I left the murdering earth and went to container gardening. I used potting soil, (not regular dirt with evil creatures in it), which loves plants. I put containers on top of the murdering dirt and constructed a net placed on top of a large umbrella after I removed the material from the umbrella, leaving only a metal skeleton on which the net was placed. That kept out murdering squirrels, birds, flying insects.
@Victoria33 LOL! I am here these past five years, three of which included attempts at gardening, and I have not yet harvested enough to worry about canning. The first two years were just weeds... Weeds by the ton. Even in my raised strawberry, blueberry, and raspberry patches... JUST the time it takes to culture a garden space is framed in terms of years. Last year was a pretty good harvest - the weeds finally under control... But with abundance came the deer, the coons, the skunks, the voles, the mice, the geese, and etcetera... Wiped out.
This year I am finally catching on... the entire 20x40 space will have a timber in the ground, with 2x4 welded wire buried flat, outward from the timber... An 8' high timber frame will be constructed upon that border, with chicken wire and hog panels attached... I have found an old high tunnel frame which I am going to re-purpose for use across the top, with plastic chicken wire stretched across... With panels fitted around the outside to hold plastic, and plastic to stretch across the top too, in order to lengthen my growing season. It will be a greenhouse until summer, when the plastic will be removed, and then reinstalled as summer wanes. Here it is the cold that kills, not the heat.
So in my experience, going into my fourth year, having never yet purchasing a single canning jar, I can boldly say there's YEARS involved in making a garden grow. And all that with my mother ready to hand with her many decades of knowledge.
Canning: I am old and watched my mother can every year so I knew the basics. I researched present methods of canning and have the equipment for that and know how to do it.
This summer should see my outdoor kitchen constructed - I have already learned, just from chicken processing, that your typical kitchen is woefully inadequate to the task when processing. There is no way I will be processing chickens or garden inside. That makes two fairly large construction projects necessary for reasonable production, that I had no idea I was going to need.
Jussayin. It is not (as you say) just flinging some seeds around.
