When I planted my home farm, I had big dreams. With a huge plot of land as my home farm, I thought I would be harvesting bushels of produce, more than my family could ever eat! We planted a large variety of vegetables – carrots, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, okra, tomatillo, peas, green beans, kohlrabi, beets, broccoli, cauliflower and radishes – just to name a few.
This was my first venture into home farming, and it was a learning experience for me. I invested in Tillage equipment and other tools. Although I lost quite a few plants, I will take this wisdom with me into next year when I plant my home farm again.
Weather is a variable out of my control, and it affected many of my plants. My cilantro bolted for the extremely high temperatures and I had to replant my cucumbers that died in the late frost. Bugs were another plant-killer. I’m now always at Revive Garden’s blog to know the answers to my questions like “do cucumbers like coffee grounds“. Caterpillars ate clear through all my broccoli and cauliflower leaves. I should have read the pesticide free tips from HomeFarming.com. Cat did and her plants grew big and healthy! At least our fence kept the deer out, so we had a fighting chance.
Despite my lack of carrots and onions, my home farm is bushing up nicely. Go on a walk with me through my home farm! I’ll show off how we are doing!
I was not kidding – we have loads of tomato plants! They are tall and thick too. We have all sorts of tomato plants – from cherry tomatoes to giant ones. I check on them daily, ready to pluck the first, juicy, red tomato I find! So far they are all still green. I can just taste the BLT now!
My tomatillos are almost ready to be harvested! You know a tomatillo is ready when the husk is paper thin and almost a brown color. Tomatillos are excellent in homemade salsa and other Mexican dishes. I am so excited to try them!
My corn is almost ready too! I planted two different types of sweet corn in two areas of the home farm. We spaced the planting of the corn far enough apart hoping to prevent cross pollination during tasseling. Unfortunately, the first corn we planted took too long to shoot up and now they are at about the same stage of growth. I am sure they will still be sweet & tasty.
One thing a home farm is good for is improving your sense of humor! Volunteer squash plants surprise us every year. This year we have more than normal because we had a 4 year old and a 2 year old helping us plant the seeds, and they dropped a few along the way. I am anxious to see these bear fruit so I can know what they are!
I had a cute chuckle from this poor little zucchini! The fruit was smooshed under the vine, but it grew around it! I have to admit, I have never seen a crooked zucchini before!
And these are my favorites! I actually nabbed a photo of a bunch of beans together before the kids ate them all. Every time the kids go to the home farm with us, they pick a green bean and eat it. This leaves very few beans for me to actually harvest, but I don’t mind, since they are actually eating their veggies! Isn’t the purple one gorgeous? It is called “Royal Burgundy.” The outside has a slightly more velvety texture and it tastes a tiny bit sweeter than the green ones. It is the one the kids eat the most of, since it is so pretty and tastes better, so I was lucky to get one in the picture!
How is your home farm growing? What learning experiences happened this year to your plants?
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This is a sponsored post for Triscuit. All ideas, thoughts, experiences are my own.
Love that you are growing your own food – it’s the best way to eat! Have you tried square foot gardens? Makes it super easy.
Actually, square foot gardening is my husband’s favorite! We had a small square foot garden in our front lawn this year that grew herbs really well and Josh loved it. It really is easier! However, I was approached by Triscuit and Better Homes and Gardens to join their blogger challenge – they already had a blogger doing square foot gardening, so I had to chose in ground plot. I have plenty of room for a plot home farm and it is going pretty well, but next year we are doing a very large square foot one!
That also sounds great, and definitely more of a challenge! How about adding chickens to the mix? Great for improving compost and you get fresh eggs. My mom just got some and she loves them!
Good luck with the challenge!!
LOL!! Are you talking to my husband? Cause he was just saying he wanted to get guinea hens to help cut down the tick population around here! oh that would be so “fun”
Our garden did terribly this year. The locusts ate the leaves from everything and the heat, with no rain… UGH makes me sick to think about it. The late frost got us too so no peaches this year, and we had a very small amount of cherries. Missouri is pretty unforgiving. Theres always next year. Your garden looks like its doing great! You’ll be very happy with the tomatillos.
This was a very hard year weather-wise for us too! Sorry to hear about your locusts. You are in MO? I’m in KS….same troubles here as we live so close!
My home farm might look great, but for the amount of stuff we planted our harvest is a disappointment.
My Ethan loves raw green beans too! I can’t wait to live where it isn’t 400 degrees outside and we have a plot of land to grow on. Your garden looks great!
Well, we have the plot of land, but it is always 400 degrees this summer. Kids can’t go outside and the heat is wreaking havoc on my plants.
There is something so fun about food you grow yourself – kids will eat that! I love it!
Love the garden, mine is much smaller. My 2 year old also helped plant seeds so some green bean plants are very scattered. My tomatoes are growing very well, beets are very tiny, lettuce was the easiest, haven’t seen any broccoli on my broccoli plants yet, but it’s all really for fun for me! I am part of a farm share once a week pick up where I get the bulk of my organic veggies, the rest is just a bonus! Can’t wait for my tomatoes!!
Getting your 2 yo involved was a super idea! I bet she loves to eat her veggies that she helped to plant!
Your garden looks so healthy and green! My experiment with square foot raised bed gardening has been so-so. It was so dry and HOT here for the past 2 weeks that I’ve struggled to keep the boxes moist. I do have a few tomato plants that are surviving and the onions, peppers and herbs are doing well. It’s been a learning experience as we’re not used to gardening in a box 🙂
Thanks Henrietta! Josh LOVES square foot gardening. LOVES it. In fact, I think we are going to do a lot more of it next year. This year we had to do in plot because of my cooperation with Triscuit and BHG. but squarefoot is so much easier for planting and weeding in our opinions. But you really can’t change the darned weather.
Looks great! My tiny square-foot garden is growing Japanese cucumbers like weeds and the tomatoes are starting to turn color, but everything else has been sparse. I have two cantaloupe and two Orange Glo watermelon almost ready to harvest though,yum! Depending where we get re-stationed next year I want to do multiple raised beds. Organic gardening can be tough, so I definitely appreciate the prices a little better now. Keep it up!
Orange glo watermelon sounds fun!! I think the weather here in the midwest has just bee super tough. This nasty heat wave. Hardly any clouds or cool temps!
Your garden looks really good and you’re having great luck for a first season. Our garden wasn’t nearly as productive as yours our first season.
Looks good!! Our gardens are at about the same height as far as growing. You have tons more tomatoes than us though, we have 2 regular and 2 smaller variety. I had to treat for some aphids because they started eating my bean leaves! I need to do a walkthrough in the morning, its raining like crazy tonight so I bet they have a ton of growth, plus I JUST fed them too so I am curious!
…and our maters are still green too!
So jealous of your rain! It has been threatening but no relief in sight. Oh, and a raccoon got into our corn! Took down one small stalk. Ugh…..country life. LOL
Looks so good. We have a tiny little garden in our backyard in the city and grew some potatoes and tomatoes this year. They were so good!