Bob and Sherle From California Share Their Vegetable Garden Photos

A big THANK YOU to everyone who has sent in their photographs and stories. I hope by sharing other peoples pictures and stories here on One Hundred Dollars a Month we can all have a rock star garden this summer. Keep them coming!

Check out this story and the amazing backyard garden photos Bob and Sherle from California sent in:

Hi Mavis,

This year we decided to grow 2,000 pounds of produce in our garden. This meant that we needed to expand the garden somehow, our current garden being about 20’x25′. We started all our plants in our little greenhouse again this year. We love being able to save so much money and grow exactly what we want.

In the front yard we took out the flower patch, except for the roses, rosemary and oregano, and put in peas, three different types of kale, swiss chard, 2 varieties of lettuce, 2 varieties of cilantro, ten sunflowers and 3 genovese basil. The area isn’t very big, not quite the length of a garage and about 6′ wide, and we were quite surprised at how much we could pack in. Everything is growing beautifully and we have picked quite a lot of greens and peas.

In the main garden, plus one row, we have planted 6 varieties of tomatoes, cayenne and jalapeno peppers, zucchini, yellow summer squash, pickling cucumbers, green beans, broccoli, baby pumpkins, and more basil. I’m a little behind on the sweet potatoes, but they’ll go in by this weekend.

Since we had three old tires sitting around that we had used in prior years to grow potatoes and since we needed to expand my garden we decided to plant in them. We divided up the space in the tires and started planting. Since we still had more plants in the greenhouse and wanted to start some other plants my husband and I went on a small adventure to get more tires. As you can see our tire garden has grown quite a bit from the three we started with. The tire garden has beets, carrots, radishes, garlic, onion, tomatoes, melons, squash, cucumbers, dandelion greens for the bunnies, dill, parsley, and pepperoncini peppers. My son just brought home three more tires as we have more broccoli that needs to be planted and some other goodies.

Some friends of ours from church have a rather large field that they aren’t doing anything with and invited us to start a garden there. We would love to have even more gardens put in, but we can’t afford all the irrigation that will be needed as of yet.

We are putting in corn and peanuts. Corn because it’s easy and we don’t have to be there every day to make sure there’s nothing needing to be picked and peanuts because we’d like to give it a try and they provide the nitrogen that the corn is very busy removing.

Our neighbors bring us grass clippings for our compost bins and newspaper to put down under the straw. We lay newspaper and straw down because it gets pretty hot here and we need the “mulch” to help the water not get leached away by the sun, plus there are no weeds, which since we hate weeding, is very nice. Also the plants seem to like the color of the straw and they grow happier.

We still have pumpkins to put in the front yard. We will be prepping the area this weekend and then we have to figure out how to build some raised beds for the plants. I don’t think we can use tires in the front yard, not sure what our neighbors would think so we have to come up with something else. I might be able to scrounge up some old wood from somewhere.

So far this year we have picked 3.5 lbs of peas, 10 pounds of greens (kale and chard), and ¾ of a pound of radishes.

You can see more pictures and read some how to’s in a little book Sherle made through Shutterfly, though this is a digital version at: http://www.gospellearningcenter.com/resources/Garden/Garden.asp

Way to go Sherle and Bob! Your garden is magnificent!

~Mavis

Sylvia From Salem, Oregon Shares Her Garden Photos

If you would like to have your garden, chicken coop or something you’ve made featured on One Hundred Dollars a Month, here’s what I’m looking for:

• Your Garden Pictures and Tips – I’d especially like to see your garden set ups, growing areas, and know if you are starting seeds indoors this year. If so,  show me some picture of how you are going about it.
• Your Chicken and Chicken Related Stories – Coops, Chicks, Hen’s, Roosters, Eggs, you name it. If it clucks, send us some pictures to share with the world.
• Cool Arts & Crafts – Made from your very own hands with detailed {and well photographed} pictures and instructions.
• Your pictures and stories about your pets. The more pictures and details the better.

If I feature your pictures and the stories behind them on One Hundred Dollars a Month, I will send you a $20.00 gift card to the greatest store in the world: Amazon.com.

Go  HERE for the official rules.