SEX in the garden...

Well now, did that get your attention?

I like to say “there are questions a newbie doesn't even know to ask”. That is certainly true about gardening.

It's my second year gardening. As with most of the new things that I am learning & asking questions about, I just start researching.

I actually found this a little humorous, so gentle readers I hope you are not offended. Life on the farm is about sex. Life in the garden is about sex.

Mother nature has a sense of humor when it comes to sex in the garden. Take the yellow crook neck squash.

There are male flowers and female flowers both on the same plant. Sort of like Romeo & Juliet, they are so close, yet so far away.

How do you “sex” a flower? It is really easier than you think.

There are two ways to determine which is which. First we will start with the stem.

Boy stems are straight. Girl stems have a little bulge.

                  

 

Gently pull the petals back and inside what do you see.

Well, check the inside if the inside matches you ah, down below...then that flower is the same sex as you are. A little boy flower looks like a male. The little girl flower looks more like a female.

 

Now, if you remember the birds and the bees talk from when you were younger, the boys have to pollinate the girls for there to be babies; I mean fruit.

There are more boy flowers than girls flowers. If you are having issues with squashes developing on your plant, you may need to assist mother nature.

You take just the inside of a boy flower and sort of jiggle it around inside the girl flower. That allows the pollen to drop inside and fertilize the female flower.

Well evidently my boys and girls have been playing well together, since I have been getting a lot of squash.
But, I certainly learned a valuable lesson today that will help me in my future gardening endeavors. Skills I didn't know I would need for gardening.

What I do here is simply share our preparedness journey. If you liked this post we would love it if you joined our Perky Prepping Gramma community on Facebook, comment or share. Plus it would just make my day.

Items I have used this week:

   

Your order is so very appreciated, because anything ordered through my Amazon Associate links helps me to be able to stay home and write for you. Perky Prepping Gramma is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Planting the Three Sisters (corn, beans and squash)

Last year I started with only a few types of plants for my garden. I wanted to keep it simple, since I was learning everything from scratch. This year, I decided to try plant my corn, beans and squash with the Three Sisters method. This method is companion planting of plants that are mutually beneficial to each other, which is based on the three main agricultural crops of various Native American groups in North America: squash, maize (corn), and climbing beans (typically tepary beans or common beans). These happen to be my favorite plants i grew last year.
Here is my garden. They are starting to grow now. 

This is a corn and bean mound. Note the corn is planted in four corners & the beans were planted in the opposite corners about two weeks later.

This is one of my squash mounds. I haven't thinned them out yet.                                                                               

A great informational article from Mother Earth News on "The Three Sisters: Corns, Beans and Squash". I found this video helpful when it came to actually plating the crops.

What a difference a year makes (before & after)....

Summer of 2013 was the first year I had a garden. After about 6 months of preparing, I realized very quickly that I wanted to have a more sustainable lifestyle. So I started to learn about gardening. I worked with a combination of "Back to Eden" and "Square Foot Gardening".
"Back to Eden" is a film that I go back and watch over and over, It is an hour and 45 minutes long, but I derive a sense of peace each time I watch the film. This is how we are preparing the ground for our garden this year. 
Living in Northern Virginia our soil is heavy with red clay. This is a picture of what our soil normally looks like & a picture of soil from my garden today after one year of preparing the soil by the Back to Eden method.     
               

                                                                                                               
Pretty amazing, right? Note the worm...I had worms all over my garden..The earthworms help increase the fertility of your soil. They burrow through the soil ingesting and digesting the unbroken down organic material that is in the soil.Their waste (worm poo) provide vital nutrients for the soil. As they move through the earth it creates an aeration effect, which helps surface water penetrate further into the soil. 
This is so simple to do & more importantly very easy to maintain. I simply use a rake occasionally to uproot whatever weeds may pop up.

The "Square Foot Gardening" method, helps maximize the spacing of your planting as opposed to traditional rows. 

So we (when I say we here, I really mean that Mr. Perky nicely asked me to just leave him alone and let him get 'er done) are finally getting tour garden this year & I am so excited to see my plants starting to poke their little heads up out of the ground. We actually had top soil, compost and mulch delivered and as you see Mr. Perky had several little helpers.

This is how it looks layered. This is my friend helping me plant some seeds.
For the seeds, I have chosen to use only non-hybrid and non-GMO seeds. While there are several great companies out there, I have chosen to use Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, which was recommended to me. I also have seeds that I have saved. 

Now the why? I feel it is really important to practice your skills before you have to use them. I hadn't really gardened before, so I am learning as I go. This way I will have hands on knowledge BEFORE I really need to depend on gardening. Plus, I have learned I really enjoy this as a past time.
I encourage you to start your garden if you haven't tried it yet. Now, take the time to watch the "Back to Eden" film. it is well worth your time. 

