We have experienced many things in our life living here on the farm. I am grateful for the things we have here, even if handling the garden, animals, and a few other jobs can be difficult sometimes. Having different farm animals are excellent because you can benefit from them. Like chickens, they provide you with eggs, and they can be meat also. We also have pigeons, quail, and ducks too. The pigeons sometimes fly all around the land, and it’s so peaceful watching them. Pigeons can also be meat you can eat too. The ducks like to swim around in the pond and catch fish.

When the spring and summer come, everything looks so pretty, primarily because of all the flowers we planted. We like to use pavers and stepping stones to decorate and make pathways through the garden. Creating a garden for ourselves was one of the best experiences we’ve had here so far. Designing and building gardens are very thrilling to me. My favorite part of having a garden is planting different things here and there. There are so many things you can learn about plants and gardening and so many designs you can do in your garden.

Sometimes, other kinds of animals might visit the garden, like hummingbirds and chipmunks. We’ve seen a few rabbits roaming around the land, and there are turtles and blue herons that like to visit the pond every once in a while.

Having a garden is very beneficial, mainly if your garden contains fruits and vegetables. I find it excellent to go out in our garden to pick some lettuce and tomatoes whenever we need some. You can save a lot of money and time when you have a garden, and you won’t have to buy as many fruit and vegetables because you may already have them in your garden if you learn to grow them right. So being here on the farm is excellent because there are so many things to learn and experience.

Malabar Spinach is a vegetable that we grew for the first time last year, in 2021. At first, we did not know what to expect. Much to our surprise, we actually liked this new vegetable. Although it is called Spinach, it tastes nothing like what most of us know as spinach. The unique difference is not just in how it tastes, but also in how it grows. Malabar spinach grows more like a vine. If you are not careful, it will literally take over your garden. It is a beautiful plant, but it is somewhat invasive.

Something else to know about Malabar Spinach is that it tastes great when prepared as fritters. You put your favorite seasonings together with an egg and flour batter and voila, you have goodness on a fork. If you don’t eat eggs, then you can use an egg substitute to make your batter hold together. If this is something you are interested in growing, you may look up other recipes to test out Malabar Spinach in your garden.

Every year, there are plenty of Ginkgo Biloba seeds that fall to the ground from our large Ginkgo tree. We like to gather most of the seeds and plant them, but the ones that are left most times sprout in the ground. We also dig up the sprouts and plant them too and now we have a lot of little Ginkgo trees, and we’re still gathering more every year :). Once they are large enough, they become marketable.

Ginkgo Biloba leaves have many health benefits and are good to add to teas, lemonade, and other cold or hot drinks. Several times when we make drinks, we steep some ginkgo leaves and add them to our drinks and they taste well together.