Garden

Review Of: Dirt to Soil

September 18, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

As always, when I do a review, I am going to give you my honest opinion of every book, tool, and product that I do. Reviews do no good if they are not real. I recently reached out to a homesteading Facebook group in search of a couple books about building good, healthy soil. Man, did they deliver! The first book is Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown.

If you are just starting in your homestead journey, I have the deal for you! In The Homestead Bundle you will receive our Hay Calculator, Profit Calculator, Digital and Printable Garden Journal, The Backyard Homestead eBook, the Simple Budget, Schedule F worksheet, and Herd Health Sheets. That’s a $55 value for $39.99!

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Why I Read It

I absolutely love all things soil and biology. We are also working with Georgia clay in our gardens which is causing a far amount of issues with it. The soil in our big garden is very compacted in the areas that we haven’t covered it. We’ve had a ton of issues with the soil this summer between soil and water run off, compaction, and stunted plants.

So my goal was to spend this winter learning as much as humanly possible about soil. My first question is why is my soil not great. The second was what can I do to fix it. So off I went in search of a book that could answer those questions but also the more technical questions about the biology of soil.

I already knew we had clay soil, but…

I didn’t realize that I could “fix” it so quickly! I thought it would take years and years to properly build up my soil. I had considered that we were going to have to bring in a lot of inputs to get the soil back to a place where it was healthy.

I already knew that we could use the animals to work with us to bring our 8.5 acres back to life. But I wasn’t sure how to do it exactly. I knew that we could rotate the pigs through areas to root the soil and break it up. Doing this would allow organic matter to get into the soil. We could also seed the areas that they had worked and pray that we could keep the chickens and goats out of the seeds.

But nothing we were doing actually worked. We really struggled to hone in on the finer points of building soil.

While the book doesn’t offer clear, concise, step by step instructions on HOW to build soil, Gabe DOES give his 5 soil principles as well as a very thorough recounting of what he did. He even goes in depth about how he has made his farm profitable. Giving a little bit more interest and insight on how to make a homestead or farm profitable.

Where To Purchase

I purchased my copy from Amazon because it’s what’s easiest for me. However, I found it at Barnes and Noble for close to the same price. Sadly, we don’t have bookstores that are local to us, so Amazon tends to be where I get the majority of my books.

How The Book Reads

I love the style of the writing in this book. It’s very conversational and Gabe walks through how he got started on his farm. As the book moves through, he not only tells you how he did it, but gives the basic foundation for what you can do.

There is an amazing compilation of science, experience, and options for you to try as well. But the foundation stays the same. Follow these principles, experiment, and watch your soil grow.

My Take Away’s From Dirt to Soil

There are 4 main points that I took away from Dirt to Soil, though they aren’t in any specific order.

Cover Crops

I knew the importance of cover crops, but couldn’t wrap my head around exactly how to do it. Do I plant things I can harvest? What if I still need that space? Which crops do I plant? Isn’t the soil still going to be bare in the winter when the plants die back? Won’t I have to remove the cover crops when I plant for spring/summer? Gabe answered most of these questions in his book.

Tillage Kills

There is a lot of satisfaction when tilling because you can see that beautiful soil (or clay in my case) break up and see the bed take shape. Except, I always struggled because I knew earthworms are GREAT for a garden, but I was rending them into pieces every time I tilled. So how do I create beds that don’t require tilling but keeps the soil healthy and beneficial critters happy? Simple answer? Stop tilling, start using cover crops, limited to no inputs.

Building Soil Is…. Easy?

I figured this out when I started using our animal bedding as compost. Within a few months of using the animal bedding, I noticed that had actual soil in my beds. Now, I had added top soil to my beds when we created the kitchen garden. But I found actual soil when I started planting for fall!

Use The Animals

We have been using the pigs and the chickens to work the soil and it’s been working pretty well. But one of the things we have been “struggling” with is that we let the goats and chickens free range. We had not truly been practicing rotational grazing. Sure, we rotated the chicken tractors through the gardens but we never really did much with them or the goats.

