A messy garden.

I've posted photos of my gardens on Facebook, and I'm sure some people have thought something along the lines of 'why is she spending time on Facebook when her garden needs weeding?'  Here's the thing about my gardens. 
It's intentional.  Most of it anyway.  The crab grass not so much...but everything else? I totally let grow.  I let the purslane, the plantain, the chickweed and others grow.  It's great. Then you know what I do? I harvest it and eat it! Yup. Those nasty weeds that make my garden look messy are for our benefit.  

Here are links to just some of what is growing around our property for us to harvest.


http://www.ediblewildfood.com/purslane.aspx

http://www.ediblewildfood.com/chickweed.aspx

http://www.ediblewildfood.com/broadleaf-plantain.aspx

http://www.ediblewildfood.com/dandelion.aspx

http://www.ediblewildfood.com/sow-thistle.aspx

http://www.ediblewildfood.com/new-england-aster.aspx

http://www.ediblewildfood.com/cattail.aspx

http://www.ediblewildfood.com/common-yarrow.aspx

http://www.ediblewildfood.com/bull-thistle.aspx

http://www.ediblewildfood.com/burdock.aspx

http://www.ediblewildfood.com/henbit.aspx

Feeding a Family of Four - Gardening Part 3, companion planting and perennial vegetables.

Let's talk saving space and time.  Well, technically saving space will save you time weeding, so let's talk about saving time. Companion planting saves room in the garden.  Instead of planting a tomato vine every 3 feet, and having to weed in between you can put other vegetables that compliment the plant in the open space and have less area you need to weed.  There are many different plants that can be planted near each other, so this is just my short list of how I'm changing my garden plot for 2015 to maximize space. 

Pepper plants between tomatoes.  If our basil needs thinning, I will transplant some of it in the free space between peppers and tomatoes.

Peas on a trellis with spinach underneath. 

Cucumbers on a trellis with lettuce underneath.

Summer squash on a trellis with Radish underneath.  If the dill needs thinning those will be transplanted between radish rows.

Arugula planted between rows of beets.

Chard between broccoli plants.

Collards between Cauliflower plants.

Brussels Sprouts will be planted in the peas place after they have been harvested.

We have a hillside that needs to be planted to keep us from having to manage.  I'm planning on putting our perennial garden here.  In it will be Kale, Asparagus, Horseradish, Walking Onions, Sun Chokes, Day Lillies, Rhubarb, and eventually lots of berries and larger herbs for healing. 

Feeding a family of 4, part two: Rotational Planting in the Garden.

That last list was huge, and fairly overwhelming.  It would also take up a huge piece of yard, and be hard to put away everything at the same time. 
Thanks to rotational gardening you don't have to! There is a lot of information out on rotational gardening, and I found most of it completely overwhelming.  It's taken me quite awhile to wrap my head around how to successfully rotate my garden due to the fact that most information online is zone specific without actually telling you what zone they're gardening in. 
Here are the notes I've gathered to accompany my list of what and how much I aim to grow in our gardens.  We are in zone 5B, but this list should be flexible enough to fit to your own planting schedules.

*Note, I've added bok choy and cauliflower to my master list, but have not amended the previous blog post.

Arugula: 2 plantings, 10 plants each. Early Spring and Mid Summer.
Beets: 2 plantings, 40 plants each. Mid Spring and Late Summer.
Bok Choy: 2 plantings, 10 plants each. Early Spring and Mid Summer.
Broccoli: 3 plantings, 10 plants each.  Early Spring, Mid Summer, Late Summer.
Cabbage: 3 plantings, 10 plants each.  Early Spring, Mid Summer, Late Summer.
Cauliflower:  2 plantings, 15 plants each.  Mid Spring and Late Summer. 
Carrots: 2 plantings, 75 plants each.  Mid Spring and Late Summer.
Lettuce: 2 plantings, 25 plants each. Early Spring and Late Summer.
Radish: 3 plantings, 20 plants each.  Early Spring, Mid Summer, Late Summer.
Spinach: 2 plantings, 50 plants each.  Early Spring, and Late Summer.
Turnips: 2 plantings, 20 plants each.  Early Spring, and Late Summer.
Potatoes: 2 plantings, 25 plants each.  Late Spring, and Early Summer. 

While the gardens will still be large, by doubling and tripling up when I plant it will cut down on the overall space, and stretch out the amount of time I have to plant in. 

Up next: Companion planting and perennial vegetables to save space and time. 

Feeding a family of 4, part one: Gardening.

This is the first part of a who knows how long series on the numbers it would take to mostly feed a family of four off a homestead.  Today's post really is just a list I have compiled after paying attention to what and how much our family eats.  This list is specific to my family, in that we very rarely eat grains.  Due to this limitation our vegetable intake is much higher than a family on the Standard American Diet.  It also includes enough to preserve or store for cold weather consumption.

Artichoke 15 plants
Arugula 20 plants
Asparagus 100 roots
Beets 80 plants
Broccoli 20 plants
Brussels Sprouts 20 plants
Cabbage 32 plants
Carrots 150 plants
Collards 12 plants
Cucumbers 100 plants
Garlic 64 plants
Horseradish 4 plants
Kale 50 plants
Lettuce 50 plants
Onions 100 plants
Parsnips 40 plants
Peas 240 plants
Peppers 24 plants
Potatoes 50 plants
Radish 60 plants
Rhubarb 20 plants
Spinach 100 plants
Summer Squash 10 plants
Winter Squash 5 plants
Sweet Potato 40 plants
Swiss Chard 20 plants
Cherry Tomato 25 plants
Cooking Tomato 35 plants
Slicing Tomato 20 plants
Turnips 40 plants

My garden needs to get much larger to accommodate all of this.  However it is a long term goal, and something I work towards every year. 

The year of the fence, part 2.

 

The field is now completely enclosed with temporary fencing.  Yay for free grazing.  I took a break from all the fencing projects to clear out the deep bedding in the stalls and chicken coop.  Last week I started on the new chicken fence.  I managed to get get 6 posts in the ground, along with turning and planting the 8x8 raised bed with root vegetables.  I still have about 25 posts to put in for the chicken run, and then get the new wire up.  Everything I've accomplished either has to be done with my two little helpers or during nap time.  It sure has revised my view of what a 'big accomplishment' is for one day.  
I was hoping to purchase a rototiller this year, but decided that our little expendable cash could be better budgeted to other expenses.  For now I'm turning everything by hand.  Between digging up the garden and digging fence posts my dislike for our rocky soil has grown immensely.  This happens every Spring, but luckily for me I have a little boy who loves the job of removing rocks from the garden.  In 5 years time I will have rock free garden spaces I'm sure!