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. 

I am a stay at home mom.

There, I wrote it.  To me it feels like I am JUST a stay at home mom.  Like that isn't enough. Wrangling one kid, or two, or ten.  It's enough.  Man is it enough.  It's hard mostly thankless work.  Yet, there is this voice that burrows it's way into my thoughts.  It says 'you're not doing enough'.  Work harder, do more, sleep less.
So I try.  Man do I try to do it all.  I cook 3+ meals a day.  95% of the time they're completely from scratch.  I do projects with the boys (which reminds me, I need to decide on Father's day gifts to make with them).  I garden.  I preserve.  I raise chickens.  I make our own self-care products.  I sew. I knit. I clean this big old house.  With help, I moderate an online facebook community dedicated to Elimination Communication. I volunteer with the PAC of our local play group.  I try to find time to ride my horses.  I read as much as I can.  I have a life outside of family...kinda. 
I think I've been asked once in 3 years about what I do.  It was a couples question, directed at both my husband and I.  My answer was one sentence "I just stay home with the boys".  My husband was able to hold a 30 minute conversation about what he does.
There I was, out for the evening with the hubby and boys.  Still just taking care of them, while Peter was engrossed in conversation about all the nifty things he does. 
I want to be okay with taking care of my kids, because it's awesome.  I'm so blessed to be able to stay  home and raise these boys.  I'm not going to ask people 'what do you do' anymore when I'm making small talk.  From now on I'm going to ask 'what are your interests?'.  Let's see where that takes us.  So...

What are your interests?

Long term homesteading goals

Homesteading, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, or just plain old money saving.  Whatever you call it, I feel like most people I know have some sort of goals for this topic.  I have a long list that covers many aspects.  Here it is, written out more for my benefit than yours.

• Put in long-term field fencing.  Use the temporary fencing to section off the field into 8 paddocks.  Use permanent posts for a a dry lot, and training lot.  I'd like to put in 6 foot half rounds along the road and for the aforementioned lots.  I'd be happy to use metal t-posts for along the creek and river.  I'm not sure if I want to stick with electric fencing or use wooden rails with woven wire.  
• Trench the field for optimal drainage, put a water tank below where the spring drains into the field to catch said water, and achieve maximum benefit.  
•  Improve gardening skills to the point where everything I put in the ground has an edible product.  
• Relocate ground hog or fence in all gardens so we benefit from them, and not the ground hog. 
• Add pear and plum trees to the orchard. 
• Add raspberry, blackberry, and blueberry plants to the hillside.  
• Put away enough fruits and vegetables during the growing season to last through the winter and into the next growing season. 
• Frame in a green house over the upper garden.  
• Set up feed sprouting trays for livestock. 
• Add an additional 24 laying hens to the chicken count. 
• Raise enough meat chickens to feed the family for one year.  (100?)
• Build chicken tractors to graze meat chickens in the field. 
• Add turkeys, geese, and ducks to the farm.  One male and one female to potentially bring up new young.  The rest would be butchered each Fall.  
• Raise 3 pigs yearly.  Two to feed the family, and one to sell to cover butcher costs.  
• Sheep.  An heritage breed that we can use for milk, wool, and potentially meat.  If there is a breed I can find that isn't represented in our area perhaps a male as well so we can sell babies in the spring.  
• Replace the old barn roof with metal. 
• Get solar panels to go on the barn roof, sell extra to utility company. 
• Sell extra eggs and any other extras.  

For now that is all I can think of.  What are your goals?

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!