Plans For 2010

[yugogypsy]

Happy New Year All!

Well I've got all my seed catalogues now and have to sort the seeds I have before ordering this year.

We're doing more expansion with the garden, landscaping one corner with a gazebo and pots of edible flowers.

I'm hoping we can get 2 more sheds built for animals and 1 for guest accomodation. The weather has been mild so my guys are off working elsewhere almost every day while I sit here and do the planning.

We also need to build another greenhouse. BUT before we can do anyhing we've got to clean out the last of the scrap, have 2 cars removed and Rick has to dig out a dozen or so small stumps.

After building comes fencing, and somewhere we have to find the time for planting.

It's going to be a busy year.

My love to all of you, especially Forrest.

Lois

[NCW_Woodnymph]

It's nice to know someone else is in the same place. I'm filled with optimism for spring but just the thought of all there is to do is exhausting. :D Now, off I go to finish mapping out my available space.

[lishca]

i have most of my garden planned out, and i learned that i will be helping/teaching another friend how to garden. she's not totally new to it, but there are a few things she doesn't understand (like you don't have to use poisons to have a productive garden). so i will be explaining that. and hopefully have one more person trying to take care of the earth and not just take it for granted.

i'm very ready for spring or at least a lil warmer weather so that i can get out and start getting things rolling. i am already starting to get a lil cabin fever.


alicia

[LIBRA]

Im ready for spring too, cant wait to get outside and work in the soil!!

Ive got lots to do, wish I had a crew to help me, well I have an 8yr old crew member he does his fair share :D

Ive got to build a new compost bin, im going to build a few raised beds and fill them in lasagna garden style Id like to expand my strawberry patch. Ive ordered 10 Larch trees and 10 norway spruces, plus some hazelnut (american filberts) Im going to transplant tons of rasberry bushes from the wild, and elders too. Im also expanding my asparagus patch.
Tons of seeds saved for medicinal planting too.

Im going to try and plant corn this year too, Ive got a side yard that has nothing in it, I hate mowing it and I dont like when it turns into a field, so Im going to ask a nieghbor to till it up and I will try my hand at corn. It will be alot. Hopefully the deer stay away!! Right..

This year Id really like a small chicken coop, ive been looking on craiglist for old sheds or something but nothing yet, my building skills suck so thats out. Cross your fingers for something perfect to pop up, and cheap :D

I had tomatoe blight real bad, took up most of my garden, can I not plant anything in that spot now or just things susceptible to blight? I planted alot of tomatoes so a good portion of my garden has been touched by blight.

[NCW_Woodnymph]

We're going to try some corn too this year. The kids are excited about it. They love the stuff. :D We're going to try what the Indians called "the three sisters". You plant the corn, then you plant beans around the corn stalks which fixes the nitrogen the corn needs and gives the beans something to grow up, then you plant squash to fill in on the bottom. It sounds good but we'll see how it works in practice. I'm going to start with just a 4x4 plot for that. I'm also going to make the kids a tee-pee garden with a tee-pee of poles covered in peas and space on each side for them to grow there own little garden.

On top of those I am planning three raised beds for veggies, three beds dedicated to medicinal herbs (one shade, one dry and rocky, and one acidic) and then there are the flower beds which I plan on integrating herbs and veggies into.

Also, we have a chicken coop and a goat shed to build but Matt and I have differences of opinion as to how to build them so we haven't gotten very far. :D It's going to be a busy year!

[LIBRA]

I was thinking about trying the three sisters way too, read into it, seems to work great for most folks that try it.

I know by the time winter comes back around Im glad to be inside resting! But now I cant wait to get out there to start working!! Just cant win can I ;)

[Gaston]

The three sisters garden type does work (I've seen a decently-sized patch, and tried a few hills myself). However, too many modern authors seem to think that technique was used because Native Americans were lazy. That's far from the truth, while it doesn't require draft animals for tillage, a lot of labor went into the finished product. I'm more familiar with the Cherokee, but the notion that they just planted hills randomly in the woods is ludicrous. Cleared and hand-cultivated Cherokee fields stretched for miles along the river bottoms when first seen by Europeans, and they were worked daily by many people. Plant that way without weeding and guarding your crop and your yield will be nearly zero. Along with that, the Cherokee built raised platforms to watch over the crops that were manned mostly by young boys armed with bows, and they even kept torches burning at night when the crop was fruiting. Critters that came to raid crops, or to the lights, were a welcomed source of food. ;)

As I said, it does indeed work very well, but there's more to it than most understand. It's a far cry from slash and burn or random planting in natural meadows.

[LIBRA]

Im looking for seed companies who are not in with monsanto. I used to get from seeds of change which I though were organic sees, but now I hear they arent. That is so fustrating.

Where do you guys get your seeds? gmo free.

[yugogypsy]

Try www.soworganic.com-short seed list but all organic.
Good Luck
Lois