My Garden Process After Reading Dirt to Soil

My garden process now is actually quite simple: animal bedding to compost over time, a couple inches of compost or top soil, plants, then mulch. When the bed is done producing, we cut all the plants down and lay them to the side. If we are “done” with that bed for a season, we add a cover crop then put the plants we cut and put them over top as mulch.

Once the cover crop has been established, we let the goats go through and eat down an area. Then we put the pigs through, and finally the chickens. This process has been amazing because the goats cut down and tamp down the crop. The pigs tamp it down more, and eat closer to the ground. Finally, the chickens come through and peck through the poop and spread it. They also eat all the bugs and parasites. This has GREATLY dropped our need for dewormers.

The following season, when we are ready to plant, we chop and drop the cover crop. Usually, we will use the cover crop as mulching until it fully composts down.

This process has been working well for us and I’m excited to see what happens in this summer when we plant the big garden!

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Putting Chickens To Work In Your Garden

August 21, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

Chickens are the gateway animal for new homesteaders. After getting a few, there is usually a period of “I could get more” or “I’m not a fan”. I am definitely the latter of the two. I don’t love my chickens. But I do value the work they can do, so they stick around. Besides giving us eggs, we can put chickens to work in the gardens and compost piles for them to earn their keep.

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How To Put Chickens To Work

Chickens are pretty cool little creatures. While I may not be a fan of the chickens themselves, the reality is that they can do a lot of work, just by being chickens. A chicken’s natural behavior is to scratch, peck and make babies. Obviously, some are better at it than others, but they are all pretty good at their jobs. Chickens don’t need to be confined to a run 24/7. If that’s your philosophy, then by all means. But they can do so much more than just hang out.

Chickens In The Empty Garden

One of the ways we put chickens to work is by putting them in empty garden spaces. They are great tillers and pest control. But when they get into empty gardens, they also get to eat any left over greens that are still there.

To get the most out of the beds and chickens, we usually put them in an empty garden from January to March. It gives us about 3-4 months for the manure to compost before the next planting. When it comes to plant again, I usually add a couple inches of soil or compost to keep their manure from burning plants.

But that doesn’t mean that January through March is the only time they get put in the gardens. In fact, we put the chickens to work in our green bean bed a couple of months ago. They turned the soil as well as added PLENTY of manure to it. All I had to do was dump a couple bags of top soil in the beds because they kicked some dirt out and the beds weren’t super full to begin with.

Free Range In The Empty Gardens

If you don’t have raised beds, or don’t want them, another option is to have them free range within the empty garden. In winter of 2024/2025, we plan to put the chickens to work by letting them have free access to the big garden from December to March, or whenever the fall garden is done. We want them to get in there and dig up any bugs they can find as well as till the soil.

Chickens In The Compost

Another good option is to put chickens in your compost piles. This is going to look different for every one. But having chickens spread compost is probably the easiest way to move that compost. The biggest problem is that they will spread that compost everywhere so getting it back into one spot may be hard. Or you can put the compost pile where you want it and then let them do the work of spreading it around.

Putting Chickens To Work In Active Gardens

I’ve given plenty of examples of putting chickens to work in inactive gardens, but what about gardens that are actively growing? We don’t want to chickens to ruin the work WE are doing.

Chicken tractors are a great option for getting them in the garden without them killing plants or eating fruits or vegetables.

This tractor is 4ft x 8ft and fits perfectly between our rows in the big garden. It also sits perfectly on our raised beds in the kitchen garden. This allows us to put them over a bed where they will scratch, peck and poop. When the chickens work the bed, it increases aeration, kills bugs, and deposits animal waste into the bed.

When a bed is done being harvested, we will place the tractor over the bed. We place 5-10 chickens, depending on the amount of greens/ bugs available and size of the chickens. Then they get to work. Usually, they get a scoop of feed in the morning and we make sure to refill their water.

