This section contains homesteading wisdom for gardening. This is gardening for go, not for show. Only food, herbs, medicinal, and other useful plants will be covered here.
Planted a nice huge garden the first year - in rows. Nice long rows. Had lots and lots of space so why not? Well, I found out why not. With no previous years of gardening and no adding compost to this huge area, the ground was hard and dry. The wind and sun here dry up EVERYTHING so long rows were just impossible to water. The next year I went back to what I'd tried before - square foot gardening. I used it before because I had so little space to work with, but I realized no matter how much space you have it's a good idea. Make the squares, compost and mulch them well, plant everything close and plant BIG leafy things in every square that will provide shade from the sun. In this climate even sun loving plants need some shade. Castor beans make wonderful "umbrella" plants for a square of lettuce and other greens! So do turnips.
If you step on a cactus, apologize. After all, it was there first and you really can't expect it to get up and move because it saw your fat feet coming, now can you? Apologize, don't get mad and quietly remove the stickers.
Buy as good of quality stuff for your homestead as you can. A $3 shovel is a great thing when they're on sale, but when you go back for your third one in the same year it doesn't make much sense anymore. If it's possible spend a few more dollars and get the good one first, or find good quality ones that are second hand and cheaper.
Top 10 reasons for doing raised-bed gardening:
1. Our beds have never washed out during heavy rains. 2. You only fertilize/compost/mulch/water the actual growing area, not the paths between rows plus the growing areas as you do in conventional row-gardens. 3. You are able to garden more intensively. Can space plants more closely because of mulching and uncompacted soil. Close-spacing shades out weeds and you are able to plant more in smaller space because you don't have wasted space between rows. The mulching and shading by plants slows evaporation of moisture from the soil. 4. You are able to track crop rotation easier than if using traditional rows. 5. You NEVER have to till or plow raised/permanent beds. They are covered with mulch year-round and the earthworms continuously pull organic material into the soil. The mulch prevents rain from compacting the soil and since you never walk on the beds, your footsteps aren't compacting the soil. To plant a bed, just scoop out a small hole with your trowel for each plant or use your how to make a furrow for row-planted seeds. Some seeds such as lettuce can be scattered in a section of a bed. 6. You can easily cover a bed. This is handy for extending the season in spring or fall or for preventing insect infestation. In the past we used a short chicken-wire fence around the brassica bed to prevent groundhog and rabbit damage, but now use a small bottle of predator urine hung from a forked stick. 7. Psychologically, working with beds isn't as overwhelming as working with row-gardens. You can weed, plant or harvest an entire bed and feel that you've accomplished something! 8. If you mulch between beds (be sure to make the spaces wide enough to accomodate a wheel barrow or whatever you use), your feet/shoes never get muddy even in the muckiest weather. 9. It's easy to grow vertically in raised/permanent beds: We use a 16' hog panel wired to 3 steel T-posts for our cucumbers. 12 plants supply us, our friends/relatives/co-workers (and the chickens thru the end of November). We move the panel each year, of course, because we practice crop rotation. Tomatoes are grown in 18"x18"x4' cages made from cattle panels. We have two staggered rows of cages in one 16'x4' bed with one - two plants per cage. This year we canned 3 bushels, gave away 2 bushels and fed at least 3 bushels to the chickens from this one bed. 10. Chicken tractors are more efficient because the chickens only work the actual growing areas.
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