What I do here is simply share our preparedness journey. If you liked this post we would love it if you joined our Perky Prepping Gramma community on Facebook, comment or share. Plus it would just make my day.

Your order, any order is so very appreciated, because anything ordered through my Amazon Associate links helps me to be able to stay home and write for you. Perky Prepping Gramma is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Don't wait until the SHTF...

The process of becoming prepared is an interesting journey. 

If you have practiced a skill; you won't be learning all the steps while you are in an emergency situation or when your life depends on it. ~Perky Prepping Gramma~

We started the journey last year. The process began with buying "stuff" from the store, learning to dehydrate fresh food from the store.
Figuring out how to pressure can my own meat. Learning to practice my skills. Which lead to growing an heirloom garden.
Each step has involved a learning curve. That is what I am going to talk about today.
When we first started preparing, we understood the importance of being self-sustaining in food production. We purchased a shelf stable can of seeds. Over the winter we decided to start a garden this year.
I knew from the beginning I was going to keep it simple the first year:
1. Using the raised planter system (our ground is red clay), ala square foot garden and "Back to Eden" methods. No chemicals. All heirloom, non-GMO seeds.
2. Grow what we like to eat
3. Not grow too many things (since I was learning about each plant I was growing)
4. I expected some failures, which is simply a learning process for the next time.
5. Hoping that I would be able to eat some food from my garden & even possibly be able to can fresh "good" food.

I have learned a lot & I am grateful that we didn't wait to start a garden in a SHTF scenario. If we had waited to start our garden, we would have not been in great shape & still would have been dependent upon what we already have stored.
1. Using the square foot garden & "Back to Eden" process worked really well for us. This is how we will continue to garden.
2. Looking back at that can of seeds we have stored, makes me realize that we need to store more (seeds) of what we eat. This is another basic principle that needs repeating.Store (grow) what you eat. There are several vegetables in "the can" we don't like to eat, so why bother trying to grow them or even have them stored. Soon, I will need to learn how to save the seeds.   
3. We planted asparagus, tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, corn, snap peas, sweet peas, green beans, yellow squash & carrots. 
4. The things that didn't work for various reasons are the tomatoes, both peas, carrots & maybe the cantaloupe.
5. We have eaten corn, squash & green beans. We will have multiple watermelons soon. 
Ta! Da!  I even got enough of a harvest to pressure can a small batch of greens beans yesterday.

There will still be more, but I am pretty tickled so far. 

Special Note for Newbies: Are there things you still need to learn? Are you willing to step out and give it a try? There are many posts here on the blog to help you & back on Perky Prepping Gramma Facebook page itself; there are a lot of photo albums for various things like canning, dehydrating, storage and more. If you have questions, read through and then post question on the front page of the facebook page. We are here to help you on your journey.

Newbie gardener...

Our first year gardening. We have tried to grow a plant or two over the years with resoundingly sad results.

But, with all we have been doing to prepare for any emergency & increasing our self sufficiency;  we decided to plant our heirloom garden. 

I started small, to see how it went & I had to learn about each plant. LOL. And we only grew things we really like to eat. The planting was late due to the really long & cool spring. But, I am pleased & grateful with everything I have growing. I am waiting for them to explode.

The squash seem to be doing well. Harvested one squash and have multiple blossoms growing. 

These would be my greens beans, Had a small harvest so far. I have a sneaky suspicion that one of my dogs is getting in the garden and eating them.
The snap peas (between the green beans & the corn), sort of fizzled & dried up. Maybe planted to closely?

The corn is tasseling and I have harvested sevreal ears. I learned how to tell when to pick them.

The asparagus seems to be doing well for it's first year..

My raspberries are producing berries, just not ripe yet. They seem to have some holes in the leaves. ??? We simply planted them. Need to give them some better soil for next year.

My watermelon plant is growing like wildfire. Currently I am draping the vines out of the box to give them expansion room.

The cantaloupes a progressing a little slower.

And the tomatoes? I didn't start them inside, but actually planted seeds and surrounded them with little cardboard rolls to protect the seedlings...well...that silly dog again! She likes to chew on cardboard tubes & managed to pop the seedlings out of the ground.

Did the same thing a couple weeks later with my grandbabies garden and their tomatoes are doing great!

We are already talking about our expansion plans. I am such a newbie, I have to even find out which plants are annuals & which are perennials.

Starting to compost, preparing more ground & actually building a more solid fence (to keep the smarty pants dog out).
My first dinner with non-GMO & heirloom veggies fresh from my garden. Yum! Both the squash and the green beans are sauteed with Adobo, one of my favorite spices.