Kaake Family Blog

Here you will see the second round of plant starting for the Kaake family this year :) I was watering my plants the other night when I realized that they were not holding in water as much anymore.  Every day they were drying out.  This was a huge clue that they needed to be repotted into something bigger.    The other clue was in the picture above; they were root bound.  If these plants do not get repotted, they will die from lack of water because they will lost it very quickly.  Here's a few steps in repotting your plants you've started for the garden. 1. Purchase a potting mix - not garden soil.  Potting mix has special components in it that will help your plants grow strong.  It was also keep the water in better. 2. Purchase or use either smaller pots or you can use something deep and large enough for your plants to all sit in and then cover them with the potting mix.  Make sure your plants roots have plenty of room to spread out...

My big helper! Using a seeder to make littles holes for the seeds. Some of our plants on the mini greenhouse shelves. Bottom of the "planter" labeled so I know what's in each one.  I write down what seeds they are and when they should germinate by.   I recently ordered seeds through Seed Savers Exchange.   They have been my favorite company to purchase seeds along side with Mountain Rose Herbs.  The quality is always great!  Today I planted my tomato and pepper seeds.  I have provided a list of what I used today, how many plants it will yield should they all survive and what I paid.   I still have to plant my bean seeds but they have not yet come in the mail.  However, the price below will reflect the beans. Supplies: 2 boxes Jiffy Refill Pellet's = $5.30 1 Jiffy Professional Greenhouse kit (w/36 pellets) = $4.24 1 package each of Ancho Peppers, Jalapeno Pepeprs, Tomato Plants and Bean Plants = $11.66 3 (3-pack) pack...

How does your garden grow? Here's some updates on ours. I'm pleased to say that our tomatos that we started by seeds are from Seed Savers Exchange. We've always been pleased with their products. I don't know if it was the addition of soil/compost to our garden, the pinching of suckers, or just plain God; but this year our tomatoes are doing better than they ever have. Oh yes and they're getting a good dose of java grinds (recycled from Starbucks). Jon standing in front of the tomatoes to give you an idea of their size. Did you know that there is close to 4,000 varieties of potatoes? Unfortunately, we only see a few in the grocery store. Here are potatoes grown in used soil bag. Echinacea - also called the purple coneflower. This plant/herb is great at boosting the immune system and fighting infection. Pansies. O give me not red roses, That early dews have wet! They speak to me of kisses That are remembered yet. O bring me not white ro...

Potted Indoor Basil Potted Lettuce Shallots Garden Magic This is the garden's magic, That through the sunny hours The gardener who tends it, Himself outgrows his flowers. He grows by gift of patience, Since he who sows must know That only in the Lord's good time Does any seedling grow. He learns from buds unfolding, From each tight leaf unfurled, That his own heart, expanding, Is one with all the world. He bares his head to sunshine, His bending back a sign Of grace, and ev'ry shower becomes His sacramental wine. And when at last his labors Bring forth the very stuff And substance of all beauty This is reward enough. ~MARIE NETTLETON CARROLL~

My daughter and I had so much fun planting more seeds today. I planted 28 pepper seeds and will hopefully have 100% yield. Ok even 50% would be cool. She planted 72 seeds consisting of Impatiens, Marigolds and Zinnias. As you can see above, she had a lot of fun doing this. There are a lot of sites out there for kids activities for earth day. I'm only going to give you one link. The below link is celebrating the creator, not the creation. Let's keep that in mind as Earth Day approaches. I do feel as Christians we do need to take care of what he has given us in any way we can or know how. :) http://www.christianpreschoolprintables.com/EarthDay.html In lieu of the coming Earth Day 2010, we're going to have a giveaway. We will send you the leftover seeds of what we're using this year and a few from last year. So far the mix includes marigolds, basil, a few organic pepper seeds and more. There's the possibility there may be some other goodies in the...

