My favorite thing about spring, summer, and fall, is my garden.  Well, gardens.  I have several flower gardens, and small plots of different things, but my vegetable garden is my prize.  I love being able to grow my own food and share it with my children and their friends, and my friends and neighbors.  I believe that we are meant to care for the Earth and nurture the soil and its inhabitants.  I am an organic gardener, I use no man made chemicals.  I use my labor, and my love instead.  I do use some organically approved insecticidal soap if the need arises, but I normally don’t have an issue with bugs because I have chickens.  Chickens eat the bugs before they can damage my crop.  The chickens will eat a little out of my garden, but I offer them veggies and fruits they love in a designated area, so they usually just look in that spot if they want a tomato, or some over ripe raspberries or cucumbers. I put netting around my lettuce patch, but that is the chicken’s favorite. If I want any, I need to keep them out!

 I always grow more than I need so I have some to offer to others.  I use a heavy mulching method so I have very few weeds, and I can just enjoy my time looking at the plants and picking the harvest when its ready. Nothing tastes as good as vegetables right from the garden!

I don’t get to this blog as often in the summer, since I love being outdoors, and I try to spend my free time enjoying the short summer we have here in North Dakota.  But today is a rainy day, and my laptop was calling.

I noticed that in the past year, more people from Brazil have read my blog than people from any other country.  I want to say “hello!” and welcome my South American readers!  I appreciate you, and I’d love to get to know you.  If any of you are gardeners, or small business owners as well, I’d love to hear about it.  In fact, I really love getting to know people from other countries and cultures, and I’d love it if you would drop me a line, and tell me about yourself!