My garden is finally planted, and my fear this year is that I am too lazy for the task that I just took upon myself. There’s something about the spring that brings out all the wanna be, self sufficient, Little House on the Praire type of personality in me. The beautiful weather whips through our woods and field, and the ease in which I bought over 100 plants just warms my soul.
And then the work begins and I start thinking about what this garden is going to require in the middle of 100 degree, drought weather heat in NC, and I think I might have bit off more than I can chew. Yet I know that when the kids pick those first cucumbers right off the vine and munch on them right in the garden, it will be worth it.
I go back and forth about whether I can keep up my desire to go all organic. I have never sprayed at all because we eat right from our garden, but I do want to figure out better ways to keep the pesky critters off of my plants. Something yucky infested my garden last year, and I wasn’t quite accomplished enough to get rid of them.
My desire is to find great organic products that help in all aspects of my gardening, so when Whitney Farms® a full line of 100% organic plant food and organic soil with no additives, nothing artificial, and just ingredients from the Earth offered to let me review their Plant Food, and Tomato and Vegetable Food, I was thrilled. I am so willing to educate myself further on organic gardening over traditional methods.
Three of our kids were my main assistants and we used Whitney Farms® throughout our garden. I am really excited to watch my garden grow.
Here are a few of the important things I found out.
Whitney Farms® has 25+ years of leading gardening experience and has improved their products to have:
-low to no dust
-no manure odor
-easy to apply
-Contains beneficial microbes
-Specially designed protein-based blends provide your plants with
both macro and micronutrients they need to grow and thrive
One of the best things about my garden placement is that our neighbor’s horse hangs out and keeps me company continually. As soon as he hears me in the garden, he comes galloping over for a treat. So far, he is only getting some of the healthy weeds I am pulling, but soon, he’ll get some of my bounty. 🙂
If you are a gardener or wanna be, even if you desire just a few containers on your patio, check out their site and take advantage of the $3 off coupon. That is a high value one that you do not want to miss out on.
How about your garden – is it planted yet or are you still thinking it out?
Do you try to do it organically?
This is on my to do list for next year…although I don’t think we’ll be planting 100 things! That’s awesome 🙂 I have heard that beer in pie pans will keep the bugs away. I have yet to test that theory though becasue I’m sure I’d have a very large, very drunk dog walking around the yard 🙂
Your garden start looks great. It gets really hot here too and you’re right it is much more difficult to keep the gardening momentum going. But our season must start earlier than yours as most of our planting is done in March. We try to do all organic but at times it is difficult. Right now we have some powdery mildew and I’m almost to the point of just spraying a fungicide on the leaves so the plants can survive… baking soda just isn’t cutting it.
I wish I could say that I was on time with my garden, but I am planting it a good 4 – 6 weeks late. 😉 BUT, we actually had two nights of frost in early April, which never really happens in NC, so I am thankful this one time for my procrastination. Although, I wish I had planted them all by the third week of April for sure.
You go, Garden Girl! We are just now planting our small area of box gardens. We are giving a small area to 4 yr old granddaughter Lydia to give her the garden experience. She is a great eater of vegetables & thought it would be neat for her to see the whole process. Our problem is wild life. We have a nice green space/wooded area behind our house…thus lots of deer, raccoons, rabbits etc. Hoping we get something back for the $ & labor expended!
I’m just a beginner gardener and did two raised 3×6 beds. The right one had something wrong and most of it died. We talked to the place we bought everything from and they are going to test the soil and also gave us all free replacement plants. We’ll see how it goes. So far I love having a garden but not really sure I have any idea what I’m doing yet.
ThaT is great customer service. Glad they replaced it. Last year was the first time I felt I had a really successful garden after four years of trying, so this year, I am feeling more confident, but just not of all the work. 😉
I got the email update from your blog and found it totally entertaining that you had this great post about orgainic/natural gardening and then right below was the next/prior post about coupons for lots of chemically laden foods. 🙂 Sorry, just had to share a little entertainment of my morning :-))
As a blogger, I have readers from all aspects of life. You’ll find I write a lot about my balance of trying to do 80% healthier food/20% whatever. I am in no way a 100% whole food /recipes blog, nor have I ever claimed to be, but just someone trying to give value in all aspects of life. For me, I love to grow my own food, so I can splurge with a candy bar every now and then, and that’s my balance, but yes, back to back, I am glad that it was amusing to you. Good thing I am always in process. 😉
You can handle it, for sure! I have a lot of luck with mulch between plants to keep down weeds — straw is inexpensive, I can sometimes get broken bales from our feed store or from a friend with horses.
Wish I could give you advice about pests in the south, but I fear you have different pests there than we do in N. California, though our greatest scourge seems to be drought. . .On our walnut orchards, we use a copper sulfate spray for fungal problems. I think the organic farms can use that, though I’m not sure about that and also not sure it’s available on the consumer market.
Very nice garden, thanks for sharing the article! I am all pro organic gardening, it’s the only sustainable and safe option for the future of our food. I also have my own compost bin when I turn organic waste into organic fertilizer. This way I both recycle and my plants get all the nutrients they need!