and never a perfect science, we learn new methods all the time and will continue to pass that along to all of you. 

Usually by this time of the year, our onions have been planted along with our early greens, peas and potatoes, but not this year. We have had more rainfall than ever in recorded history, the ground is completely saturated and there is literally no place for it to go. Our lakes and rivers are all full and we haven't even come into the spring rainy season. When we try to start our spring gardening we just bog down in the would be rows, this year it is just "to wet to plow". 

When we pick the first green onion and first green tomato from the spring garden, then all that planting we did on a cold day in January pays off!  There is nothing like taking a walk out to the garden and coming back to the kitchen with a basket full of fresh vegetables for the evening meal. We have had a great spring garden this year with just the right amount of rain to have wonderful green vegetables and weeds of course. We are trying a little different garden space approach this year in a smaller area with maybe not so much to maintain, but with great production.

A great garden harvest starts very early in January and that plan should be into action by February. I start planning my garden's  early in January when we can only dream about spring and warm weather. When the plan is set, it goes on paper in my Garden Journal .  I am always excited about making the garden plan and then planting the little seeds that will produce such wonderful vegetables. If You Want This Kind Of Production  At Harvest Time Start Now!

When the temperatures begin to drop and the leaves begin to turn it's time to start watching for the seeds that need to be saved for the next year. I have some Zinnias in my yard that have been reseeding for many years. Sometimes they surprise you by where they come up, but they will keep coming back each year. I have some heirloom tomatoes that I save the seed every year. Our Magnolia's have the most beautiful seeding process with beautiful seed pods. Saving our seeds in the fall enables us to always have the quality of our seed line to continue every year.

I am so excited to invite you to join me on a little tour of the June garden. I would love to share with you the progress of the two projects that we started in the spring. One of the projects was a runner for the garden vegetables and the other a raised bed for my Kitchen Herb Garden. It is always fun to follow the progress of the projects that are started. We have some great vegetables that are already for harvest and some that will be very shortly. We love the garden and the process of the seasons and especially bringing those wonderful vegetables into the kitchen.

Kitchen Herb Garden and Vine Fence are two of the project's that we have on our spring garden bucket list. We like to get most of our special garden project's finished in the spring, so we can enjoy them as the garden season moves along. This year we had two projects on our bucket list for completion. The first project is a Kitchen Herb Garden just outside my kitchen door and the other a smaller project for climbing vines that is located in one of the larger garden area's. This post gives complete instructions for building both of these projects.

When there is 16 inches of snow on the ground in some parts of the country, one wonders how we could think of working outdoors in a vegetable garden. We are so fortunate to live in an area that although we do get some extreme temperatures in January and February we still have some good days that we can get out and do some gardening.

When my husband and I decided to downsize about 9 years ago to a tiny cottage, it was long before "Tiny Houses" were as popular as they are today. I love my tiny cottage and it has been so much fun to decorate. The acreage is much larger than the cottage with vegetable and herb gardens,outdoor kitchen and more. We repainted the outside of the house earlier this spring and then we redid all the front flower beds. The beds have had a chance to get started so I am happy to share the progress with you today, plus it is all ready for fall.

We have had a fabulous garden season this year. Early in the spring we got more than our share of rain which filled our rivers, lakes and left our ground real soggy and planting a little later than usual. We were very grateful for the rains after a few years of drought conditions. All in all it has been a great year for production, even the birds have had their share of the left over berries.

We have just completed our spring harvest for onions and some of our other early garden vegetables. We usually plant about 250 to 300 onions in January and then harvest in May or early June.This year we had so much rain that the harvest came a bit early, and everything is just beautiful. We usually have enough onions to last us most of the year round.I very rarely buy onions at the farmers market. We have an all organic garden and make our own compost, which helps us have such a great garden. We rotated our onion patch from the lower garden to the upstairs garden this year. We always like to rotate our crops every 2 to 3 years to help the ground rest.

I am so excited that we have come to this time of the year when we begin to prepare the trees and bushes for a new season.A time to plant new seeds and plants in the gardens and just enjoy being out doors on a crisp winters day. We always have a little break in the weather in the middle of January and February and all of a sudden we have a sun shiny day to catch up with our gardening. As you will see we have been very busy here at the cottage.

Gardening has been a real challenge this spring with the constant rain that we have had. We have had more rain this season than any time in our recorded rain history, which in our area is over 100 years. No matter how good the drainage has been in your garden or yard it has sometimes been standing in water. We are so grateful that we have not experienced the loss of life or property that some have. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those families. In the past few days we have had a few hours out of the day when the sun has come out and things have began to dry out some.

We have great gardening weather this winter allowing us to enjoy our winter vegetables just that much longer. It gets exciting this time of the year in the garden, getting the soil ready for spring planting and looking through all the seed catalogs that just show up at the right time. Curling up with a nice cup of tea and all the seed catalogs, a great way to spend a cold afternoon. There Seems To Be An Endless Supply of Seed Catalogs

We added some fun new things to our garden this year that we are going to enjoy all year round. We have a new little Green House, just right for starting seeds for planting or storing plants in the winter months. It was a very simple install that even Max helped with and after the plants were ready to be harvested we had some special from our little helper Ella. We Start With The Construction Of The Green House Installed On A Sand Base With And Anchored With Treated Lumber The Floor Is Then Covered With River Rock The Green House Has A Drop Front Door To Be Used In Colder Weather It Is Max Approved and Ready For Plants  For Easy Access To The Compost For Potting New Seeds We Placed The New Green House Next To The Compost Helper "Shreck" To Learn More About Our Shreck Go To This Link Shreck We Start Planting Onions In January On A Nice Sunny Day By The Last Of June The Onions Are Ready To Pull We Have A Very Sp...