And the circle of life begins again...

We finally *finished* (a relative term) planting the family garden on Sunday, and had nice BBQ to top things off. As I have mentioned before, Sunny and I have a family garden with her siblings and all our kids at her Dad's place and we also have one of our own at home. (So it seems, we never really stop planting). In fact, we are starting to plant our home garden today.

This year is going to be crazy, though, because we decided to double the size of the family garden, and we added a couple of raised beds, too. Man, we have some crops this year.

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We have two types of corn, three types of potatoes, two types of onions, cantaloupe, watermelons, baby corn, three varieties of cucumbers, four types of tomatoes, four types of peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, three types of carrots, three types of beans, two varieties of peas, all kinds of salad greens and herbs, celery, okra, radishes, strawberries and one giant pumpkin plant. I'm probably forgetting a few things as well.

The greenhouse was another addition this year, and it saved us a lot of money in plants. We did everything from seed this year except for the strawberries. We also plan to try some cold weather crops in the greenhouse over the winter to minimize the heating costs. Heating a greenhouse can get spendy.

It's funny how gardening can really grow into a year-round thing. Last winter, we took a few classes on greenhouse gardening and we plan to take more classes on propagating plants this fall. NIC has a very nice series of gardening classes for those who are interested.

Sunny is also talking about putting in cold frames in the home garden to extend our growing season there as well. With all the canning we have ahead of us this summer and fall, we may have to construct cold frames in the garage this winter.

And just about the time we finish that, it'll be time to order seeds again and start the whole cycle over again. Maybe that's just how this circle of life thing is supposed to work, huh?

BTW, that contraption at the top of this post in another antique garden tool that Sunny's dad has kept up over the years. It has been modernized with a BMX tire, but if I recall correctly, it used to have a metal wheel on it. It's a cultivator and works like a charm when it comes to weeding the rows. If you double click the picture, you see that is has a row of tines in the back that till up the soil and uproot the weeds.