Matt planting our $5 tree. It's 3 years old now and is gorgeous!!! A variety of basil panted in a container. Our lovely calendula. This is a family favorite grown from seed. Cherry tomatoes. Squash Another variety of basil. That was just a bit of what I grew a couple years ago. Bean plant. Lovely lavender! Many times I've wanted to plant a massive garden or have several plants I could simply not afford. Not just that but other things such as mulch, weed blankets and more. I hope you find the tips below as helpful as we have. Please feel free to add your own gardening tips. 1. Purchase trees at the end of the season. We've gotten a few trees for $5 and $10 at the end of the season. We planted them and they've done just fine! Talk about a huge savings! You can also do this with bulbs and other plants. :) 2. Use newspaper for weed barrier protection instead of the weed blankets. You'll want to do this fairly thick; anywhere from 5...

Kids just love to garden, there's no doubt about that. I was trying to figure out what to do with Jon this year to get him more excited about gardening and being more hands on. I decided on bean plants since they grow quickly - which is key in getting younger children more excited about gardening. If it takes too long to grow, you might as well hang it up. The next thing I needed to figure out was how to make things simple as well as little mess as possible. Because of that and cost, we decided to pick up some soil pellets from Walmart. We got 36 pellets for under $3! Not bad. We next picked up some organic bean seeds. We'd only need 3 for what we were doing. Here's what we did. 1. We found a plastic container we didn't care much about and put the pellets in there to rehydrate. Jon loved watching this part! 2. Next, we took 3 bean seeds out of our package (we got organic from WalMart). We took one seed at a time and pushed it down a bit into t...

I happened across this delightful book at our local library. It is so neat! I encourage you to check it out or purchase it for your little one. My almost 4 year old loved it! I of course had to paraphrase, however the illustrations are amazing! What better book to read than something about spring! As far as the illustrations, when it talks about planting seeds, there are pictures of seeds on the edges of the pages. When it talks about the bugs in the garden, there are pictures of the different kinds of bugs you might find in a garden on the edges of those pages. So neat!

With the bee problem this year some of us have to resort to pollinating our crops by ourselves. It's very easy, just a little time consuming. For my squash I got a new painting brush - just a small one - and first got pollen from the male plant, then rubbed the brush on the female plant. If you don't know how to tell the difference in a female and male plant of a squash, here are some pictures. Above is the male flower. Here is the female flower. Notice the difference? href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAtdhiXwwd3Tz8FMv5noU1AZ43YRr0OFwHfxYgcPvkvqt3b-5hCVGiQ5dmFVdgH9E4B99QqvhXiKyfDdY7e-Bw1p07_76o0wtJUAKBTy6JjkUWoh-83NYTtVO5Ck_ieaqsiIfhkxwE-UI/s1600-h/IMG_1375.jpg"> Here is an easy way to tell if the flower is female. It has a little bulb at the base of the flower. Now that you know what to look for, happy pollinating:)

I just went out in the garden today to harvest some basil. How lovely! I came in with more than I was expecting. I decided to make pesto and freeze it as well as some basil flavored vinegar. It was such a delight. Now, who wants to come and clean up my kitchen? lol! I also have some tomatoes right on the verge of being ready as you can see above. Can anyone guess what the blue flowers are from? It's flax - apparantly good for the soil:) I unfortunately only had one plant survive due to either a rodent, a neighbors dog or my children. Who knows. Back to the basil, when I made the pesto I didn't add the parm. cheese because I read it might not freeze well. I'll just add it in later. I put a generous tablespoon each in a small ziplock bag. I then will put all the little bags into a larger freezer bag and pop them in the freezer. I usually don't use more than a tablespoon at a time so this will be perfect. Below are the recipes if you're intereste...

Well, it didn't start out that way. It's still my vegetable/fruit garden wtih herbs mixed in. I'm hoping it can totally be herbs next year and have another garden the size I have now for fruits and veggies. Last night was so incredibly fun. I went to a freecyclers house and got some lemon mint, spearmint and oregano plants. I just got those planted and they look so happy in their new home. I now have the following herbs growing. Rosemary Basil Thyme Oregano Lemon Peppermint Spearmint and Chives if you consider them an herb. lol. It's coming along and I'm so excited.

I wish I had more time to perfect my photography skills. That will however come later on in life. For now here's a few I've recently taken. Thankfully my brother has given me a few pointers I hope to run with time permitting.