Planting

The number one reason we want to live on a homestead is so we can have room to produce a large percentage of our own food. Every week, half of our grocery cart is produce! In an effort to save money, reduce the number of trips to the grocery store (thus saving on fuel costs), and be more self-sufficient, we are planning to have quite a large garden this year. I'm also planning on canning, freezing, and drying everything we don't consume right away.

We have a bit of a head start - we aren't starting from scratch, like some homesteaders. We moved onto a well-established one acre farm. We'll already have strawberries, raspberries, asparagus, horseradish, mint, lemon balm, echinacea, and more! We don't have to build a chicken coop, there's one here that just needs to be spruced up. The garden area is set - all we need to do is till and plant it when the time comes. We also have a greenhouse/hoop house with raised beds, though the cover isn't on right now, to extend our growing season into the fall and winter. Our neighbors have fruit trees - apples, pears, and sour cherries - that they don't even harvest so we are welcome to it. They also have a pond with bass that we are welcome to fish from.

Even though all that is here, we still have a lot of work to do to get the garden ready for planting. There is a TON of thistle out there, which I've read is nearly impossible to get rid of, plus the garden was overgrown with grass and other weeds last year and we need to get all of that out of there. We're excited about our garden dreams so don't mind the work it's going to take to reach them.

Today the kids and I started some seeds in plastic cups and old egg cartons. Adam and I realized that most of the seeds we have are too old and won't germinate, so we took a trip to the local farm store and stocked up on seeds. We got all the basics but there's a few more things I'd like to get including some medicinal herbs from Mountain Rose Herbs. The possibly of making our own herbal teas and remedies is so exciting! I want to learn as much as I can about herbs and how they can be used to maintain health, and treat and heal illness.

So, tomorrow the weather is supposed to be quite nice, so the kids and I will be outside in the garden getting as much done as possible, as well as starting some more seeds indoors. We had a hard freeze last night and snow the night before so I'm wondering if our "last frost" will be later than usual. I guess we'll just have to see!