One of the goals I have this year for our garden, is to be able to grow some food to store so we won’t have to purchase it through the winter.  I decided to start simply, with pickling cucumbers. I started the plants indoors with grow lights and when three of them grew large enough – I transplanted them into these really great grow bags.

I chose these bags because I want to have control over the plants, have them grow indoors for as long as possible, and plant them in a temporary place to finish growing outside.  This has worked very well, three of the four plants are starting to vine and look really healthy. I started another round of four more so I will end up with two grow bags of at least three vines each. I have read that each vine will have up to 10 cucumbers and that will be plenty to can about twelve  jars pickles.

The experiment, for me, is to really learn how these plants grow by starting from seed, observing every day and putting extra time and care to bring about the result that will benefit our family. I am able to  do this on a small scale and am learning so much.

The adventure is that daily I can observe this plant – this miracle from seed to vine – to eventual fruit and death. A full cycle of life that happens before my eyes and reminds me that my time here on planet earth is, on another scale, also made of miracles. I am here to thrive and learn,  and have more growing to do!