For most Americans (and residents of the post-industrial world in general), obtaining food means shopping at a grocery store or going to a restaurant. But there’s a lot to be said for being able to walk out your back door and pick a few peppers, leaves from several varieties of lettuce, some cherry tomatoes, a carrot or two, and a small onion and then heading back into the kitchen to make a salad.
Food you’ve grown just tastes so much better than food you’ve picked off the shelf at Piggly Wiggly (where I’ve never shopped, but what a great name for a grocery store chain).
Of course, producing your own food can be a lot of work. There’s much more to it than just planting some seeds and hoping for the best. There’s a learning curve with lots of trial and error. There are plenty of books and YouTube channels that can give advice, but there’s nothing quite like doing it yourself and learning from experience what does and does not work on your property.
In our case, we do mostly raised bed and straw bale gardening. Some container gardening too, and two raspberry patches. If that’s suburban homesteading, it’s on a relatively small scale. No chickens, quail, rabbits, or anything like that. Just vegetables and a bit of fruit. A permaculture food forest is so far only a dream.
Some things work, some don’t, at least not consistently. The raspberries have been going gangbusters for several years now but our attempt to grow blueberries was a flop, they just weren’t happy (blueberries tend to be much fussier about growing conditions than raspberries). We had a bumper crop of apples last year but just a few this year, and those tasted bleh. It’s possible that the trees didn’t enjoy the summer, we’ve had an unusually wet growing season.
And producing food can mean more than just growing it. Our apples were disappointing this year but we got some from the Apple House affiliated with the University of Minnesota’s Landscape Arboretum. We canned some chunky applesauce (yes, my wife did most of the work) that tastes much better than anything you’d buy in a store.
In the winter, you can make plans, learn more from books and videos, and look forward to the arrival of seed catalogs.
For next year, I want to add an extra raised bed. I’ve learned from experience that a three-foot wide one might work better for my creaky back than the standard four-foot width. I’m going to try growing a bunch of potatoes in containers, I’m skeptical that raised beds and potatoes are a good match.
And every bit of garden added is that much less worthless grass to mow.
Thank you love for the compliment on my applesauce. I am absurdly proud of it because it is the only thing so far I have learned to can well and consistently.
And thank you for helping out with the chopping and canning today. 5 pints zucchini pickles and 7 and a half of Fall Garden Relish! Done and done. Do not, however, assume that your labors today entitle you to ask impertinent questions like, ‘So....when do you eat garden relish?” You just....do. I don’t know. When the spirit moves you? We’ll figure it out.
Good on ya! I've never grown anything more than a bit of mint in a window box but I've just sold my house in the city and am off to the countryside to do a spot of homesteading:) Crikey, what have I done?
You'll be fine my Deirdy... basking within the peace and tranquility of Nature :>)
I love being able to pluck fresh basil, dill and peppers from the pots on my back deck. I slacked this year on planting much more then those but plan on making up for it next year.
I carpet my grass,...
Any pics of those raised beds?
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Hey Mr. Wombat...My raspberries have been happily producing loads of fruit too, even though they hardly get any sun where they sprung up from. The one and only Blueberry bush that I bought for a dollar (as a twig sticking out of some dirt) only grew to about 18 inches high after five years or so.
It produces about five or six berries now, which get stolen by birds!!!! I managed to get one for my own mouth this year; it was delicious.
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