Backyard Raised Beds!
Since I was writing about our plans for this year's garden, I found I could not do it all in one post. So to continue from where I left off, I had to write more. You see our garden is one very important part of our homestead. In fact, if we moved to a piece of land to build a house, the very first thing we would do is to put our garden in or prepare our garden area for the future garden. I always say "water, food, a roof over our heads and heat in that order."
Pumpkins In 2010!
Hot Peppers!
Hot peppers are another of our favorites here. This year though I am looking to reproduce the ones I like for the store, so will be buying new seeds for those. They seem to produce a lot on each plant and I like that.
Green Bell Peppers!
Green bell peppers is one of my favorites also. These are really good. But some years I have grown them and had beautiful plants, but no peppers. I don't know why that happens, but I will be increasing the number of plants I grow of these also.
Our First Time Broccoli Plants Grew Good Last Year!
Last year we tested an area to see if I could get broccoli to come up. I read where someone said anyone could grow it. So I thought I'd try. Broccoli without doubt, is a favorite here too. Never could grow enough to preserve some. I'd like to try dehydrating some though.
Cherry Tomato Plants Growing Wild!
Our cherry tomatoes have been coming up on their own in our back raised bed. Don't have to plant them, they just come up. So I will leave them be. They do not get the Late Blight, so for some reason it doesn't affect them. This is an heirloom plant that I planted when I first moved here.
Potato Plants
Potatoes is a plant that I can grow! If I have room for it, it will come up with no problem. One year, I had almost all our beds full of them. My parents have always grown their own and stored them in their root cellar. So I know the value of the potato. I'd like to try growing them in straw. Potatoes is a food that you can eat in so many ways. It is worth growing and can be grown in little spaces too.
Kale grew good too!
Kale is a plant I like. It even grew under the snow and we ate it as a salad green in the winter. Liked that about it. I still have some that I canned. It is a good addition to soups and casseroles. It is very healthy so you should at least try it.
One of our lettuce and salad greens bed!
Lettuce grows good for us. I pick it daily for our salad and the next day it has grown back. I plan on adding two more beds of lettuce this year. We eat tons of salads all year. It is something I have always done.
Pale Gray Hopi Squash
Pale Gray Hopi Squash is a winter squash I almost forgot to put on this list! I will be growing it and hopefully will get more this time. We liked it and it can be stored fresh or canned. This is an heirloom plant. I was so fortunate enough to have a Homesteading Today member send me some free seeds! I have treasured them ever since.
The Jurassic Bed.......giant plants grow here!
This list is still not complete. I will be adding the foods I did not grow and show you what my final list will be before I order any seeds I do not have. I will also do a list of the fruits too. Need to add more of them as we do not grow enough. If it wasn't for the wild ones, we'd be fruitless! What are your gardening plans for this year? Please share!
Copyright © 2012 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2012 Kathleen G. Lupole
7 comments:
I'm just getting started on my planning, but I won't be doing anything new. I just don't have the room for it.
Room is always the biggest problem. With my garden now, I am making every bit of space be worthwhile. Nothing is going to be planted that we won't use. Nothing wasted! Thanks for your comment.
I grow all sorts of peppers, especially the hot ones. I have never bought pepper seeds in my life, yet I have peppers nearly year around here in S. Ca. The trick? Save the seeds from the store peppers you like and plant them after they've dried. I have my best luck planting the seeds from the already dried peppers. I shake the seeds out before using the dried pepper. I honestly have a plant that is more than 4 years old and still producing. The dumb thing just won't die back. I shook all the seeds from a dried guiallo into my planter and had so many sprout I had to cull them drastically. Also, like you, I haven't planted tomato seeds for years. They keep coming up on their own. I had a big harvest of acorn and kabocha squash last summer, all from seeds scooped out of fresh squash, tossed into the garden, and ignored. Dumb things came up everywhere and in the end, nearly covered my small back yard.
I love growing my own vegetables.
Thanks for the inspiration! Our weather was so warm this fall, I was able to put almost all my beds to sleep, ready for the spring. I can't wait to plant this year!
Our short list is similar to yours: Hot peppers, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, pumpkins ... and we always do carrots, too.
Have you tried Italian frying peppers? We have much better luck with those than the green bell. You don't have to fry them (lol!), they are great on salads, too.
I usually don't plant our pumpkins. Most of them are volunteers that come up in the manure pile. They start late, though, and I usually end up putting them on the porch to turn orange.
Last year we got a weird hybrid of pumpkin or squash combined with ornamental gourds. They came out about the size of a bocci ball with bumps all over it. I split them with a heavy metal wedge and feed them to my ducks...they LOVE them!
I almost forgot, we always plant Swiss chard, too. We only cut the outer leaves, so it produces all year, and you can put it in really early. I think I'm going to try some kale this year, thanks to your recommendation!
I will try that with the peppers from the store Sandy! I already do that with potatoes and onions. My parents liked a certain type of potato and could not find it as a seed potato so they bought them in the store and planted them from that. They then never had to buy any again.
I planted some Swiss Chard last year, but the wild cherry tomatoes took over that bed (since I did not plant them) and killed them. This year I will plant them again in a different bed. Carrots is something I really want to grow too. They just have never come up for me. I need to study what I am doing wrong with them.
Nice pictures. This year i will be trying to grow three rare varieties of native squash. Hopi Black, Hopi White, and a variety i have nicknamed Wild Pueblo which is a wild squash from Utah. Seedlings are just coming up now and i hope to transplant them outside soon.
Post a Comment