Lisa Ely Gardens
  • Home
  • Lisa's Gardens
    • Recipe for Fun >
      • Beverages
      • Desserts
      • Main Courses
      • Sides and Salads
      • Snacks and Appetizers
    • Kid Genius
    • Garden Spot
    • Tip of the Week >
      • Subscribe to Lisa Ely Gardens Tip of the Week
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
  • About
  • In The Media
  • LEARN, GIGGLE & GROW
  • Home
  • Lisa's Gardens
    • Recipe for Fun >
      • Beverages
      • Desserts
      • Main Courses
      • Sides and Salads
      • Snacks and Appetizers
    • Kid Genius
    • Garden Spot
    • Tip of the Week >
      • Subscribe to Lisa Ely Gardens Tip of the Week
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
  • About
  • In The Media
  • LEARN, GIGGLE & GROW

Carved Pumpkin Use

10/31/2017

1 Comment

 
Picture
 
It’s here! Tonight we get to go trick-or-treating!  I’m so hyper about it that I can barely control myself.  Even our jack-o-lanterns are ready for the night’s festivities!  
 
Today’s tip is really for tomorrow morning. 

After all the Halloween fun is over, too many people just toss their friendly carved pumpkins into the trash!

DON’T DO IT!

Instead, bury the carved guy in the garden or toss it into a compost heap! The pumpkin will decay quickly and help liven up your dirt or compost with lots of yummy things! 
 
And whatever you do, don’t put it in the attic and save it for next Halloween!


Picture
1 Comment

My BIG FAT Pumpkins

10/22/2017

0 Comments

 
It’s bragging day! I’m bragging about our big fat pumpkins!  
PictureJust take a look…they’re huge!
And to think they started from one tiny seed just a few months ago.  When we first started our garden, I was told by a “garden guru” to be sure to include pumpkins.  He said, they’re easy to grow and boy was he right!
Pumpkins are like orange monsters that come in all types, colors and sizes. We planted seeds that were labeled Giant Pumpkins hoping they’d grow BIG! ​

If you want to do this next year, be sure to plan ahead.  I’ll remind you next Spring to get started.  Here’s how you do it though just so it’s in your mind and you can answer kids questions when they ask if they can plant one now.  ​
Share pictures of your pumpkins, big or small with us at lisaelygardens.com.
Start by clearing out a large area so the pumpkin vines have room to spread out.  The area also needs to get a lot of sun everyday!  It only took about 2 weeks for the first signs of the vine to pop out of the ground and then they grew like crazy.  
(We actually measured the vines growth and found a vine that grew six inches in one day! Woo! We knew big pumpkins were coming.)
Picture
Pumpkin vines love having tons of room to sprawl out. After 10 weeks, the first flowers start to bloom.  They’re usually yellow and big. The bees often cruise by and help pollinate the pumpkins.  And then you see it! The small pumpkin starts to form.
In late July and August the pumpkins start to pop up all over the place.  The orange balls start to grow at super speed. By the end of August, it’s like having our very own pumkin-mania!  Totally cool.
I feel very proud of our great big fat pumpkins.  The jumbo pumpkins are so big I can’t do anything with them but smile at them! 
I do know that people enter their giant pumpkins into contests and perhaps next year we’ll try to win a blue ribbon at the state fair but until then we’re just going to enjoy sitting around with our pumpkins! 

0 Comments

Quick Growing Fall Vegetables

9/28/2017

0 Comments

 
It’s time to pull out your remaining summer plants and make room for some quick growing fall vegetables!
​

Cooler weather means bundling up and chasing falling leaves.  At our home, it also means trying to get a quick crop of leafy veggies.  I swear my kids love eating salad but their obsession with it didn’t start until they could go outside and harvest the leaves themselves. Last fall we discovered how fast some of the following plants grow and couldn’t wait to start planting them again!

Picture
Here is my list of the twelve quick growing veggies that I recommend for an easy and fast harvest. 

