Transcript:
Hey guys, so it’s that time of year where you’re getting farm catalog after farm catalog after farm catalog, and you’re just basking in all of the different options that you could pursue in the upcoming season.
And as I was looking through the catalogs, I realized something. Give me a hatchery catalog, and I could sit there and point out the breeds of chickens I want to order. I could have a pretty knowledgeable discussion with myself about poultry and my poultry plans for the year.
Or like the Premier one catalog. I love from Premier One fencing equipment. I geek out on animal supplies. I love animals. I consider myself an animal person.
But seed catalogs overwhelm me. Carrots, kale, peppers. Which one’s the best kind? What do I order? When do I plant it? It’s all a big mystery to me.
But this year, 2020, I want to be more involved in the garden. So in the past, my dad has been the one who has made the plan, ordered the seeds and sort of been the generic garden go to guy. And I’ve been basically trying to keep up with the weeding and harvesting.
But this year I want to be much more intentional about what I’m growing and how I’m growing it because I want to get a much larger percentage of my diet off of this farm, so that means I need to take a much harder look at gardening.
My Strategy Starting to Grow Fruits and Vegetables for Myself
I’m a newbie gardener, but this is going to be an exciting rookie year. So going into my rookie year, I decided to come up with a little bit of a strategy so that I can hopefully have some success.
Start with the Core Crops
The first thing I will focus on is sticking to the basic crops. So for me that means tomatoes, peppers, kale, maybe one type of lettuce, sweet corn, cucumbers, zucchini. Yeah, that’s pretty much it.
I’m going to stick to the basics and not try to get overwhelmed with growing kohlrabi and hearty Kiwis.
So I want to master those crops, the things I know I’m going to eat and the things I know will grow well in my area.
Put Garden Time in your Schedule every Week
Number two, I am going to schedule a consistent time to take care of the garden.
I am going to schedule time on my calendar consistent time every single week so that I am spending time in the garden. And why I’m doing this is because I have had to pull lots of major weeds and pulling teeny tiny weeds isn’t too bad, but pulling like giant three foot tall thistle is not enjoyable, so there’s no way any thistle is getting three feet tall because I’m going to cut it off when it’s tiny.
So I am scheduling consistent time in the garden so that problems don’t get out of control.
Keep it Simple
And number three, I am going to do my very best to keep it simple.
Now maybe you can relate, but there is an overabundance of gardening information out there.
I went to the basement and found some of my dad’s gardening books. New Seed Starters Handbook. The Vegetable Gardeners Handbook. How to Build Your Own Greenhouse. The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible. How to Grow More Vegetables. The New Organic Gardener. Square foot gardening. Bio Shelter Market Gardening. Four Season Harvest.
And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of YouTube and the Internet articles, magazines.
Now, I know that’s very true of the animal world as well, but because I’m in it and I know it and I’ve done it, it’s just familiar and so easy for me now.
I have to get to the point where I’m like that with gardening, but I’m definitely not there yet.
So instead of trying to read through this major stack of books, I’m going to flip through them and then choose one or two methods to follow.
As much as I love to read everything and find what I think would be the perfect way to do things. For this year, I’m going to keep it simple and just choose one or two books to follow and go from there.
After all, this farm is not a market garden at least not right now. So the garden’s not going to be bringing in the profit on the farm. So I don’t have endless amount of time to devote to finding the perfect gardening method.
So that is my strategy for the garden this year. I will definitely be sharing my successes and failures, so stay tuned.
But happy garden planning everyone.
