Homestead Organization
January
Freezing cold weather
Time to plan the garden!
1. Draw out your garden on graph paper to get an accurate measurement of what you really want and can actually fit.
2. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you like square foot gardening?
- Do you grow in rows?
- Do you need raised beds?
- Do you have a limited space?
- Do you have to bring in soil?
- Are you gardening in pots?
3. Decide what your family actually eats and what you can grow.
4. Do you have a plan for putting up what you don't eat? A friend of mine had a goal for putting up 500 canning jars of food in a year! What an incredible goal, right?
5. Start ordering root stock trees, bushes and plants that come in May.
6. Order pigs. Clean and prep any pig pen necessities.
February
1. Time to finish ordering any seeds.
2. Finalize any poultry orders. Chickens, Turkeys, Ducks, Geese, Quail. Do you need a quail license?
3. Check on feed prices and where best to get stocked up.
4. Look for a small affordable shipping container for feed storage.
Tip:
Check out your local Master Gardeners Association, County Extension Office or County Conservation District for tree and plant sales much cheaper than that of big box stores and more information on local plantings and sales.
This is my garden dream plan! 2022. The large squares to the right are what we moved in the fall. This will be the bulk of our food this summer. Then, the medium squares above it are new and will be the herb garden. Hopefully we will be able to get the small boxes in the middle built for annuals such as dill, fennel, rosemary and horseradish to name a few!
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Castling up!
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Castle gardens usually have brick walls to keep the warmth in and the wind out. They are large with paths and order to their plantings. In the picture above, the large garden to the left will hopefully be added to over the summer! Then we will start to add more solid fences to keep the wind more at bay.
Castle Garden Tip:
By putting broken clay pots and bottoms over the bulbs or base of larger plants, the heat will be retained more and keep the plant warm.