Every year we try new things with our garden… We add beds, new/different plants, new techniques. In the past it was only me doing the garden, which is really limiting, but now that Kevin is working from home with me we can do more… and it’s a good thing too, because this year we added a new quarter of an acre to our garden. That is far more space than we have ever had to deal with! We are also dealing with planting directly into our red clay soil instead of the raised beds in which we have grown accustomed. I worry we might be taking on too much, but a bigger garden is going bring us closer to our goal of becoming self-sustaining.
In addition to all of the new space we are trying out a bunch of new plants. We are experimenting with gourds, spaghetti squash, black beans, kidney beans, chick peas, popcorn, beets, radishes, and potatoes for the first time. We are also going to plant a lot more flowers this year. Flowers haven’t been something I worried much about in the past. Now with more garden space and more help I can add them not only to make the farm prettier but to attract beneficial bugs and hopefully ward off bad bugs.
As far as the things that we grow every year (peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, peas, zucchini, strawberries, carrots, lettuce, watermelon, etc) we plan to grow a lot more of them. We are going from 24 tomato plants last year to 70+ this year. We are also doing 70+ sweet pepper plants this year compared to the 15 that we did last year… we eat a lot of peppers in this house!
Follow along with us to see how the new garden comes together…