Gardening Memories

I have lived in Mississippi my entire childhood and most of my adult life so I'm used to hot & humid weather.  My grandmother (who raised me from the time I was 2) always had a garden, apple trees and honestly, you don't want me to describe what would happen if you missed a spot of grass when you mowed the lawn.  Anyway, her garden was always aligned so nicely, rotated yearly but neatly set and, even now, I can see it, even though she passed 2 years ago and hadn't had a garden in 20 years. 

I also remember all of her advice (insert "orders" here lol). 
1. Don't put the holes to close together.
2. Don't put that many seeds in the hole.
3. You're over watering... ( insert *sigh* here)
4. Are you trying to weed out the butter beans or just take out the whole garden?

You can see that gardening wasn't my strong suit growing up, especially as a teenager. lol Now though? I enjoy it immensely. Well, the few times we have had a garden since we've moved to our farmhouse. This year though, we are having a much bigger garden and I can't help but remember all the "advice" my grandmother gave me.  We are going to have different types of tomatoes, corn, black-eyed peas, pole beans, cucumbers, squash, butter beans and many others. Enough to last us almost the entire winter, if not longer.  It brings back all the times of being out there with her, the Sundays my uncle would come for lunch and everything would be fresh from the garden... I can't wait to torture... ugh, I mean... enjoy our kids being out in OUR garden, learning how to take care of the plants that will take care of us.

What kind of memories do you have of gardening when you grew up? Did your parents have a garden? Where you "forced" to help or did you enjoy it?

Starting A Homesteading Adventure

The past few years, I have raised chickens. It's something that I enjoy and honestly makes me feel... I don't know.... CALM, after a long day or lots of stress.  Watching them grow from chicks that I had bought turned addictive and, well, you know how it goes. I just had to try an incubator.  Now, two years later, I am still using the incubator, breeding my own chickens.  I'm even trying to make my own type of bird. It's only February and I have chicks getting ready to hatch tonight~ they've already started pipping the eggs. Our kids love it.
That's the thing about homesteading~ you are learning.. you are doing.. and even though it is very hard work, it is so fulfilling.  This year, we are going all the way. We are redoing a pasture fence so that we can have our own horses, calves, goats, piglets... and my chickens. lol  We are also raising rabbits for meat production and  a HUGE garden.  I will be learning to use a pressure canner as well as canning the regular way.  I plan on having guest writers on different subjects as well as links to help get us all on our way to learning the old ways of doing things. Regardless of why we are homesteading, ( prepping, going green, getting away from city life) it's important to enjoy it as we learn. Hope you enjoy learning with me!