In our big garden, we run the tractors up and down the rows. When we laid out our rows, we made each walkway 5 feet wide to account for the tractors. We wanted to make sure there was plenty of space not only for us to move through the rows but also to make sure the chickens couldn’t get into the harvests.

Using this method has significantly cut down on pests and weeds without having to spray anything on the gardens.

Putting Chickens To Work When You Have Predators

While we are a big advocate for free ranging our birds, we have lost some to predators. If you are opposed to free ranging but still want your chickens to have access to your garden, runs or tunnels are a great option.

When you put your fencing up for your garden, you can easily add chicken wire or hardware cloth tunnels to allow them to run around the edges of the garden without risking them to predators. You can absolutely make these much cheaper than the link but it’s the idea I wanted you to see.

Another option is to build tractors if you haven’t already. I am trying to get Jared to create plans for you guys but he is in the middle of building my greenhouse. So it’ll take some time.

Putting Chickens To Work

It can look like just about anything. So don’t think that you have to keep your chickens confined to a run. You can put them to work and reap the benefits of having tiny dinosaurs around the homestead.

Can You Use Animal Bedding As Compost

August 18, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

In short, the answer is yes! But the long answer is, of course, longer. The reality is animal bedding is great for compost, but the “wrong” types of compost or bedding is going to cause you a lot of issues and potential heartache. Some composts are too hot and must be aged. Other composts can be used cold. The same is true for bedding. Some bedding won’t compost as well as others. But I’m going to tell you about how we use animal bedding as compost.

Why Use Animal Bedding As Compost

The first reason to use animal bedding as compost is because it’s already on your property, you might as well use it, right? The second reason it is a great bulk material that is free. Third, your soil will get depleted of much needed nutrients the more that soil is used, compost helps bring those nutrients back to the soil. Finally, compost can improve the texture of your soil! Here in Georgia, we have red clay that struggles if nothing is added back to it.

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Use What You’ve Got

Why spend money on compost from the store or nursery when you can clean out your barn? I am a big fan of “reusing until it’s broke”. Those bags of bedding are $6-7/ each and I need at least 2 every time I put down new bedding in the barn. But if I can reuse that animal bedding as compost, I have used that $7 3 times. I used it for bedding, urine absorption, and then as compost.

I talked pretty in depth here about how to keep your livestock warm in winter and I talked about using the deep litter method. Every spring when we clean out our barn, we have a bunch of “wasted” bedding and some of it has already started composting. Every winter I go through about 25-30 bags of shavings. This really depends on the winter. If it’s cold and wet, we will get close to that 30 number. If it’s cool and dry? I don’t need very much bedding.

Now, before you run to your chicken coop to do the same thing, this is goat bedding. Goat poop is a cold manure. That means that I could take a handful of goat poop and put it straight on the roots of my plant and it wouldn’t hurt it. But hot manure, like chicken poop, will burn your plants if you don’t let it mature. I’ll go more in depth below. But I didn’t want you to think you could use whatever you wanted and not finish this blog post.

Bulk Materials

This year, after installing our kitchen garden beds, I needed to fill the beds. I knew that I was going to need a ton of compost and dirt. I also knew that I hadn’t cleaned out the barn yet. So I paid the boys to haul out load after load of the goat’s bedding. After 2 days of bringing the goat bedding up to the garden, I had 14 4x8ft beds just under half filled with compost. This allowed me to only have to buy 10 yards of top soil!

When you homestead and have livestock, you have a ton of waste that you have to do something with. The best thing you could do is to start a compost pile for all of it. And it doesn’t just have to be for animal bedding. You can use wasted hay, food scraps, grass clippings, wasted feed, leaves and branches.

