Planning Your Vegetable Gardens

Vegetables from your own gardens are not only healthier, but can be a great way to save money on your family’s produce.

Reaping the benefits

By planning your own garden, you can end your harvesting season with enough produce left over to prepare for autumn and winter months with freezing and canning, while having enjoyed fresh produce all throughout the spring and summer months.

You first need to decide on a location for your garden. This should be in an area where it will receive approximately 6 hours of sunlight a day. Being close to a water source helps as well, so you don’t have to carry your watering can too far.

Included in your plans should be the types of vegetables you intend to plant, and how many of them you want to grow. This will help you to determine the size of garden you need. This decision can’t be completely random, especially since what you yield is what your family will be eating over the next several months.

Choose vegetables you and your family use most often. Make sure to keep in mind not only those vegetables which are delicious freshly picked, but also those which freeze or can well. This will ensure your family benefits from having a garden of their very own.

Plan for the arrangement of the vegetable plants in the garden. Those plants who yield vegetables constantly are best placed at the back of the garden. Plants such as radishes, spinach, beets and carrots are among those to be planted in this location.

Leave some space for replanting successively. Once these crops have seen the end of their yield, you can plant other vegetables which produce later in the season.

There is a reality that some plants just don’t do well beside others. For instance, there are those plants which can boost the growth of another when planted together. But the opposite is also true. For instance, potatoes can hamper the growth of both squash and tomato plants. Broccoli can cause problems with tomato growth too. Beans, on the other hand, hamper the growth of onions. Carrots and dill plants shouldn’t be placed near one another.

This doesn’t stop you from planting these in the garden. It’s just a reminder to be careful when planning what you will be planting in each area of your vegetable gardens.

Blogging Content For Life…

Blogging Content For Life…

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Homemade Fudge

Do you have one of those ‘comfort foods’ you reach for when you need someone or something on your side? You konw what I mean. The chicken soup that Mom used to make, or that chocolate bar hidden in the cupboard, just out of reach and vision of little eyes and hands.

My vice is fudge. Good, old fashioned fudge, made from scratch in a variety of different flavors.

Well folks, today is your lucky day! I’m going to share my Fudge Recipe E-book with you all as a before-Easter present. Some of these recipes are just so darned easy it’s incredible, while others have tastes you couldn’t even imagine.

Grab your e-book, and change your fudge-eating habits forever!

http://ftp.academiguertinhomeschool.com/Wordpress/167FudgeRecipes.pdf

*Warning: We at Guertin Enterprises are NOT responsible for any weight gained by consumption of fudge, and try any or all recipes is at your own rist.

Side effects include but are not limited to: your hand becoming a permantent magnet to fudge, trying to find a way to fit fudge into the 4 food groups and grabbing the container of fudge and running if any members of your family dares take a piece. Please use wisely!

Where does the time go?

Why is it that whenever you start a new project, something that will not only help yourself but your family as well the Time Monster comes and takes as much as he can away from you?

No matter what time management program I try to use, I can’t seem to get a grip on it long enough for it to become useful.

Start a new blog, saying I’ll post at least twice a week…didn’t happen.

Made a new schedule for homeschooling that seemed right, but I can’t follow it to save my life.

So, here’s hoping that some day soon I can get it all together, without having to compromise sleep and/or family time to do it. I’m off now to try and get our schedule running for the day. If the past week is any indication, you should hear from me again next Thursday. I’m hoping to make it sooner than that though.

It’s not my fault

You know you have some tweaking to do when your to-do list becomes longer than your weekly grocery list. At least with groceries, one trip to the store and you can normally get everything you need, head to the register and back out the door. Done. Finished.

Why can’t homeschooling, business or both to-do lists be as easy to get a grip on? We have a very well planned out schedule for our days. We have short learning periods with quality topics to cover, or math to learn. Everything is carefully laid out in various places in the dining room/school room area, as well as in my office. This should be a breeze, right?

