The birds are chirping and singing their melodious songs, our chickens are fat and happy as they free range in all the new grass for bugs, which in turn give us and our few customers beautiful brown eggs.

Here on our homestead we have been planting, transplanting, building sapling arbors (for our cherry tomatoes to grow on), hoeing and harvesting buttercrunch, romaine, redsails and arugala lettuce, radishes, onions, peas and lots of herbs this spring.

We have had lots of rain, and on those rainy days we catch up on sewing and song writing. We also have been working on our blogs for our website which will have our products and down home recipes, sewing ideas, homesteading stories and tips, herbal remedies, garden wisdom, farm pictures, film clips and more. We hope to be an encouragement to you all.

Vegetables are growing, flowers and herbs are blooming and everywhere you look, the hills and valleys are the brightest green- it’s spring! We have heard older folks call this time of year “green up”. Green is the color that symbolizes Hope. As we plant and tend to our gardens, we have hope that our harvest will be nutritious, delicious and plentiful for our family and friends.

The National Gardening Association reported that 7 million more Americans planted gardens this year! We would like to encourage you, (if you haven’t already) to plant a garden this year. Homegrown food from your garden, (besides helping with the high cost of groceries bill) is absolutely the best way all around to keep your family fed and healthy! And the taste, wow, its sooo much better! Try some vine ripened tomatoes, or fresh sweet corn, or how about real homegrown potatoes! There’s nothing like it!

The exercise one gets in the garden is almost perfect. Believe me, every bone and muscle in your body will be worked or moved. As you know, we got to move to live and you will sure be living it up in the garden! The so needed sunshine that converts to vitamin D in our body, is so important. It has been getting somewhat of a negative report lately, but I would encourage you to do some research on all the wonderful benefits of sunshine.

So that takes care of some of the nutritional and physical aspects of gardening, what about our social needs? Working in the garden brings families and friends together. From grandpa and grandma, who have a world of wisdom and experience, all the way to the little children who absolutely love to plant! And as you already know, they sure do love that dirt. Well see, it is a very natural and good thing that they do! Just try and keep the little ones out of the dirt- no don’t! When I was a little girl, my thing was watering the garden. Just give me that water hose and I was in heaven. My Grandpa Johnny and I gardened together! I was very needed to make sure all the plants got wet (and the ducks, and my grandpa, and my grandma and whoever else was in the way.) I had so much fun that I didn’t even know I was working!

Of course older brother (or sister) must love to get his favorite tiller or tractor out, because you can see that determined, proud grin he only gets when he is on one of those green and yellow running things! Not only will he learn gardening or farming, he’ll learn some mechanics to keep his great machine going. In our community our neighbors use horses to pull their implements. We do too, in our bigger summer garden. It is a beautiful site to see daddy on the plow behind four horses with his sons sitting on each side of him. Just think of the togetherness, and the children learn so much- good work ethics, obedience, attentiveness, biology, agriculture, math and more! Gardening not only provides fantastic food but it builds character too!

If you only have a small area to garden, try raised beds or container gardening. You can learn more about these methods at your local library or on line. Years ago I lived in a large city. A man I knew there plowed up his back yard and grew all kinds of vegetables for his family and to sell. When he harvested his “goods”, he’d piled them up in his old pick up truck and take it all to market. He did very well. One of the most interesting stories I’ve heard lately, is of a family working together to grow organic food on 1/10 of an acre in the city where they grow enough produce to make their living right there at home.

If you still can’t get to growing, find a nearby farmers market or join a Community Supported Agriculture(CSA) program near you. Besides giving you and your family homegrown, wonderful food like fresh vegetables, butter, eggs, flowers, fresh baked bread, etc, you will be helping other farmers which in turn helps local economy, which is a blessing to us all!

Maybe you could trade a skill of yours for some of your neighbors or friends vegetables, kind of like a trade and barter type of thing, which has helped many folks get through lean times in the past. If a family member has been laid off, start your own CSA and get your family involved to help, charge a fee to your customers (your income) and get growing! I’m sure you can get lots of info on the web about starting a CSA or a small scale farmers market or you could grow a little extra just to help with rising cost of things. Sweet corn, watermelon, tomatoes are great sellers. An even bigger blessing might be to grow for someone you know that can’t garden anymore or maybe a neighbor could use your help planting, plowing or weeding. Many older folks have so much wisdom about gardening and life in general you can glean from them while helping!

I read about a woman who was in her 80’s and still working in the garden (that’s my vision) she just needed a little help- folks delivered to her garden lots of mulch. Instead of tilling or plowing, she mulched gardened and did very successfully.

It’s such a blessing no matter on what scale you grow, to sit down at the end of the day with family and friends to a meal that comes fresh from your garden, that you worked with your very own hands, trusting God for the rain and giving him the glory for the fruits! The beauty of it and the taste of it, just brings such joy and satisfaction after all the hard work and constant care- the harvest is worth every bit of our labors and wait. We find our bodies nourished and our souls full of deep gratitude. A true Homestead Blessing.