The holidays are finally behind me. I love Christmas as much as anyone, however, it's the "holiday season" that I've come to loathe. It seems the entire month of December is completely wasted with all the preparations. I just get going into some project or routine and bang, the holidays are here and everything gets put on hold.
As I said, that's all behind me (at least for the next 11 months) and I have the 2010 gardening season about ready to gear up. Since we radically increased the size of our garden, we are having to really consider it's lay-out and management. Our goal is to grow only things we can store, can, or otherwise preserve. Shelley and I see a great opportunity to really increase the amount of food we put up over last year. Everything we are planting is with that goal in mind.
We are also making plans for what we will buy vs. plant. We live in the heart of corn country, as an example, and are a few minutes away from a local Amish produce auction. By joining with a a couple other families from our church , we can buy corn in bulk much cheaper then we can grow it. Also corn is a space killer. To get a years supply stored you have to grow lots of corn. That's not a problem if you're working 2-3 acres, it's a HUGE problem for my situation. Buying corn makes sense.
Some other veggies we intend to buy rather then grow include beets and perhaps pie pumpkins. Beets are very cheap at auction and we can fill our needs rather cheaply. Pie pumpkins are an opportunity. We grow pie pumpkins and intend to do so this year, however, we will probably add to our harvest from the auction. They were selling as low as $0.05 each last year! If we can steal them that cheap this year, we will supplement our harvest.
Strawberries and apples will be another purchase, however, we are adding a large strawberry bed this year and apple trees next year. I'm a big fan of permaculture.
I've most likely given up on growing corn too, but for different reasons. We live in the corner of a field that's planted with either soy or corn. If it's soy, it's no problem. If it's corn, it crosses with whatever I plant and I end up with a patch of nasty field corn in my garden. So disappointing!
ReplyDeleteThat would be a terrible problem with a wind pollinated crop. How big is your garden?
ReplyDeleteMy "main" garden is 30X50, but we have smaller gardens scattered around the property. Both kids have a small garden of their own.
ReplyDeleteHopefully this year will be a soy year so I can grow corn...my kids eat it straight out of the patch.
There is not much better then corn straight from the stalk.
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