Adding Nutrients To The Soil

If you have gardened for even a minute, or have had house plants, you know that over time the soil needs fresh nutrients. Compost is the best way for you to get those nutrients to the plants. The cool part about using animal bedding as compost is that you are giving the soil nutrients that it can use over time. Most fertilizers (even from organic sources) are quick-ish acting. Meaning that when you spray them, the plants will take up what it needs right then. The rest will sit there until the next rain or watering. Then all that fertilizer is gone.

But when you mix compost into your soil, your plants will be able to uptake nutrients as they are available or composted. For example, I said that we filled the beds with goat bedding and then added soil on top. As the animals bedding composted, the plant roots were able to uptake nutrients over time. I have a 15ft tomato plant in the kitchen garden right now with a ton of cherry tomatoes on it…. so it’s safe to say even the pickiest of feeders loves the mix.

Improving Soil Structure

In Georgia, we have the famous Georgia red clay. It will stain everything for days. Sometimes, it won’t come out of clothes. Parents around here know the struggle of kids playing in the mud. Those clothes are ruined now.

But like most clay, it’s very clumpy when wet, and hard to break up when it’s dry. This means that growing root veggies can be very hard. However, clay soils are great for holding moisture. Most gardeners in Georgia try to add as much organic matter into their soils as possible to help build structure in their soils.

Because we use pine shavings in our bedding, this gives great structure to the beds and reduces the chance of the soil being compacted. I filled all of the beds with compost and soil in April it is now mid August, and I am able to stick my hand into the soil with absolutely no issues. In my big garden, that we tilled and only added mulch to? You have to get a tool to help break the soil up.

What Animal Bedding To Use

I’ve touched on this a little bit above, but here is where the type of animal and bedding is very important. The “wrong” methods will damage your plants. Below we are going to talk about hot vs cold manure and best types of bedding to use.

Use The Manure You Have

If you want an in depth review of manures, check out this post. But I’m going to give you an overview and my own experiences. It doesn’t matter if you only have hot or cold manure, but it does matter how you use it. Hot manure is going to come from chickens and pigs. Cold manure is going to come from goats, rabbits, cows, etc.

But before you start jumping up and down and sling that pile of cow ~~sh…~~ manure in your garden, you need to let it mature first. This process goes by many different names; composting, maturing, seasoning, etc. But we don’t care about the name. We want to make sure that the manure is safe to use for your garden BEFORE we put it on your garden. This should actually be your go to response for ANYTHING that is going into your gardens. It is better to age it or test it prior to using it.

To make sure your manure is safe, you should compost it first. And when you are adding chicken manure to your garden, you should ALWAYS let it compost first. Notice I said should. Sometimes, you can’t, don’t want to, Jimmy Boy said he puts chicken poop straight on his maters…. The reality is that unless you are willing to risk your plants, it’s better to err on the side of caution. So I’m going to tell YOU to compost your manure before putting it on the garden.

But what I do is a little different. Yes, this is do what I say not do, because I know what my goats eat and know where their bedding comes from.

I take my goat’s bedding and side dress rows or plants.

Or I fill beds with goat bedding and top with soil.

I will also make a tea with chicken poop and water the ground about 6-10in from the plants.

You have to understand that no matter what manure you use, or where you source it from, you could have issues. There are tons of gardeners out there that are trying to figure out why their plants are dying, their seeds won’t sprout, etc. A lot of the time it’s the soil.

WHAT BEDDING TO USE FOR COMPOSTING

What types of bedding can you use? I have heard of people using pine shavings, pellets, or wood chips.

I use OMRI rated pine shavings, if I can find it. Otherwise, I use these pine shavings.

I have also used spent hay. It will sprout grass but it’s easily pulled or mulched over.

There is a pelleted version of pine bedding. But the entire purpose of it is to clump like cat litter for spot cleaning. So it’s probably not going to be a great option when it comes to bulking up soil. That’s not to say it won’t. But I’m not sure I would use it for that purpose. This is a bedding that I would absolutely compost first before putting into my garden.

