The gardening season will be upon us soon and I’m getting very excited, love those warm days and dirt on my hands, but I’m also trying to be a bit more organized than I have been in the past. During these short winter days Grady and I have been reading up on gardening in books and on websites and have come up with a plan for our garden!
A couple of references and a garden journal
A few of our go to books/websites that we are using this year are; The New Organic Grower by Eliot Coleman, All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew, SmartGardener.com, and we have started a garden journal to record planting info on all our veggies. We are ready for a new year.
Do you have garden plans in the works, what are some things you’ll be trying this year?
Our garden is planned and waiting to go in. I gifted my husband with a container of heirloom seeds from Baker Creek this Christmas and there is a lot in there for us to stretch our wings on. We are getting hungry just thinking about it. We’re going to try and plant peas in the end of March but I have a feeling there will still be snow on the ground.
Blessed to be a little further south so we have already started
potatoes, Mammoth Melting sugar peas, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, collards for our chickens, tomatoes seeded as well as peppers and eggplants all seeded for later transplant. This year we are experimenting planting our own feed corn and alfalfa along with the normal fair of squashes, beans, cucs, etc. And starting a pasture grass area for our chickens who have spent the winter working in the garden, weeding, debugging and fertilizing. I love this time of year…
So jealous. I used to live in the Seattle area and we could plant fairly early there. But here in West Michigan we can get snow into April.
How much corn and alfalfa are you planting for feed (i.e. acreage)? I’ve had that thought before, as we have to have non-GMO feed shipped in from so far away, but I’m not sure we have the acreage to plant for 1000 chickens.
We moved last year so we are doing our best to get things up and running for planting season. We have 2 garden plots, one of which we kind of used last year after we moved and a new one that still needs fencing around it to keep the dogs out of. We are always working to build our compost piles up which we need badly to get the soil improved.
These are such great tips! I see a Smart Gardener addiction in my future – seems like such a beautifully designed site!
That website looks like fun!
I love the square foot gardening book. Use it all the time.
Planning my first garden this year! The big challenge will be getting enough water to the garden, as we are completely off-grid. I’m hoping to begin planting in early March under a coldframe. I’ve made an extensive spreadsheet to help me track this first year’s labor and return (I’m very proud of my spreadsheet). I’m most excited about planting some heritage flint corns for my own cornmeal!
Sounds great, I’d love to hear how it goes!