Gardening Jones

Gardening Jones

By Gardening Jones

If you’re a gardening addict, you’ve come to the right place. Gardening Jones, from her corner of the world in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, writes about growing food and more – including food storage and preparation, saving money and eating organic.

Currently she is building a small chicken coop to help introduce new chicks to her established flock. Also on her to-do list: growing and sharing new edible plants, increasing her fruit orchard, and becoming a seller of heirloom tomato plants.

Gardening Jones spent her summers as a child in the country, and she and her husband met during the summer when they were 10 and 11 years old. “Many years later, when we married, we knew it would be the country life for us,” she says.

She defines a homesteader as “anyone who wants to make the most of the land they live on and what life offers them.”

When asked about her garden, she says, “I grew up as the granddaughter of a florist and daughter of an ornamental gardener. I switched to edibles when my son was diagnosed as borderline hyperactive. It was a way to improve his diet and health. I’ve never looked back some three children and 30 years later. And what’s planted in her garden? “Edibles mostly,” she says. “Strawberries, blueberries, grapes, prickly pear cactus, raspberries, blackberries, fruit trees, sunchokes, horseradish, rhubarb, many herbs and as many annuals as I can fit. Flowers to attract bees and some weeds for the wildlife.”

The family shares their space with a number of pets: “One Dane-Yellow Lab cross we call Mandog. AKA Dog of Man and his botanical name Manus Dogus; one rescued cat called Autumn; six chickens (Robin, a black Americauna; Sasquatch, a white Brauma; Cheesewiz, an Americauna named by a blog reader; and Eve, Evelina and Evette (we can’t tell them apart), all Red Stars).

Gardening Jones lists her country skills as canning, dehydrating, baking, cooking, saving seeds, plant propagation, sewing, crafts and handmade gifts, and “playing some ol’ timey music on guitar and ukulele. The fiddle is a work in progress.”

And her philosophy on country life?

“You are asking a country girl with a degree in psychology and a minor in theological studies for a philosophy of life? That could be trouble. Condensed: No matter what the world does all around you, being in touch with the Earth keeps you centered.”

Contact Gardening Jones through her personal blogs, Gardening Jones and Gardening Jones’ Recipe Box; through her Facebook page; through Twitter; via her YouTube channel; or via Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, or Scoop.It!