If you have access to wood chips, this is actually pretty good bedding. Wood chips should be composted for a year or so before putting them into your garden anyways. So using them as bedding to soak up poop and pee and then letting them compost for a year? You’ve basically made aged manure mulch. And if you have access to free wood chips, you’ve just been given free bedding and mulch. Don’t quote me on this one because I can’t attest to the absorbency of the wood chips.

ABSOLUTELY USE ANIMAL BEDDING AS COMPOST

In closing, you should absolutely use animal bedding as compost. I have had amazing success with it. But there are a few things to keep in mind: type of bedding and type of manure. If it’s hot, let it compost in a separate pile before using. If it’s cold, test it first.

The best way to make sure that you don’t have any issues is to always let your animals bedding compost for a year or so before using. That way you can play it safe and not risk your plants.

It’s Time To Plan A Fall Garden

June 26, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

I know, I know. It’s not even the end of June and I’m talking about planting your fall garden. But I’m trying to get you motivated about veggies! There are still a lot of sun hours to turn into food. Plus, when you are trying to maximize your garden space as well as growing season, getting your fall garden in the ground is incredibly important. Because how cool would it be to dig up a fresh carrot or picking a cabbage for dinner when it’s cold outside? So, let’s plan a fall garden.

If you are looking for a great way to keep track of your gardens for years to come, check out our Digital Garden Journal. It’s a digital spreadsheet that helps you manage not only your seedlings but also your seed inventories, soil testing, orchard, harvests and so much more. Check it out here.

Why Plant A Fall Garden

Because You Can

The first reason you should plant a fall garden is simply because you can. Yes, you’re allowed to take all those nom noms that don’t grow well in the middle of summer, and plant them in the fall. Carrots, peas, cabbage, onions, etc all do much better when planted in the cooler weather.

If you don’t know when, how or what to plant in the fall and summer, you aren’t going to be successful. And let’s be real, if you’re not successful, what are the chances that you are going to want to plant again?

In Season Food

Also, I believe, we have been conditioned as consumers to believe that these fruits and veggies grow year round…. when they don’t. A trip to the grocery store will yield you a cabbage, which is a frost hardy brassica…. in the middle of July? A cabbage would never make it past April where I’m at. But there it is in the grocery store. Or peppers in December! PS, did you know that lettuce is a fall crop? It’s not for summer salads…. who knew?!

Soil Health And Weed Control

The third reason you should plant a fall garden is because soil doesn’t like to be empty. At the very least, if you decide not to plant a fall garden, grow a cover crop. Growing clover to drop nitrogen back into the soil or comfrey to bring nutrients up from WAY below the top soil, is a great way to help soil stay, or get healthy.

You can also plant wheat, rye or oats and they are a great way to suppress weeds without having to spray. When it’s done growing, you can give it to your animals or toss it in the compost bin. Speaking of animals….

Livestock Fodder

If there is just absolutely no frost tolerant/hardy veggies that you want to grow, grow it for your animals! Chickens and pigs will eat anything you grow in your garden. Growing some goat specific items like beans, radish, and other greens will stretch that feed bill a little more.

We grow mangle beets, tromboncino squash and BOSS sunflowers specifically for our animals. But we also grow a ton of brassicas and other root crops for them. I will go hog wild planting various cool weather crops, simply because I love to plant and grow things. But I also understand that a lot of the foods I am growing will go to the animals.

Because It’s Cooler!

This probably should be reason number one. Seriously, nothing sucks the energy out of you quite like working in the garden when it is 100*+ outside and it’s 99% humidity. In Georgia, we only work in the gardens first thing in the morning or evening. Anytime after 10am or before 6pm and it is just too hot to do anything. And come August, even the most hardcore gardeners are struggling to find the energy to get in the garden.

For reference, most gardeners in my area have to use shade cloth for their peppers.

But in the fall, you don’t have to do that… as much. In Georgia, it’s not uncommon to wear shorts and a t shirt in November. But it’s not the dog days of summer where it’s absolutely miserable. Plus, a fall garden works better for most southern growers because it’s a much slower cool down. In spring, we can go from 70-80* days to 40* nights, or 70-80* one day and 35* the next.

