The start to this year's garden
This is the first in a series on gardening for food.
My first memories of gardening are from my years growing up in the South – corn, tomatoes, raspberries and watermelon were just a few things that graced our garden and plates. Yet, I also recall that I didn’t really understand or appreciate the value of gardening. I don’t remember participating much except to shuck corn and break beans. It wouldn’t be until I was living in New York City that I would realize the importance of self-reliance – and taste the desire of wanting to own our little bit of earth to plow.
For the last few years our garden has been small, hasn’t produced very much food and has been more of a practice run for the “real” garden to come (when we’ll have our own land to cultivate). Still, we have learned a lot about container gardening and we were able to grow some things like tomatoes, basil, turnips and radishes. Last year was the first time that we had a garden in the ground, and this year we lucked out big time by discovering, quite by accident, an available 10′ by 30′ plot rented out by a local church. This is our first growing season in Washington, so we have no idea how things will go, but we’re still going to make a good effort of it.
Why do a gardening series on a food blog?
Wait – is that a serious question? Well, for those of you that are scratching your heads and truly wondering why I’m going to write about gardening, I’ll take the bait and answer.
Several months ago, I took a poll and asked you all what topics you might be more interested in seeing here. Gardening, or more specifically, growing your own food was something that several of you voted to read. With increasing interest in living a greener lifestyle, more and more people are willing to try growing food for themselves. The tough thing, though, is to figure out how to go about doing it if you haven’t gardened before. Even though I don’t think I’m an expert, I do think that what I have learned could be potentially beneficial.
That said, I’m writing this series not just as a helpful how-to, but to hopefully advocate for more gardens for those of you who haven’t really considered it. Growing your own food can be a lot of hard work, but it can also be extremely gratifying. It’s easy to be super reliant on grocery stores for much or all of your food, but when you have picked your first tomato or squash, you’ll realize that this gardening thing could be pretty addictive. It can also save you money by making it so some things you buy regularly at the store can be picked in the garden instead.
As with most things in life, there are many different approaches to gardening that you can take. Before I start in on my own tips, I encourage you to look into these different methods and strategies that others have taken.
Path to Freedom – the Dervaes family homestead
This family has successfully grown around 6,000 pounds of food on 1/10 acre for the last few years. Granted, they are located in Southern California where the growing season is much longer, but their homestead can still be an inspiration for anyone. Watch this video (10 minutes) to get a good idea of their philosophy and what types of food they are producing.
Although permaculture can be practiced even in container gardening, one of our dreams is to purchase a good sized piece of property and farm it using permaculture techniques. If you have never heard of permaculture, it’s essentially gardening with nature, but it’s also so much more than that simple phrase. By using nature as a guide, people are able to grow a lot of food and replenish the earth in positive and long-lasting ways. One of my all-time favorite videos is of Sepp Holzer at his farm in Austria where he has harmoniously worked with nature for the last 30 years. Here is a clip of this video.
This method is meant to be pretty straight-forward and easy for people of any gardening level to do. It’s an interesting approach and one that I’ve casually tried in the past. Here’s a short video that explains it in a nutshell.
To be honest, we’re just now learning about this, but it looks like a great approach with high yields and healthy soil. Take a look at this video demonstration of a bio-intensive garden.
Do you garden or do you plan on gardening? If so, do you follow a specific method?
If you do not plan on gardening, I highly recommend supporting your local farms. To find a farm near you visit Local Harvest and enter in your zip code.
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Hello! I don’t read blogs much any more, but was searching for almond milk and came across your beautiful blog. I am really really enjoying all I am reading here. We, too, are doing experimental gardening in preparation for the day we have our own land and can garden every inch of it. There won’t be any grass if I can help it. lol
Have a wonderful weekend! Robin in Kentucky
What a great post and good luck with your gardening this year! I have some seeds started and am looking forward to planting outside once the snow melts!
this is wonderful – thanks so much for starting what looks like a great and useful series. we’ve really just begun a small square foot garden but I used to live at a co-op where members began a sustainable garden, incorporating ideas I’d never seen or heard of – like an herb spiral, and potatoes, grown in hay bales that opened up like books, and companion plantings. the garden hardly needed watering, and was a pleasure. I’d love to learn more and use some sustainable ideas like that as I can afford it (more to do with time than money, though that’s a concern as well).