Content/Sidebar

juicy, salty, turkey bacon wrapped asparagus

This recipe is by farm my families FAVORITE way to eat asparagus. In the spring, when asparagus is on and we have boxes of it to eat, I make this 2-3 times a week. The asparagus is juicy and delicious, and the turkey bacon adds so much flavor! Try it out right now during asparagus season, and your family will beg for more of this finger lickin good, fresh from the garden appetizer.

What you need:

cookie sheet
olive oil
garlic salt
fresh asparagus
turkey bacon

Wash the asparagus and gather the other ingredients. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and place the rack near the top.
Spray your cookie sheet with olive oil. You can drizzle it all over the pan but I absolutely LOVE my MISTO SPRAYER because you don’t have to use as much oil and it sprays evenly over the pot or pan.
Lay one piece of turkey bacon out on your table
Grab 1-8 asparagus spears (however much you prefer, I do 3 if they are fat ones and 6 or 7 if they are skinny) break off the hard white ends, and place them in a bundle on your bacon.
Roll the bundle of asparagus up in your bacon on a diagonal, so the bacon twists from the bottom up to the bottom of the asparagus tips.
Line them all up on the cookie sheet. You can have them touching if you want but the bacon will stick together when you cook it.
Spray the tips of the asparagus with olive oil and then sprinkle garlic salt over them.
Stick it in the oven and bake it for 15-20 minutes. Check it to see if the asparagus is cooked to your liking or leave it in longer for a softer asparagus. We like the tips to be kinda crispy around here!

Enjoy your fresh spring appetizer made with tender new asparagus spears!

Want to learn how to forage for asparagus on your own or maybe teach your kids how to? Check out our YouTube video HERE! If you end up picking too much asparagus read my article about freezing your extra asparagus.

~Farmer’s Wife

*this post contains affiliate links

Farmhouse Garden Gardening How To's

3 things you need to know about growing tomatoes that nobody ever tells you

Tomatoes might just be my favorite thing to grow in the garden. I think that’s because the plant gets way bigger then most of the other things I plant. So when I’m gazing out my window and I see a miniature forest of tomato plants, I think “Hey! Maybe I am doing something right!” The other thing I love about tomatoes is the CRAZY amount of different kinds there are to choose from. There are purple ones, yellow ones, big ones, tiny ones, even lumpy ones, and spotted ones. Seriously the only other plant I can think of that has that many different awesome and weird options is a gourd, and they don’t taste quite as good as a tomato. But here’s the deal with tomatoes ….

They are pretty easy to grow, but there are some secrets you must know to grow them WELL.

Now I only say “secrets” because even after gardening with my dad growing up, studying permaculture for two months in Hawaii, and reading everything I could get my hands on about plants, there are still a few things about tomatoes that I ALMOST NEVER hear. And they make such a huge difference, that I want to make them not secrets anymore!

So here are the 3 things you NEED to know about growing tomatoes that nobody ever tells you.

Determinate vs. Indeterminate

There are 2 different kinds of tomato plants. Determinate just means that the plant has a pre-determined size. So your tomato plant will grow, and once it gets to that certain size it will stop getting bigger and will put all of its energy into producing beautiful tomatoes. These plants usually grow 3-5 feet tall and then produce all of their fruit in a relatively short amount of time. This is good if you have less space or a shorter growing season because you can get the most out of your plants before the frost comes.

[wp_ad_camp_5]

So now can you guess what indeterminate means?? Yep, it means the plant DOESN’T have a pre-determined size. Your plant will continue to grow taller and taller until it freezes in the fall. It will produce fruit continually (but slower then determinate varieties) as the plant grows. Last year, my plants grew over 8 feet tall. See why they make me feel like I am doing something right? But it’s not me, it’s the type of tomato plant I grew. Indeterminate plants are nice if you have plenty of space to grow HUGE plants, and a longer growing season. If you have a short season, it will freeze before you have had a chance to harvest most of your tomatoes.

So how do you know if you are planting a determinate or an indeterminate? USUALLY the seed packet will say on it. However, I have been frustrated that many seed packets don’t say, and if you buy plant starts they almost never say. So the annoying truth is that you have to look up online the specific type of tomato you have chosen. Most of your beefsteak or big boy types are indeterminate, and most romas and cherry tomato types are determinate. But that’s not a constant so you need to check when you plant yours!

