The Croppening

This year we ware going to be doing our own seed starts. Some of them will be started in the house others will be put directly into the ground after the last frost. Im excited to get started on this. I have found a variety of ways to recycle items for our seed starts toilet paper tubes cut up on trays, tin cans and milk jugs cut in half for our bigger plants. But to begin Ihad to figure out how many seeds and starts I was going to need and how I was ever going to lay all of this out to make any sense.

So I looked at the area I would like to use this year and decided on four 12 ft by 5ft raised beds with various different soils depending on what will be going into it. We are going to use recycled wood, free wood and take apart pallets to make the sides. In the bottom we have some of the plastic that weeds can't grow throughso we will put it down build the beds and add dirt. The other beds we will have for potatoes, squash, and various other viney type plants will go in 3ft x 3ft cinder block squares witht heir preferred soils.

Prior years we did the straight in the ground till everything up and it just never worked out with pests and weeds our outcomes were poor. When we lived in our apartments we had great luck with container type gardening so Im hoping going back to this style will help us be more productive.

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What we have planned to go into our garden this year seems like alot but it really isnt taking up as much room as just tilling a large square. It should also be much easier to access everything that we are growing. We have other things that grow in our yard that are perinneals and return every year and we will be adding to those as well. We plan on adding blueberries, currants and one other type of fruit tree this year. We are open to others as well and with bartering we never know what we will get.

In the raised beds we will have a wide variety of veggies. We are adding root vegetables this year since they should store really well through the winter. We are putting green beans, broccoli, brussel sprouts, caulifower, carrots, cucumbers, garlic, lettuce, spinach, onion, peppers, radishes, turnips, rutabeagas, and tomatoes. With each of those I have a variety of kinds. Inter mixed around the garden Im going to incorporate herbs so we will have some of our own seasonings, teas, and medicines. Im also going to incorporate marigolds through out for pest control.

All of this is subject to change as we get going on it and I will be posting pictures and adding additional blogs about our up coming garden. We really cant wait to get started.