We have been composting at home for a few years now. We started doing it for the garden but have grown to love the fact that we are making something useful out of what we used to throw in the trash. It also makes it so convenient to be able to throw the weeds and rotten fruits right into the bin without having to leave the garden. In previous years we had a pit made from chunks of grass that we filled up but in the spring of 2018 we constructed a bin on the outside of the garden to make it a bit neater and maximize space within the garden walls. We were excited to see a perfect representation of the composting process once we took one side off, with all the newer materials sitting on top of the perfect compost down below. To learn more about exactly what you can put in and how it works, check out our detailed article on the subject here. Or continue on to see some more pictures from this Spring's "harvest"

Chives are amazing. Right now under the snow our chive plants are getting ready to make their big comeback. With all the hard work that goes into digging, planting, weeding, pruning, and watering annual vegetables it's really nice to have a perennial plant that just takes care of itself. Chives are the first thing that pops up in the spring and the last thing to finally give up in the late fall/early winter. We use them as a replacement for traditional onions which ends up being one less thing we need to buy at the grocery store for about 8 months of the year. The green stems are great all season long and from late May to early June you get a bonus treat in the form of the purple chive flowers. They look great and taste even better. Check out the gallery below to see how they grow and how we use them. 

You may be looking at some of our more recent photo galleries and thinking, "There is no way I could ever do something like that". Well, we are here to tell you that yes, you can. It also didn't happen for us overnight. We started on a condo balcony where we got a couple good years of practice in before buying our home. The first summer we dug out a space and have expanded little by little ever since. If you're just getting started, it's best to start small and make sure you can keep up before going any bigger. We probably started a little too big but we do tend to go overboard with this whole gardening thing. Check out the photos below to see how our garden has evolved over the years. 

For the summer of 2017 we decided to build a little room within the garden which would become known as the squash hut. A few years before we had attempted to grow butternut squash in a similar location and the vines spread like crazy, taking over half the garden. After that we attempted to grow squash vertically on the outside of the garden which worked pretty well. For crop rotation purposes it made the most sense to move the squash back to the center of the garden once again, but this time we were better prepared. In the spring of 2017 we constructed a 3 sided trellis made from pine trees and chicken wire with the intention of directing any squash or pumpkin vines up and over the top. In the end it came out even better than we had hoped.