Gardening – Page 3 – Notefull Living

Suburban Gardening

It’s Harvest Time!

I live in the Suburbs of Vancouver in the lovely Fraser Valley and I’m happy to say we scored a decent backyard with the property we bought. I’m still dreaming of an acreage, but for now I will soak up all I can from our little home in the burbs.

I’m a country girl deep down and I grew up with helping my grandparents harvest out of their big garden in the country and their suburban home that they downsized too. I grew up gardening with my mom and my grandpa ended up having a garden on our property too. It’s just in my veins I guess you can say.

To me, our backyard is small. This year we made planter boxes. Wow, I wish we made these sooner. We are actually planning to make more in another area. Dreaming big over here.

I’ve shared in my 10 Reasons why I love Gardenening that you can garden anywhere.

Here’s a look at our garden looked like in June.

Here’s a recent photo in the end of July. We have 4 boxes this year. The wooden Tee Pee’s are covered with snap peas and green beans.

This year I didn’t have as big of harvest as I have had in previous years. Still, anything in our freezer or in canning jars is a win win.

Our kids love running to the garden to pick a fresh snap pea and for me, I’m just simply in my happy place.

Our harvest this year was lots of Pole Beans, Snap Peas, Rhubarb, Strawberries, Maggie, White Onion, Lettuce, Arugula and Chives.

I think my favorite so far was making the blueberry rhubarb sauce with local blueberries. We made a cheesecake and brought that sauce along to a friends luncheon. Lets just say the dessert was DEVOURED. It was so good. I’ll have to remake it again and take pictures next time!!

I love summer. Especially our camping trips and time with family. But gardening to provide fresh food for my family, you can’t put a price on that.

_Growing your own vegetables never looses it's value_

It’s worth all the hard work that does into it. Once you have a system, it doesn’t take much to keep the maintenance going with it.

Do you have a garden? Like mine in town? If I could I would expand on the whole property…then we would really need an acreage.

What’s your favorite thing to grow?

10 Reasons Why I Love Gardening

10 REASONS I LOVE GARDENING

I’ve got a whole list of blog posts that I want to work on about our home. Mostly about spaces we are working on on the inside.

However, we are an outdoors family through and through.

Gardening for me at this time of year is my top thing to do outside.

I recently shared a snapshot of our backyard on Instagram and lots of people loved it. The lovely side of living in the Fraser Valley is the awesome spring weather we get (aside from lots of rain).

Truth is all I want to do is get outside and get the yard clean up done so the real work can begin in the gardens.

I went from starting out with one pot by my front door in a rental, when I was single. Getting a potting table built at our rental when we were married. To our little townhouse with the itty bitty front garden and backyard, with lots of pots added to my collection.

Quote - Gardening verses Working

Now to our property where I’m trying to live the suburban dream of having as much as a mini “homestead worthy” backyard as possible.

I know it’s possible, I have a book that’s got plans that could make this place work.

As much as I’ve been a stay at home mom for the past couple of years, it’s hard for me to focus working on my business and training when my garden is calling me to get outside.

One day I know my husband and I will have both enough space for the kids to spread out, He can have his lawn and I’ll be living as much as a homesteading dream as I can.

Here’s my 10 reasons why I love Gardening.

1: Saves money: If you can get enough produce and flower bouquets out of your garden that you spend at the local grocery store then it’s paying off. I can say we are getting close to that.

This topic could easily be a blog post all in it’s own from what we have experienced on saving money.

2: Stress Relief: If you haven’t spent time outside in a garden just simply weeding, then I hope reading this will help you be motivated to think about making a garden. Even if it’s pots of a deck outside a condo.

3: Learning a whole new skill: As much as people say to others that they have a “green thumb”, I’ve noticed gardening is a skill to be practiced and perfected. Even the large growing greenhouse companies have whole growing trails fail.

4: Peace and Quiet: Those early morning or late night watering is something that’s become a favorite quiet time I look forward to every spring.

5: Creating a memorial garden: In 2014, we lost someone very special to our family. Most people who have lost a loved one have a physical graveside they can go to and visit.

With having a miscarriage we don’t. Our little girl passed away at 17 weeks in my second pregnancy. In her memory I have created “Gloria’s Garden”. I love sitting in the Adirondack chairs by the ruffed up old tricycle (pictured above) in our backyard.

6: Local Produce: Nothing gets more local than growing your own food and discovering how fresh and amazing your meals taste with each gardening season.

7: Teaching my kids: I love teaching them about where food comes from, it’s not just from the grocery store. I also love teaching my kids the joy and gift that gardening is. My oldest without being prompted or asked jumped right in to help create his little sister’s garden.

I learned the value of hard work from growing up in the country. With our little suburban property, our kids are still learning these wonderful life values I was taught.

