It's a very exciting time on The Farm - our gardens are blooming and producing! The flowers are settling into their new homes and veggies are starting to appear. 

Pictured above is our fruit/vegetable garden in front and wildflower garden in back. I planted the following in our fruit/vegetable garden this year:

• tomatoes
• broccoli
• cauliflower
• green peppers
• sweet potatoes
• lettuce
• onions
• strawberries
• cantaloupe
• watermelon
• green beans
• yellow squash
• cucumbers
• zucchini (RIP - the plants I bought did not survive)

So far, I've harvested lettuce, strawberries, green beans and cucumbers. Everything else is thriving and flowering, so not too much longer until I have a larger variety to pick from and enjoy! I now agree with the saying that food tastes so much better when you grow it yourself. The taste combined with feelings of gratification equal some tasty produce.

The cucumber trellis I created out of an old baby crib is working really great, so I plan to use it again next year!

Our wildflower garden has a large selection of items in it. I don't know what most of them are because I just dumped a bunch of seed packets into a bowl, spread them out and raked them into the soil. Along with the seeds, I did plant a few established plants - butterfly bush, lavender, cone flowers, columbine, queen anne's lace and some other unidentified flowering "ditch weeds." There's a fair share of weeds in this garden as well, but it's intended to be a "wild" garden, so I'm letting it be!

In other areas of the yard, my hydrangea (which I planted last year) finally bloomed and milkweed sprouted up, making my Monarch butterfly friends happy.

We also planted some herbs in the vertical herb garden I built earlier this year! We've enjoyed one round of mint, basil and rosemary, and it's about time for me to clip them all back another time very soon.

I'm really happy with how everything has come together outdoors this year! It has taken A LOT of time and energy, but has been so worth it.

​If you have any questions or tips about gardening, I'd love to hear them!

​I have told several people lately that I'm pretty close to becoming a vegetarian. I am just not into meat anymore. I'm not trying to be "different," take a stance against the meat business, or anything like that. To me, it's a purely psychological thing.

With each bite I take, I think about the process of making the meat patty or nugget or tube I'm consuming. And then I think about what the chicken I'm eating may have been injected with or the plastic particles the fish I'm enjoying may have ingested. The thoughts aren't pretty...and I hope they don't start to give you the same complex as I have developed...

My biggest concern with becoming a straight-up vegetarian has been missing out on some forms of meat - like on-the-bone meat that is organic/grass-fed/not laced with some form of chemical substance.

BUT - I may have found a solution to this concern! Much to my delight, I ran across a new diet classification that fits my current mindset completely. I can become a FLEXITARIAN! 

You can read more about being a flexitarian here. But to summarize the article for you - you can still eat meat, you just eat a lot less of it. According to the article, "This part-time vegetarian diet has broader appeal because it helps us balance food cravings with health and global sustainability."

Love it! That's me! I want to be healthy and help the Earth.

And check this: "A recent study predicted that a flexitarian diet could reduce global mortality by up to 10 percent and food-related greenhouse gas emissions by up to 70 percent. "

Whoa. I can have a positive impact on both my body and the environment by just cutting back on the amount of meat I eat? That's awesome. That's something I can get behind. If you're into this - you should, too. Let's be flexitarians together!!