Modern Homesteading Today - Homesteads, Homesteading, Living Off The Land

Gardening

One of the most basic and important homesteading activities is growing a garden.

A decent garden can provide sufficient produce for the fall and most, if not all, of the winter. Growers from beginner to advanced can produce healthy produce; the sun and rain do the most important work, so you should not be intimidated whatever your level of experience.

The first step is to determine what growing zone you reside in. The continent of North America is divided into numbered growing zones. You can find a map just about anywhere: seed packets, gardening books, and the internet, for starters.

Now that you know when you can grow your garden, you can decide what you want to grow. Let your imagination go wild and right down everything you can think of. Then check a seed catalogue or seed information on the web to confirm your choices can mature within your area’s growing season.

Next, decide what you can afford to pay for seed. Now you can determine which seed and how much of each you can fit into your budget. You will want to do some comparison shopping during this stage. The fun and easiest part is purchasing your seed.

If you are planting a garden for the first time, it is best to plow and disc it, followed by a hand rotor tiller. If you have a tractor tiller combination you may be able till it several times to loosen up the soil without plowing.

Brussel Sprouts From Our Homestead

The soil may need to be conditioned depending on the type of soil, such as clay or sand or loam. The idea is to add some sand, peat moss or manure to clay to loosen it. In sandy soil, you may want to add manure, compost and some top soil to make it hold water better. The ideal soil is rarely found and so you may have to consult your local gardening centre to see what works best in your area.

Raised Garden Beds

A raised bed makes good sense for a new gardener with no large equipment or little financial resources available. All that is needed is some type of framing material, such as rocks, logs, rail ties or cut lumber, to enclose an area in the desired shape and size.

Raised Garden Beds

A good useful width is 3 feet, which makes it easy to reach from either side. The length can be as be as long as you want to have it, but probably 16 feet would be the most, due to available lumber lengths, and the distance in which a person would want to walk around the bed to get to the other beds. Once the raised beds are made, you may fill it with top soil purchased from a local trucking company or you may try to scrape some up from your homestead.

If you have your own pickup truck you may want to layer in sand, manure, soil, peat moss into the beds and then blend it yourself. Usually the soil is poor is nutrients the first few years. Organic gardeners will not use commercial fertilizers and so you may want to seriously consider what you use to boost the nutrients in your soil. If you live by the ocean sea kelp does wonders.

Using a raised bed may save you on the cost of roto-tilling equipment, tractors and implements. Raised beds can easily be done with a shovel, fork, hoe or rake to turn over the soil in the fall and spring. Raised beds also make the most use of the square footage available by allowing you to plant seedlings close together and are ideal for companion planting.