2. Those tiny cages they sell at the store ….. won’t work people!

I would like to meet the person who designed the tiny, three ring, tomato cages and ask them what type of tomato they were growing because I have NEVER seen a full grown tomato plant, not even a determinate one, that would be properly held up by one of those. So, unless you’re going to a serious gardening store, and buying the bigger, sturdier, and spendier ones, you’re not helping your tomato plants out AT ALL by putting one of those around them. Let me show you what I mean ….

On the left is your basic store bought tomato cage, and on the right is my homemade tomato cage. And my big tomato cages STILL aren’t tall enough to keep the plants from flopping over towards the end of the season. You need, and I mean absolutely need, bigger tomato cages. If your tomatoes are sitting on the ground, you will be hard pressed to find one that’s not damaged in some way. If your plants are not propped up, you can’t even FIND the tomatoes, let alone eat them. And if your huge plants are just laying on the ground you will end up with smaller, broken plants, that are covered in dirt, and not very happy at all.

Check out my DIY BEEFY tomato cage video tutorial here.

Need a better look at how to weed your tomato garden? Check out my low maintenance WEED FREE video here.

3. A tomato plant’s preferred watering schedule and method is different than most other garden plants.

Tomato plants HATE getting sprayed. They will pout if you water them from overhead. I use THIS SOAKER HOSE throughout most of my garden, but my tomatoes benefit more from it than any other plant. There are plenty of other options like hand watering with a hose, or using those cool clay pots that you fill with water, but whatever you decide to do, make sure you water it at the roots!!

A few years ago a friend and I planted the same kind of tomatoes, from seed, at roughly the same time. Three months later, my plants were HUGE and producing tomatoes, while hers were about two feet tall and looking very sad. Wanna know the difference? She watered hers under a sprinkling system every night for 15 minutes, and I watered mine with a soaker hose once a week for about an hour. Tomatoes NEED deep watering about once a week, never shallow watering even if it’s often.

Phew! There you have it! 3 things you needed to know to be able to grow KILLER tomatoes.

Now one last thing… If you are serious about your tomatoes, you need to know this. Tomatofest.com has the largest and most impressive selection of organic and heirloom tomatoes I have ever seen. They have over 600 beautiful, unique, and rare varieties of all different colors, sizes, shapes, and flavors. In fact, this year I am trying out a blue tomato for the first time. Yes, blue! You can’t believe some of the stuff they have until you see it with your own eyes. CLICK HERE to visit this incredible organic and heirloom tomato seed supplier that is run by a couple who harvest their own seeds. If you aren’t buying your seeds through these guys, you are truly missing out on some great tomatoes.

If you liked this post then you will LOVE my free 8 day email-course The Tomato Freaks Guide to choosing, growing, and selling “high end” tomatoes.

Or check out How to guarantee you’ll have the first ripe tomatoes on the block! There is even more killer tomato advice for ya.

Anyone else have any “secrets” that no one tells you about tomatoes?? I am constantly on the lookout for more info!

~Farmer’s Wife

*this post contains affiliate links

Farmhouse Life On The Farm

raise farm animals? but I don’t even like animals!

So tell me, am I the only one that feels this way? I live on a farm. I agree with the importance of animals. I know they provide meat, eggs, milk, etc, and they teach valuable lessons, not to mention it saves a bunch of money to raise your own, and on and on …. yes yes I know they are important! But …. I just don’t like them. They are dirty and loud. They make messes that I have to clean up. And boy do they STINK! I am a little embarrassed to say that I don’t like them, me being a farmer’s wife and all. Sometimes I even WISH that I liked animals so that it would make having them a little bit easier and more enjoyable. But nothing helps …. I just don’t like animals.

So what do you do when you feel it’s important to raise animals, but you really just can’t make yourself enjoy them? Well let me see if I can help out.

Rule #1 Don’t put the animals next to your house.

If every time you pull into your driveway and walk in your front door, you see and smell dirty stinky animals, you’re not helping your resolve to try and like them more. Do yourself a favor and put them somewhere a little farther away so you can prepare yourself before you have to go take care of them.

Rule #2 If you have kids, make it their job to take care of them.

Kids need chores and that is something I feel STRONGLY about. So what’s wrong with putting them in charge of the critters? They can take care of them on a daily basis so you only have to check on them every once in awhile to make sure everything is being done correctly. Win, win! If you don’t have kids, I bet you want some now right??

