Gardening Days ahead,,,,,,

Greetings!!

I am so looking forward to the gardening days ahead.  The other day I sat down with my favorite seed catalogue and started planning out my garden and what I want to grow this year.  I plan on starting all the plants from seed myself this year too.  I am so excited!!

I plan on using only Heirloom seeds this year.  While its true hybrid seeds are more disease resistant, they are treated with chemicals, which I don't like.  They also do not produce a quality seed for saving to use for the next year.  Heirlooms have been around for decades if not centuries and most, to me anyway, seem to have the best quality produce.  I want to be able to save seed from one year to the next making the only expense in my garden, my time.  Oh how much money can be saved on the food budget when you do things yourself!!  Not to mention the satisfaction that comes along with it.  :-)

I plan on having two types of tomatoes this year.  Some for cooking and canning and some for eating fresh off the vine.  I am going to grow sweet corn, potatoes, carrots, beets, cabbage, lettuce, radishes and green beans.  Broccoli and Cauliflower are also on the list as well as Rhubarb, pickling cucumbers and butternut squash.  I think I need to throw in a plant or two of green peppers as I use those in my spaghetti sauce that I like to can.

I prefer most of my vegetables frozen but I do can a certain amount to put back for emergencies.  Besides, there is only so much room in my freezer, LOL.  The one thing that canning does that I really like, is the food will not spoil if we lose power for any length of time.  If canned properly, food will not spoil no matter how long it is on the shelf.  What it will do however, over time is lose some of its flavor.  After about 3 years the flavor starts to deteriorate.  The food is still safe to eat though.  I rotate out my stock so it does not sit that long.

Of course some things are never frozen like pickles or pickled beets.  Frank and I both love pickled beets so I plan to plant a lot of beets this year.

Someone had planted a lot of strawberry plants around the foundation of this house in the back.  I plan on getting out there and working on them this spring as they have not been cared for in a very long time.  This past year they produced a very tiny fruit, unusable, but that is how I discovered they were there.  So first signs of them popping up this year I will get out and thin the plants out and cultivate really good.  I'll apply an organic fertilizer to them and hopefully will get some nice fruits to use for jellies, jams and pancake syrup.  They'll be great fresh on cereal and ice cream too.  They seemed to be the everbearing variety so that will keep us stocked in fresh strawberries the entire summer.

I also plan on growing a few herbs for cooking and for medicinal  purposes.  Echinacea is a wonderful immune system booster and natural antibiotic.  Chamomile makes a wonderful tea and is used for relaxing and helping you sleep.  This list goes on and on, perhaps some day I will write about herbs and their medicinal properties.

The next job I have besides ordering and starting seeds is getting some grafting paper and laying out my garden.  I like to do this in advance to know exactly where everything will be planted.  It makes it easier in the long run and it also helps me to see if I have either room to pop something else in or perhaps add more of a favorite.  I tend to do a little "square foot gardening" as well as "companion gardening".  Both of these methods of gardening help me to fit more in my garden and make the best use of my space.

Basically, square foot gardening is getting the most in the smallest amount of space.  Certain plants can be planted closer together than what a seed packet call for.  You need to know how big that plant will actually get to know how close it can be to the next one.

Companion gardening is planting certain things together because they can benefit each other.  For example, if you plant your tomatoes then sprinkle your carrot seeds around your tomato plants they benefit each other.  Certain pests will leave your carrots alone because the tomato plant is poisonous to them.  If you plant sweet corn, once it is up about 4 inches plant pole beans around the corn plants the pole beans will grow up the corn stalks and you have a natural pole for them to grow on and you save space in your garden.  There are tons of neat little tricks like this I try to use.

Well, I have to get busy here for the day.  Until next time,,,,,,,  happy garden planning!!