Flying on Jess Fuel

Fueling my Navy pilot, one meal at a time...

Navigation
  • Home
  • A little about us…
    • Privacy Policy
  • Recipes
  • Travel
  • Gardening

Harvest Fridays – A Garden Makeover

January 23, 2015 by jessfuel 8 Comments

Last weekend was a big weekend for our garden area. I mentioned last week that we are installing an aquaponic garden setup, and last weekend we started to do some of the groundwork for that. We had to remove three of our garden beds (which we back-breakingly installed less than 2 years ago!).

It was a little sad because we had to pull up a lot of veggies to make room. But luckily we were able to move some of them to pots or other garden beds, and I was able to use or freeze most of the rest of the veggies I picked. The only major loss was a beautiful huge rosemary bush that was almost 2 years old.

One of the beds we removed was full of carrots and beets, so they ALL came out!

Garden Veggies

So many carrots.

Garden Carrots

The beets were juiced. As for the carrots… my blog friend Army Amy suggested carrot cake for my last carrot harvest. Since then, I haven’t stopped thinking about carrot cake! I put a little spin on the classic cake, and I’ll share the recipe soon. (Hint: you can eat it for breakfast!) I still have a bunch of carrots, so I need ideas!

Another one of the beds was full of kale and chard. We were able to replant most of the kale. The chard had been growing for a year and a half, so we decided it was time to just remove it. We’ll plant new chard plants in the aquaponic system where it will grow like crazy. Check out these gnarly roots on the chard plants!

Rainbow Chard Roots

Between the chard, the beet greens, and a few kale plants that couldn’t be replanted, I had a ton of greens.

Garden Greens

To preserve the greens (we definitely couldn’t eat it all within a couple days), I washed them, blanched them, squeezed out as much water as possible, and then froze them. I’ll use them in any recipe that calls for frozen spinach! I make a ton of these Quinoa Frittatas for Nick for breakfast, so I’m always using frozen greens.

Now. Back to the garden. Here is what the garden looked like before:

Garden Before

We had 6 garden beds, the quail jail coop, a weedy dirt walkway and compost piles everywhere.

We are building a small greenhouse, so we had to remove 3 garden beds. Luckily, we’ll still have 3 traditional garden beds for growing things that aren’t ideally suited for aquaponics– like potatoes!

Moving three beds worth of dirt begins…

Removing Garden Beds

After the beds were removed, we put down decomposed granite in the whole garden area. This serves many purposes: we needed to level the ground where we are building the greenhouse; we will have significantly fewer weeds, if any, shooting up around the ground; we (and the dog) won’t be tracking as much dirt into the house; and most importantly, it looks one hundred times nicer!

Here’s the after:

Garden After

This is the space where the greenhouse will go. It looks so much more tidy now with the DG.

Greenhouse area

Happy little potted veggies waiting for a new home…

Potted Veggies

That’s as far as we got this weekend. Still tons of work to do, but Nick is working all weekend so it will have to wait.

‘Til next time… happy growing!

You Might Also Like:

Slowing Down but Staying Healthy
Quick Pickled Jalapenos {No Cook}
Blueberry, Beet and Goat Cheese Salad
Potato, Squash and Goat Cheese Gratin

Share this:

  • Share
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Print
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Gardening Tagged With: gardening, vegetables

« Greek Tuna Salad Wraps
Amaretto-Kissed Butternut Squash Soup »

Comments

  1. Gayle @ Pumpkin 'N Spice says

    January 23, 2015 at 12:58 pm

    Wow your garden looks great, Jessica! Sounds like you did a lot of work. And that’s such a good idea about freezing your veggies. I have to remember that! Have a good weekend, friend!

    Reply
  2. Kristi @ Inspiration Kitchen says

    January 23, 2015 at 6:38 pm

    I *loved* seeing the pictures of the garden! I am so ready for warm weather… our back yard is completely covered in water with all the rain this year! I’m afraid if we had a garden it would’ve drowned. πŸ™ I am wishing a lot of plant growth and success with your garden this year. In the meantime, I’m going to keep bucketing out the water that is our back yard right now! LOL!

    Reply
    • jessfuel says

      January 25, 2015 at 9:49 pm

      Send some rain to California, please!! We need it badly!!

      Reply
  3. Isadora @ she likes food says

    January 23, 2015 at 7:00 pm

    I love your garden! Can you guys please come and plant one for me? I get totally overwhelmed when I think about planting a big one. I love carrot cake and am looking forward to your recipe!

    Reply
    • jessfuel says

      January 25, 2015 at 9:50 pm

      Start small! Once you realize how easy it is, you’ll just want to do more and more. πŸ™‚

      Reply
  4. Amy @ Army Amy says

    January 25, 2015 at 12:32 pm

    Three cheers for carrot cake! I mean, doesn’t everyone immediately like of the least healthy use for the most healthy foods? I’m ager to follow along the aquaponic thingy set-up. I’m so, so intrigued.

    How many hours would you say that y’all spending gardening (although I know what you do is so much more than just gardening!)?

    Reply
    • jessfuel says

      January 26, 2015 at 11:25 am

      Setting up the garden beds took a while, but once the garden is established, really not that much time! Maybe an hour on the weekend to plant new things and do a little maintenance… and then just a few minutes whenever I want to pick things! Summer veggies require a little more time to prune and upkeep (because they grow so darn fast)… but honestly it really doesn’t take much time at all!

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Coconut Flour Carrot Cake Donuts | Flying on Jess Fuel says:
    January 30, 2015 at 4:08 pm

    […] mentioned in my last Harvest Friday post that when I harvested a whole bunch of carrots from my garden, I got the suggestion to make […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Fueling my Navy Pilot, one meal at a time…

Welcome to Flying on Jess Fuel! I love to cook and share my recipes and adventures in the kitchen with everyone. Take a look around... you might just find tonight's dinner!

Search Flying on Jess Fuel

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to Flying on Jess Fuel and receive notifications of new posts by email.

ABOUT JESS

Jess is home cook, foodie and proud Navy wife. She grew up in Boston and now lives on the West Coast. She loves to blog, travel, read and write. When she's not working or blogging, she can be found running or relaxing with a glass of wine. Read More…

Check out these healthy recipes!

Dilly Cucumber Bites
Kale and Black Bean Enchiladas with Avocado Cream and Homemade Enchilada Sauce (Vegan)
Banana Almond Chia Seed Pudding

*Click Here* to read Flying on Jess Fuel’s Privacy Policy.
This site contains affiliate links, meaning that if you make a purchase through them, we will receive a small commission.

Copyright © 2023 · Foodie Child Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress