It has been such a busy season around the homestead. Our biggest projects are complete. Is it possible to even say that? Duck house and run, chicken coop and run, garden and fence.. check, check, check! Nothing is ever truly complete, but we like it that way.
I have seen this meme floating around Facebook, and I really like it. We don’t want to rely on the grocery stores for our produce. If the past year has taught anything, we should see how fragile the “food chain” is in our country. Self-reliance is a huge goal of ours. That is why our family garden is such a big deal to us. I’ve been toying with a post all about this, but can’t seem to put my words together well. Hopefully soon I can organize my thoughts. Anyway.. We expanded this year to add a 13 X 24 foot garden on our homestead.
Because we were starting with a section of our yard, we borrowed a tiller to work the ground up. It was tricky to choose a spot. We have many low spots in the yard where water pools when it rains. We also don’t want it too close to the fields where they are spraying chemicals every year. If you know me, you know I’m all about avoiding chemicals. Avoiding too much shade was also important, obviously. It is next to a tree that has lost most of it’s branches. Thankfully what is left of the maple tree doesn’t create much shade here.
We hope to not have to till anymore after this year so that we don’t lose more topsoil. If you are familiar with the back to eden method, that is what we hope to achieve. It won’t be easy, but nothing easy is ever worth it. We have the wood chips to mulch the garden once the plants have a good start. You can get a free wood chip delivery by signing up with Chip Drop. It is a huge truck of chips, so be prepared when they call you!
The whole family got involved in carrying bags of topsoil to the garden. We also did some bags of composed manure. The kids wouldn’t get anywhere near that.
Once we had the topsoil taken care of, we started planting. We had all of our seed starts to put in the ground as well as plenty of direct-sow seeds. We are also going to try growing potatoes this year, which I’m so excited about! We planted foods that we actually eat, which I find to be incredibly important. Plant what you like instead of taking up space with what is popular. We did plant some chocolate pear tomatoes and pink celery just for fun. I have also found that the kids are more likely to try things that we have grown ourselves. They don’t always like it (cherry tomatoes, for example) but at least they try.
Our weather has been all over the place lately, and I am concerned about possibly losing our little plants. We started them too early this year. We are making notes in our homestead planner so that we don’t make the mistake again next year. They were getting root-bound, and we knew we were going to lose them if we kept them inside any longer. If you have seed starts– don’t forget to harden them off! Take them outside for 2 hours and increase the time each day until they are out for a full 24 hours. Otherwise, they get shocked and die easily. Hopefully the weather will stay warm enough for them all to survive.
Succession planting is something that we are excited to try this year. We have several bush bean varieties planted, and we will succession plant so that we have a greater harvest. We are doing the same with our carrots, radishes, etc. I planted some carrot seeds several weeks ago, and we planted a row of rainbow carrots yesterday. Radishes are fun to grow because you can harvest them approximately 25 days after planting. It’s a great encouragement since much of gardening is a waiting game. Then, when you least expect it, you are overwhelmed by your harvest in the best way.
I planted two strawberry plants last year. They have spread and grown a ton this year, and we are seeing a lot of little baby strawberries growing! It’s all so exciting!! We put some new blueberry and raspberry bushes in the ground this year, and it will be fun to see them produce over the next several years.
This has been so much hard work. All of our free time has been spent preparing and working–whether building coops and runs or raking and working the soil. It has been busy and at times overwhelming. It is so rewarding to see it all coming together.