8: Life lessons: The parallels of life lessons and gardening keep surprising me every year. If your a regular gardener like I am. I’m not an expert by any means. However, I keep finding that what I learn from gardening can be applied to life.

For example: knowing bad things (like weeds) can be deceiving and pretty BUT, if not dealt with can over take your life (or your garden). The morning glory in my garden is almost more than I can handle, just like bad things that come up in my life. If I don’t deal with it, it’s everywhere. You can overcome it…eventually.

9: Happiness: Gardening brings out lots of happiness for me. Watching my kids sneak “treats” from the strawberry plants. Running out during dinner prep and adding herbs or making muffins with the rhubarb is worth all the time that goes into gardening.

Recently we upgraded our garden area with raised beds!

We are even starting to build up enough of a harvest in a our little backyard to fill up our freezer to enjoy in the winter months. It just keeps giving.

10: Time with God: This one not everyone will agree with me on. That’s fine, where I am at in my life this time is becoming more and more a necessity with my walk with God. That peace and quiet time I spoke about in number 4 is fast becoming a much needed prayer time.

Which tip is your favorite? Love to hear why you love gardening? If you don’t have a garden I hope some of this is inspiring to help get you started.

Getting Home Decor and Garden Ready for Spring

Spring Home and Garden Can’t believe the official day of Spring is almost here. I’m so ready for it. My tulips are up and some of my crocuses are starting to bloom.

Here’s some things I’ve done to get my Home and Garden ready for Spring.

Spring Decor in our Home:

I have finally narrowed my Decor into ONE box. Yes, I’ve surprised myself too that I could contain myself to keep stuff in one box.

Here’s how: I keep all my Fall and Spring Decor in the SAME bin. I’m more of a simple decorator.

I’m all about keeping the decor on the cheap side and making it myself.

Plus I have an average size house, which is perfect. Less to clean. BUT we are working on improving some spaces in our home which means I’ll have more places to decorate.

I got my homemade grapevine wreath out and add some Spring bunches I put together just a few flowers on the wreath.

You can find my Homemade Grapevine Wreath here.

IMG_0125 (2) I love having this wreath on the door. I usually keep it up for Spring Summer and Fall.

I’ve also added a decorative box on my counter. The box and cookbook is hiding some tech stuff. Gotta make is pretty somehow, right?

I have some other flower bunches on the fireplace and my painted mason jars on our new table.

In the summer I add my own fresh flowers for the garden to put in the vases.

I actually had this all set up over a week ago. We had a little film done in our home and since it was done early March I was like, perfect time to get my spring decor out!!

Aside from my blog and decor being a great creative outlet for me I garden.

Getting my Garden Ready for Spring.

Our goal is to make Garden Boxes this year. I used to have a large one in the backyard when we bought the place. It was in the way and we took it down with plans to rebuild different ones. I’ll be sure to share before and after pictures when the new boxes are done.

I loved taking in the harvest from the previous owner when we bought. The greenhouse was PACKED with tomatoes. We learned to love making our own tomato sauce and don’t buy store bought sauce ever again.

I haven’t been able to keep the greenhouse happy since. It’s an art form I’ve learned. Need to do something with the soil apparently.

I’m adding a new Garden this year. Alongside having the boxes being built. I hope to get that Garden turned over soon. More about that to come.

We are also ripping down our deck and rebuilding it. So our backyard is getting some much love this year. This will also make a great before and after posts. Here’s a teaser, you won’t believe what was growing on the deck when we moved in. I made sure to capture it!

For right now, I’m pulling out my seeds and seeing what’s there. Cleaning up the mess from winter. Looking forward to getting busy outside again. I’ve said it before, I love putting on my gumboots.

Love to hear how you decorate for Spring?

Do you have a Garden?

What’s your Garden plans?

Please leave a comment I would love to hear your answers.

By the way, here’s the new table and the painted DIY mason jars, my view will blogging.

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Reflections of 2018

Reflections of 2018 Is it here? The end of a year? 2018!

Next post will be in 2019!!

Many good things and difficult things have happened in 2018.

Life Storms

What a way to end 2018 in the Fraser Valley/Vancouver here in Canada we had a massive wind storm. The Pier that my husband proposed at got trashed by boats, someone had to get rescued by helicopter.

Some life storms we faced this year to do with a job change, 5 weeks early preemie baby and loss of a family member to name a few things.

Despite life storms I’ve worked more consistently at blogging. Switching to a better platform has made a big difference. I’m enjoying the journey, which it definitely is.

If I could speak openly, I’ve never thought much about venturing online and being more public and vulnerable with writing a blog. I’ll share more about that in the new year.

Best of 2018 for Notefull Living?

A big THANK YOU to everyone who is following, reading, commenting and subscribing.

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Blessings to you in 2019!