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Lauren's 2009 Garden


My plans for my 2009 Garden are to grow:
Garlic: You can already see that it has peaked out of the dirt in the botton left corner of the picture. The garlic will be used in my cooking and to give to family.

Soral: My husbands family likes to take the leaves and make it into a soup. At first it looks really bad and yucky however it's supper yummy!
Romaine Lettuce: To use for our salads for lunch and dinners.

Beets: My husband like to eat a polish beet salad and also used in soup. I don't like beets but my hubby loves them so I'm growing them for him.

Dill: Great to garnish mashed potatoes, carrots and used in a Polish sour cream & cucumber salad. Freezes good in Mason jars and used all year round.

Leek: Use insted of onion in making fresh homemade soup. We Polish tend to eat soup even when its 100 outside. lol

Carrots: Will wash and chop them up for use in the winter months.

Green Beans: These are my fav and would eat them every day, I can never have enough.

Green Onions: They are are used in an Asian dish that I make as well as used in our salads.
Cilantro: Growing so I can make home made salsa and jar it for the winter.
Cucumbers: Used in Salads and to make lot and lots of Pickles
Zucchini: Great Grilled or Baked into Bread

Yellow Onions: Onions are used in just about everything in this house to grilled,
sautéed to raw.


Red Potatoes: What Polish family dosen't eat potatoes? Need I say more?

Peppers: I like to use them in my eggs at breakfast to grilled on the dinner plate.

Tomatoes: I'm canning this year for Fresh Tomatoe Soup, Salsa, Sauces and Chili.

Corn: I'm going to try for the first time to growing corn in the heartland at the request of my 3 year nephew. He loves his corn.

Lauren's Compost Bin


Creating my Compost Bin
At first all I had on had was the pallet left over from the sod that my husband and I had ordered from our June landscape project. In October our community had what is called an Amnesty Garbage Day. This is when you can take your whole years worth of unwanted garbage and put it at the curb so the trash man can take it to the landfill all for Free. Well I needed the wood to make the sides and top of my compost bin so I was on a mission to find some. Well it turns out that down the street from our house a family was throwing away the Children’s play set. They had most of it already cut into pieces and sitting by the curb. So I gathered my tools that I would need in order to get the materials home. I grabbed my saw, drill and hammer and jump in my Ford Mustang and drive down the street to my treasured wood pile. I had been trying to get the screws out of the wood for some time and I just couldn’t do it because they where stripped and not going to corporate with me. It was getting dark and I needed help. I left my treasured find and drove home to to my husband to help. After trying to break the material down further in order to get the material home my husband just grabbed the blanket that was in my truck and we loaded the wood on top of the Mustang drove home with both of us with our hand out the window holding the material down so it wouldn’t fall off. Good thing it was only a short drive home. You should have seen us it was sooooo funny. The next day I cut the wood to size from the child’s play set and made my compost bin. I reused the lattice from a silly looking deck that the old owners of our house had by the front door.


The McDonald Farm - Naperville,Illinois
This farm offers CSA Vegetable Shares, Organic Vegetable Seedlings and Native Landscape Plants. The best part is that they are not that from my house.


Seeds of Change
I like to order those hard to find seeds and seedlings from Seeds of Change. They always ship there product when it right for my Zone.

Illinois Farm Direct
If you are looking for a Farmers Market, CSA, Direct Source for Local Food and you are located in Illinois or close to Illinois you should check out this web site.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by BarbaraKingsolver
About the Book

Released May 2007 tells the story of how our family was changed by one year of deliberately eating food produced in the place where we live. Barbara wrote the central narrative; Steven's sidebars dig deeper into various aspects of food-production science and industry; Camille's brief essays offer a nineteen-year-old's perspective on the local-food project, plus nutritional information, meal plans and recipes.

I've enjoyed this book because it's truly gets you to think about where your food comes from. It also gets you thinking about what you can do to better yourself and family as well as the earth in which we live on.

If I'm lucky enough to win the below would be my wish list

Lodge Logic 12- Inch Pre-Seasoned Skillet


Kids Garden Tools


Toy Smith Kids Hand Tool Set


Fiskars Traditional Bypass Pruning Shears


Link to this page posted in my HCW Signature