Rule #3 Spend a little extra time, energy, and maybe money before you get the animals, to make their home WORK for you.

And by “work for you” I mean literally. Let’s take chickens for example. You can create a space for them that takes care of all their basic needs so you hardly have to touch or smell them at all. The larger the area is for them to roam, the less you have to clean up after them. If you add a large amount of bedding it makes it even cleaner and less smelly. You can buy or make feeders and watering cans that you only have to fill up every couple of days. You can even get automatic doors so that you never have to go out late at night in your pajamas to close the chickens up because you forgot to earlier. Top it off with a chicken swing, a dust bath, and some things to stand on and they will be less likely to peck each other too! There are tons of different things like this for all different animals that will cut your interaction time WAY DOWN.

And Rule #4 Always get more then one of each kind of animal

Since you’re reading this post, I am assuming you’re not very fond of snuggling, petting, talking to, or any other kind of animal interaction. Even if all their basic needs are met, most animals will do better with a little bit of company. Get them a buddy so they won’t care if the only time they see you is every couple of days for a 10 second check up.

One of these days maybe I will learn to like animals. But if that never happens, I still want to be able to raise them without dreading every second of it. Maybe you have some tips you can share with me too. Anyone else out there feel the same way I do??

Want to see cute puppies that just showed up at our doorstep?? Watch this video!

~Farmer’s Wife

Farmhouse School Homeschool Learning Activities

Tinker Tuesday, add more creative learning to your homeschool week

Tuesday is a HIGHLY anticipated day at our house. Every Tuesday morning, the kids spring out of bed, inhale their breakfast, get chores done in record time, and then rush to the table to see what I have planned for ….. Tinker Tuesday!!

I first heard about tinkering from a book that came with my daughters kindergarten homeschool curriculum. It is called Tinkerlab by Rachelle Doorley. The book is chucked full of ideas and experiments that encourage curiosity and creative thinking. I actually like to change up our homeschool routine fairly often (my inner child hates anything that gets even a tiny bit monotonous) so I decided we would try some “tinkering” once a week but only for six weeks …. that’s all I could mentally commit to. And so Tinker Tuesday was born! For a little while anyway.

My kids fell in love. Every time the word Tuesday is spoken in their presence there is an immediate and enormous reaction.

And I calmly reply with

One time I actually did forget Tinker Tuesday …. but I will have to tell you about that some other time.

So when my six weeks was up and I mentioned to the kids that it was time to change up our homeschool routine you can imagine the response I got. They weren’t very excited to put it nicely. In fact, I probably could have offered a trip to Disneyland at that moment and they still wouldn’t have cracked a smile. Our conversation ended with me promising nothing would happen to their beloved Tinker Tuesday any time soon. And so it continues …..

To be totally honest, I kind of love it too. I love :

seeing what my kids create and learn on their own
the fun things we do together and the memories we create
that a few minutes of prep time results in an hour or more of happy and engaged kiddos

So to make all that happen, I brainstorm ideas of tinkering activities. I have an ongoing list of these (list addict here). Many have come from the book I mentioned, many from pinterest, and a few have even come from my own imagination believe it or not. I write down anything that let’s the little ones be creative or engages them in hands on thinking. Generally, I try to pick activities with supplies I already have and that don’t take a ton of time to prep. Then on Monday nights after the kids are in bed, I get everything together for the next morning. Sometimes I even set it out, all ready to go, on the table. Nothing gets my kids chores done faster then seeing a giant mound of shaving cream on the kitchen table, or looking out the window and seeing all the paint supplies set up neatly on the patio …. weird right?

We have had some activities that hold their attention all morning, some that only last a half hour, and everything in between. We have also had some HUGE messes and some LESS huge messes. We usually happen into an art or science discussion of some kind depending on what we are working with. But there are a few things that happen EVERY SINGLE TIME.

And that is enough to make me want to keep tinkering! At least for a few more Tuesdays.

Here is a list of a few of our favorites to get you thinking

toy tractors and dried beans/ rice/ wheat berries/ etc
painting … anything
playing with baking soda and vinegar
shaving cream finger painting on a mirror
edible colored sand (click on it to find out how easy it is to make!)
mud pit with bricks and rocks

So pick one of those and start tinkering! And if you already do, then please tell us your favorite tinker activity!