Wrong. Want to know why it’s wrong? Teenagers! Has anyone but me realized that teenagers can sleep through just about anything? Oh, mention their name while on the phone with your best friend, and they hear it for 3 rooms over with headphones on. Put an alarm clock  with the volume at MAX beside their ear, and they don’t even twitch. How can this be? It makes absolutely no sense to me.

But anyhow, between getting up late, getting started late, working through lunch, forgetting to exercise or take something out for supper and BAM! the whole day is off course.

It can’t be my fault, I’m the one who made the pretty schedule all nicely worked out with pretty colors and school work, work work and chores all in the same place. How could it be my fault?

But, inevitably in some way, shape or form I’m apparently the one to blame. I forgot to print a lesson, I didn’t yell loud enough from the top of the stairs or some other off the wall reason, as long as they don’t have to take any responsibility for anything.

I think  tomorrow morning when they get up to no breakfast ready, no church clothes ironed and no milk in the pitcher, I’ll show them how it feels…but then again, it will probably backfire on me and end up, one again, being my fault.

Easily Confused

It’s an interesting morning here at Guertin Enterprises. We’re pretty sure that adding Twitter to our page is meant to be an easy thing, but I can’t for the life of me figure it out. Must be a lack of coffee or something…

I’ll write a YIPEEEEE! post when I figure it out…but seeing as it could be awhile, have a great day!

All work and no play…

Being relatively new to the concept of writing for others and not just myself, I have come to the sad realization that I am terrible at managing my time.  And my family, as well as my personal mental health is starting to suffer.

It’s a beautiful sunny day here in Gatineau. It just happens to be a warm day too.  Warm to anyone who lives with snow and cold for what appears to be months on end. A balmy 18 F allows me to open windows and air out the house. I would never have noticed if it wasn’t for the fact that school is well under way with the kids today, and I’m sitting at my desk wondering why I haven’t found something that HAS to be done because it’s deadline day.

One problem. There is nothing left to be done, because Mrs. Smarty Pants here spent her entire weekend typing away at articles, reports and new schedules. For most, that would be a reason to celebrate. No deadlines? Hurray! But as the mother of 5 children, sitting here realizing that I spent our precious time with Daddy over the weekend working instead of enjoying my family is simply not good enough. Oh, and did I happen to mention I procrastinate too much?

No, I won’t stop writing, it keeps me sane. I won’t stop homeschooling because I like having some control over the outside influences bestowed upon my children. This leaves me with only two options…either give up sleep entirely, or get busy reading the gazillion ebooks I have on time management.  I need sleep or my brain doesn’t function…so I guess that one’s out…looks like time management it is.

Maybe later…

A day in the life…

Have you ever woken up one morning realizing that yet again, a day in the life of YOU is actually a blessing?

I’ve often woken up thinking “Oh boy, another day of chores, homeschooling, work, arguments among children….” and the list goes on and on?  And you get discouraged before you feet even touch the floor.  I have had my fair share of those mornings.It becomes a list of negatives before I even get my glasses on and step into my slippers.

I woke up this morning to a different day in the life of me.  After a very long day yesterday, I had gotten a very good night’s sleep.  I even got to sleep in, and I think that’s where my thought process changed.

There was no bickering.  The kids were playing quietly in the living room.  The sun was shining beautifully through the windows.  And I realized that there are many more positive things to think about during the day.  I had forgotten them.

I’m lucky I believe in God, and know that He is always there for me, when so many people have lost (or never found) their faith.

I’m lucky to have a fantastic husband, when so many women are beaten, abused or alone.

I’m lucky to have 5 beautiful blessings, when so many women cannot even have one.

I’m lucky we have a house to live in, when there are so many people who are homeless.

I’m lucky that I can be home with my children every day, when there are so many women who have to work in order to care for the needs of  their children.

And I could go on.  If you sit and think of the positive aspects of your daily life, you may just realize that a day in the life of you is better than you thought.

Hello world!

Stephanie and our home business Guertin Enterprises has finally hit WordPress.  Hopefully we won’t bug y’all too much, but we needed a better place for keeping in touch  with our friends and Steph’s online contacts.

If you wanna throw me a message, feel free.  We’d love to hear from you!