Our fall garden

During the summer our garden was let go.  It was too hot to get out and me being pregnant didn't help.. so we didn't get outside much.  The weeds went crazy and the yard was just a mess! (Well, the mess still is around all the time here, but it was even worse.. I think you get the point).  : )

Once it started to cool down a bit and I got some more energy we started clearing out our garden beds and planting some things.  I do believe Jesse was the first to get the "planting bug".. I think he cleared the first bed.  One evening it was so nice and cool I just went to town clearing out bed after bed (I think I cleared 3 out of 5 that night).  Anywho, the results are wonderful.  Now we have some garden crops starting to grow.

But first we needed to make the garden area "chicken proof" to keep our seeds from being scratched up or eaten!-Which has happened in the past..

We spend less money on chicken feed when the chickens can "free range" in the yard, so the fence was important.  The barrier is nothing fancy, just things around the yard used normally for garden trellis' and shade did the trick.  It's not the nicest thing to look at, but it works and it didn't cost us anything to do it.

Our chickens are happy to be able to run in the rest of the yard and we are happy that they can't mess up the garden.  : )

Screens we used to shade the plants have worked nicely for a fence.

                                     Here are some of the things we are growing this season....

Trying potatoes in tires this time!

Tomatoes and "volunteer" sweet potatoes.

Another angle of the tomatoes and sweet potatoes.

Bush cucumbers and cotton.

Beans with tepee and strings to climb.

Oregano (in front) and rosemary (in back).

Wheat.. haven't weeded, but it's kind of hard to with wheat at first.

Banana trees we have grown for years with no fruit.. hope that changes soon.

I forgot to take a picture of the bed with carrots and green onions, but it looks kind of like the wheat bed.. it needs weeded bad because it's hard to tell the difference on the green onion side.

That's about all in this garden section of the yard.  We do have some other things we are growing in other parts of the yard too that I might blog about later.  I always am inspired and excited to see other peoples garden.  Though not super spectacular, I hope you enjoyed the tour and are motivated to grow something too!  : )

A new addition to the farm..

Well, it's been a while since I have written anything.  I have been very busy with raising 4 kiddos!  ; )  We have started a new homeschool curriculum this year, been preparing for a new baby that is on the way (due in about 2 more months), we have recently started our own tree business and added some lawn care in, and the list could just go on.. but anywho, you get the point.. we have been really busy!!!  : )
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We have some new and exciting things going on around our "little farm" and so I thought I would share them.  The newest member of our "farm" is a little gal I like to call "Dinner".  : )

I find that I call it "HE" and "HIM", but Faith is very particular that I say "SHE" and "HER".. Because, "It's a GIRL mom". : )

We got her earlier this week and we are enjoying this addition to the "farm".  We plan to raise her for about 6 months and then "take her to market" (hence her name).  This should be a neat way to save some money (we all LOVE bacon) and learn more about farm life.  This was the plan from the beginning, so the kids know ahead of time this will not be a "pet" for us to keep (once again - no "pet" name).  She isn't very nice, so this might help also.  This is a new experience for us, but we are up for the challenge.. she did just lick Charity's hand through the cage today though..

This cage will work for a short time while she's little.

She has already given us a workout too!  The day after we got her I found she had escaped from her cage!  She was rooting like crazy and had made a mess of part of the yard.  Thankfully she just stayed in the back part of the yard where the rabbits are and didn't tear up the rest of the yard.  I really do like the idea of having a pig for tilling a garden bed, especially after seeing what she had done in such a short amount of time!  God's all natural land tillers.  : )  Plus she would fertilize it too, but that's another topic.  It took a lot of running around, but the kids and I got her to get back into her cage.  We MUST remember to put the extra clip on the bottom of the door!

Yard after it was tilled up by "Dinner".

But then it happened again two days ago!  Someone must have forgotten to clip it back again!  We waited for Dad to come home this time. : )  It was a silly time running around back and forth in the yard trying to get her to go where we wanted her to.  Jesse (Dad, not Jr.) had made a "lasso" out of some rope and was seriously trying to get it "on a leash"..  What silly times to think back on and remember!  It was probably an hour before we finally got her put back in her cage.

She almost looks cute here.

So our new "FARM-ly" member is keeping things pretty interesting around here.. ; )

We are building her a pen out of free pallets.. I will try to update when the pen is complete.