We started gardening in 2008 and had absolutely no idea what we were doing. Well here we are twelve years later and most of the time we still have no idea what we are doing. Haha.
We have figured a lot of things out, but once we get one thing figured out, we get excited at the feed store and buy chickens or a friend so kindly gives us some ducks. (Yes, really, our friend gave us our ducks and we instantly fell in love with them!)
Each new thing that comes along has its own challenges and rewards, but I think that the biggest reward for all of us is that we have been learning a lot and have new, big dreams for our future. During this long quarantine we have spent so much time at home and in doing so have found what we really want in a home. Part of that is supplying ourselves and our kids with some of our own food.
It didn’t all start right at the beginning of quarantine, it’s been a growing process, as most things are.
Right before the state got shut down we went and had dinner and then stopped at the feed store for a few things. Even though we didn’t plan on it, we came home with three new chicks.(Remember this tends to happen with us!) It was the start of spring and we were spending more and more time at home and outside. We really started the garden as just something to do. We’ve put together a few new gardens over the years, already had the wood to make some raised beds, so we thought it would be something fun for the kids to watch grow and would get us all outside together on a daily basis. Starting small was our plan so we built one long 6×8 bed, one 2×2 for a potato box and a 4×4 for a few watermelon plants (it has plenty of room for the vines to go outside the bed.) As we started planning what to put in the long 6×8 bed, we quickly realized that it wasn’t going to be enough room for all we wanted to plant, so along came another 6×8 bed. All of the veggies got planted (more on what we planted to come) and I decided it would be really fun to have a flower cutting garden. Mila is always picking flowers from the yard and who doesn’t love fresh cut flowers around their home?! The veggies started producing and we started canning and really seeing if we put in the work and time we could have a pretty good yield.
Living on two acres of land really provides us with a lot of opportunities and we really hope that we can build on what we have started. James and I have always loved writing and sharing our experiences with others, so as we embark on our new projects we thought now would be a great time to start doing just that.
If you have read our blogs in the past welcome back and if you are a first time visitor we hope you find something that is helpful or at least entertaining.