1.       SPINACH:  The tasty dark leaves definitely help our muscles build.  They are good in salad, sandwiches and even heated up with mushrooms.  You can harvest spinach leaves at their baby stage in as little as 30 days. Tear off a leaf and more grow!
2.      KALE:  Different varieties have different growing periods.  Be sure to read the label and find the ones that can be harvested in 30 days.  Add kale to a smoothie or salad. One of our favorite variety’s is the Blue Curled Kale!
3.      BOK CHOY:  We love growing bok choy, although I think it’s because we love chanting it more than growing it.  It grows super-fast and is ready to throw into salads or stir fry's in 30 days no problem! 
4.      Arugula:  This leaf lettuce is a bit on the spicier side. It grows to full size in 30 days.  Just be sure to cut the outer leaves first.  Use a ruler to measure the 2 inch leaves and cut those.
5.      Romaine:  These leaves are hearty and grow tall fast.  At 30 days, pick the leaf and wrap it around your favorite sandwich meat or just wrap it into a horn and play a tune.  (Huh? I know it’s silly but it’s fun and a great way to learn more about sound waves! It tickles your lips!)
6.      Watercress:  This is easy to plant. Just toss seeds onto the soil and watch it sprout.  Don’t overwater and don’t cover with soil.  It grows as fast as weeds, and kind of looks like them too.  Freshly picked, it adds a bit of crunch to your snack.
7.      Batavia:  There are several varieties so look for the ones with the quick harvest time.  This is also a lettuce that likes warmer weather but since we’re in Southern CA we can get away with it because we still have some hot days speckled in.
8.      Butter Lettuce:  This crisp-head lettuce leaves form a small ball as it grows, although it’s much less compact than iceburg lettuce.  Butter lettuce has a texture that simply “melts in your mouth like butter,” said one of my 4th grade students recently.
9.      Radish:  Always a favorite for any family garden because it sprouts up fast all year long.  In the summer it tends to be more peppery in flavor than winter.  Try it and keep a log about the taste to compare the two seasons.
10.  Green Onions:  They look like green pencils standing tall at about 30 days.  You can start pulling them out any time. The flavor gets bolder the longer you keep it in the soil.
11.  Mustard Greens:  I honestly do not like the peppery taste of this foliage and find it quite funny to have the kids taste it.  It’s great to have just so kids can start to develop the sense of different tastes. Who knows…maybe your kids will like it mixed in with the sweeter lettuce. It definitely sprouts fast and is fun to watch.
12.  Turnips:  Did you know you can grow turnips for both the roots and greens?  In 30 days the root is not developed but he baby leaves are ready to harvest and eat. They taste a bit like spinach. Just cut the outside leaves and leave the center ones attached to the root.  30 days later you can pick the entire plant!
​
0 Comments

    Author

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2019
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017

    Categories

    All
    Adventuring
    Art Projects
    Autumn
    Berries
    Beverages
    Brussel Sprouts
    Carrots
    Cilantro
    Cinco De Mayo
    Crafts
    Cucumber
    Desserts
    Dried Flowers
    Earth Day
    Entrepreneurs
    Experiment
    Fall
    Fiesta
    Finger Art
    Flowers
    Fresh
    Fresh Herbs
    Fruit
    FUN
    Fun Facts
    Games
    Garden
    Garden Decor
    Gardening
    Garden Markers
    Garden Spot
    Get Outside
    Growing Enthusiasm
    Halloween
    Harvest
    Healthy Eats
    Herbs
    HGTV
    Holidays
    Kid Fun
    Kids
    Kids Projects
    Landscape
    Lemonade
    Lemons
    Lettuce
    Lisa Ely Gardens
    Math
    Mint
    Mud
    Paint
    Parsley
    Pinterest
    Planting
    Plots
    Pumpkin
    Pumpkin Fries
    Pumpkins
    Rain
    Recipe
    Recipe For Fun
    Recipes
    Rock
    Rocks
    Salad
    Science
    Seasonal Activities
    Seedlings
    Seeds
    Sides
    Snacks
    Soil
    Spider
    Spring
    Squash
    Stones
    Strawberry
    Strawberry Lemonade
    Summer
    Summertime
    Sunflowers
    Superfoods
    Surveying
    Thanksgiving
    Tip Of The Week
    Today's Idea
    Tomato
    Vegetables
    Veggies
    Water
    Water Conservation
    Weeds
    When To Plant
    Yellow
    Zucchini

    RSS Feed

What families Are Saying

"OUR FAMILY loveS gardening together and we are always excited to see lisa when she visits our area.  her energy is endless and her ideas keep us playing in the garden all year!"
- TONY, SACRAMENTO, CA
​     

Contact Us

Picture

    Subscribe Today!

Submit