I have decided to revive the gardening thread on TBR after giving a great deal of thought about taking it in a new direction. Weekly was too difficult especially during garden season, so I decided to go with a topical setup, although timely to things as they come up throughout the year.
Another change that goes with that is presenting topics in the context of a homestead garden, one that produces enough food to support a household. With the current interest in self-sufficiency and off-grid living, it seems more relevant to give information that is in line with that kind of setup.
The Homestead GardenDecember thru February is the traditional time for most people to plan their garden for the next season. For anyone looking to grow and store their own food, there are a few things to consider before ever planting so that you have a garden that will allow you to achieve the level of self-sufficiency you would want from such an undertaking.
The basic idea of a homestead garden encompasses four main concepts, some of which are beyond the what people would typically think of or currently do in their existing gardens.
Year round food production: Most people think of gardening as starting in the spring with the typical planting of cool weather crops like lettuce, carrots, broccoli, etc., then the summer stuff such as green beans, corn, melons and tomatoes, and generally wrapping it all up early in the fall till spring comes again. The homestead garden expands greatly on that concept using ideas and techniques to not only extend the season with double cropping, but go year round with cold weather gardening, root cellaring, overwintering, and soil sprouts, among others.
Continual fertility building: A garden designed to produce food needs to be exactly that – productive. Continual fertility involves constantly building the soil beyond the usual spring/fall preparation, so that the needed labor and inputs involve the smallest amount of area and most efficient setup possible, yet yields high quality and quantity results. The idea is to use the space as intensively as possible, and the only way to do that is to be constantly feeding the soil to avoid nutrient deficiences for say a fall crop following behind the spring planting, or a heavy feeder like corn being planted the next year.
Minimal input and capital: Though gardening involves tools, equipment, seed, stakes, and fencing, an organized and efficient production garden, once past the initial investment, can be a low cost undertaking that is mostly self-sustaining after that by reusing, recycling, repurposing, and using available resources to expend as little money as possible on a year-to-year basis. Even seed costs can lowered to a minimal with seed saving. Much of this can be accomplished by understanding the natural forces at work in a garden and taking advantage of them.
Planning, organizing, executing, and consistency: One of the big problems of the whole self-sufficiency lifestyle is that too many approach it with a seat-of-the-pants attitude, which while it may feel good, generally doesn't get the job done. A good production garden is a tight, well run operation of well thought out planning, organized practices and techniques, and consistent and timely follow thru. A garden progresses through the year on a relentless timetable with limited windows of opportunity, getting the results you want means keeping up with that schedule so as not to miss out on getting the most out of your garden space. A well organized garden also has the advantage of being efficient in resources and labor, making it possible to do more with less, and being less exhausted at the end of the day and season.
All these taken together are the basic foundation of a functional homestead garden operation on a year-to-year basis. From there you can build on these basic foundational principles to design the garden that will be successful in meeting your expectations and getting the results you desire.
In the next segment I'll look at the garden planning process itself in order to use these basic concepts create a set of parameters from which you can formalize your garden blueprint and get started on the next season.