~Farmer’s Wife

*this post contains affiliate links

Farmhouse Garden Gardening How To's

3 things you need to buy right now to make gardening this year SO MUCH BETTER!

Yes there are a bunch of affiliate links here … cuz I am telling you what to buy to make your life easier!

I am not a shopper people. I try not to spend money on very many unnecessary things, and I don’t enjoy going to stores and wandering around. It got even worse when I had kids cuz who wants to chase little people up and down the aisles that are lined with things they want but can’t have? So when I find something that is 1. worth the money 2. helpful and awesome and 3. can be purchased online from the comfort of my own home and mailed directly to me …. I want to run around posting flyers on peoples doors about it. Well maybe not … but I at least call my mom to tell her about it!

So in the spirit of NOT GOING SHOPPING, I wanted to save you the trouble of wasting a few hours and tell you the 3 things you need to buy right now for your garden, that do in fact meet my criteria of “a good thing to spend money on”.

1. A four wheeler trailer or if you don’t have a four wheeler to hook a trailer to then you need a garden cart on wheels.

In the garden you NEED something to carry things around in …. dirt, compost, weeds, produce, even kids! If you are pushing a wheelbarrow around your garden, or carrying a bucket around to weed into, you’re missing out on a BIG back saver. I used a wheelbarrow until three years ago, and I thought I was saving money by not going out and getting an expensive new trailer. Well … now I know I was actually wasting a bunch of time and energy pushing that old heavy thing around. Time really is money, and you will cut your garden work time by hours I can almost guarantee it! When we finally bought a trailer we found a nice small one that is great for moving things around and also didn’t break the bank. Win, win! You can find the one we bought HERE, and we love it! We even stick all the kids in it with blankets and popsicles to drive over to grandma’s sometimes!

2. A GOOD pair of gloves

Again, with this one, I spent years trying to save money buying the cheap garden gloves at the dollar store. I went through gloves like cheap socks! They seemed to get a new hole in them every time I even looked at them wrong. And can you believe I didn’t figure this one out until LAST YEAR?!?! ahhhh! All the headaches I could have avoided … and cut up finger tips and sticky hands, just from buying a decent pair! HERE are the gloves I bought over a year ago and there is not even a threat of a hole anywhere on them. And I am NOT easy on gloves! However, they are pink, so depending on your preference, that could be a pro or a con. The other thing I love about them is they have a stretchy opening instead of a Velcro strap, which is better in my opinion because it keeps dirt out and doesn’t reach out and grab every sand burr I pass.

3. A soaker hose

Okay, I don’t know if anyone has tried to sell you on drip irrigation yet but I am about to. Drip irrigation (watering with a slow application at the roots) is SO MUCH BETTER for a million reasons. Most noticeably for me is the amount of weeds it produces. In the past, when I watered with sprinklers, my garden would usually turn into a jungle sometime mid summer so dense with flourishing weeds that you couldn’t even get through the entrance, let alone find the plants that I wanted to keep alive. With a soaker hose, the water is only applied where I want it to be so I get to watch the weeds in the pathways die of dehydration, yay! Another reason is that a lot of plants (especially tomatoes) dislike being sprayed with water. If you went to elementary school you know that most plants drink water from their roots, so why do we keep watering their leaves?? They don’t like it, and they will be a lot happier if we change the way we water. The other reason that I want to point out is the water conservation. We haven’t had water issues where I live but I still think it’s good to be conscious of it. Drip irrigation uses significantly less water, again because it’s only going to the plants you want it to, not giving a huge drink to every weed in the area. There are many different kinds of ways to do it, but we use THIS soaker hose in the garden. It bends nicely wherever I want it to go and as long as I don’t leave them out all winter, they will last 3+ years. Also I can hook it up to any old garden hose, it couldn’t be more simple to use. You need one, trust me!

These three things have saved me so much time, work, and headaches. If I could go back and buy all of them the first year I started gardening instead of waiting, I would! I promise you will be glad you bought them too, and the whole neighborhood will pull over to ask what you did this year for your beautiful garden!

Need more gardening tips? Click HERE to watch our YouTube video about building a garden trellis or click HERE to learn hot to create a low maintenance weed free garden.

Happy gardening!

~Farmer’s Wife