Seeds, Inspiration and New Relationships

I've been so excited since I became a member of the Seed Savers Exchange. Not only do they have an amazing selection of heirloom seeds and plants available on their website, but if you become a member you get their catalog and THAT has almost 14,000 varieties of stuffs. I almost hit the floor when I read that and I couldn't become a member fast enough. Their purpose, to protect and distribute and keep alive the tradition of heirlooms is one I am completely behind.

I had already laid out my 13+ raised beds on graph paper, all designed for high yield production. I'd looked up companion planting combinations, have a nice checklist of must purchase supplies for the garden, researched starting the seedlings (and this guy has a fantastic bunch of ideas, including inexpensive LED grow lights!) and was almost ready to go when inspiration hit.

There's a great little restaurant in my town, Pimentos, with a young and very talented chef, Michael Norcross. He's always looking for fresh produce for his creations. I went in and had a talk with him this last weekend and he is totally game to work with me this Spring and Summer. He'll be patient with me as I learn how to grow this stuff, I can grow specific things he'd like and make a little money to put back in the garden and everyone wins. So awesome!

Garden Planning 2012

OK so I know it’s a bit early (according to some) and awfully late (according to others) but this is me and this was the day that I had set aside to decide what I was going to do with my garden in 2012. I spent a lot of time running around on the internet looking at all sorts of things that would be cool but since I know I have to balance most of my garden time with my going back to school for my Bachelors I eliminated all but the most interesting ones.
My final plans are set (ish)  for the beds. I currently have 13 4x8 raised beds and a good sized open space (about 25x30) with winter rye doing it’s thing. I am going to try for a high yield garden style this year, but with my own twist. I am only going to grow heirloom produce. Seed Savers Exchange is an amazing resource with tens of thousands of choices of heirloom seeds. I felt like a kid in a candy store scrolling through!
I have my list of plants that I need to get started and in what quantity and now all I have to do is choose the varieties I am going to plant. I’m currently at somewhere around 400 plants with 34 varieties. My next steps will be to set up my seedling farm in the basement so that I can get plants that will be well established for planting first thing in the spring.
I can’t wait!

First Year - Veggie Garden

I got it in to my head when we bought this house that I wanted to make the property completely self-sustaining. I'm not sure what I was thinking except maybe that I wanted to see if I could do it. Since we're not planning on moving anywhere anytime soon I figure I can do things in stages. Step one - learn how to grow food, organically.

There is a huge section in our backyard that was used as the garden area by the previous owner (he was here 40+ years) and I decided I would make my life easy and start there. It's about 100 feet long and 35 feet wide. I spent some time over the winter with a pencil and graph paper and laid it all out. I'm happy to say it's mostly taken shape the way I wanted it too.

long, diagonal view

My son even dug me a pond in the middle deep enough to put fish in. We haven't yet, mainly because I know nothing about how to take care of them and I'm afraid if we put them in there they'll go belly up in 5 minutes. I can kill a plant, but I'd cry if I saw fish floaters in my pond. I did buy water lilies though and a couple of solar pond pumps. I used old bricks to edge the whole thing and it's kind of rustic and cute.

that's a water lily

This first year I wanted to be able to make salsa and tomato sauce and I wanted to establish the strawberry beds. My husband is a freak for "real" strawberries so this was a top priority. Everything else I planted was considered experimental. I figured that we could enjoy the bounty of what ever manages to survive my budding (har har) gardening skills. So far so good. I've only lost two crops, the red onions and the snap peas, and we've been having fun sampling a little bit of everything else. The tomatoes, peppers and hot peppers are all coming in gang busters and I should be having some fun over a hot stove in a few weeks canning my heart out.