When To Plant

Understanding Your Frost Dates

First, you need to determine your first frost date. Head to Google and type in “first frost date for (zip code).” For us, our first frost is 10/31. Now, because of our microclimate, our first frost is probably closer to 11/15. When I plant or start my summer garden, I do it with succession sowing in mind. I want to make sure that the last of my summer garden doesn’t freeze. Or if it does freeze, I’ve gotten the majority of what I need out of it already. It’s the same thing with my fall garden. I will start the first round of seedlings around the mid-end July. Then I keep starting seedlings until September or October depending on the plant. I’ll get to that part further down in the post.

Write It Down

After figuring out your first frost, you should write it down in your calendar and then start counting back. I do this by typing into Google something like, “How many days from 6/25/2023 to 10/31/2023.” This will spit out however many days it is. I tend to write these numbers down in my calendar so that I can make sure that I can see when to plant what.

Having these dates written down, really helps to make sure that I don’t forget anything. Working full time and part time, plus all the other homestead stuff, I am pretty busy. Making sure that I am sticking to my plans and goals is incredibly important.

Check Your Seeds

This is where your seed inventory is really going to come in handy. If you don’t have one, you can find mine by clicking the link above. It’s a list of your seeds and whether they are frost hardy, tolerant or tender. It should have dates on when to plant, days to maturity, etc. All this information is also really important.

When your checking your seeds (or ordering), make sure that you are picking seeds that are frost hardy or tolerant within your zone. We want to make sure that you’ve got enough time to plant something before it either bolts or freezes. For example, if you only have 60 days before your first frost, we want to plant something like peas that will likely give you a harvest or two because it can take a light frost. We don’t want to plant something like summer squash that really can’t take a frost without protection.

What To Plant

Make A List And Check It Twice

Our plan for our fall garden is pretty massive. But please don’t think you have to grow this much food. Remember, a lot of this food is for our animals as well as experimenting with different varieties.

We are planting kohlrabi, radish, turnip, celery, garlic, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, peas, leeks, tulips, carrots, beans, sugar beets, broccoli, onions and rutabagas. And we are planting a LOT of it. When I was planning my fall garden, I wanted to make sure that I had plenty of seeds for this undertaking, but also the RIGHT seeds. For example, there are a couple of varieties of peas and beans that don’t grow well in the fall and I wanted to make sure that I have the right ones.

Where do I get my seeds? Uh…. everywhere. This year, I bought from Botanical Interests, Southern Seeds, Tractor Supply, True Leaf Markets, Eden Brothers, and Territorial Seed Company.

Have A Plan For What You Plant

The second most important thing when it comes to planning a fall garden, is understanding what you are going to do with it when harvested. If you have 20 pole bean plants, you better be ready for eating a TON of green beans or have the ability to can it.

My list was built on the idea that we are going to feed about 50% to the animals throughout winter. The other 50% will be eaten fresh, fermented, dehydrated or canned. Some of it will be left in the garden overwinter with mulch to keep it in good shape. The idea was that even if some of the garden failed, we would still have plenty of food.

Like I said before, we are experimenting a lot this year with different varieties. What do we like, love, hate. I don’t want to waste precious garden space if something isn’t going to grow well here or we don’t like it.

Just remember: Salads are delicious. Root veggies make amazing soups. There’s always canning. And animals are always hungry.

Pro-Tip…from not a pro.

Start keeping track of who is running sales as you go start ordering seeds. To give you some examples:

Botanical Interests- runs a memorial day sale that drops most seeds to 40-50% off. I spent $200 on 106 packets of seeds
Greenstalk- Every mothers day runs a sale that makes each greenstalk just about half off with the free shipping. Plus, you can usually stack a coupon with it.
Southern Seeds- Usually runs a summer sale around June and it’s about 50% off. Sometimes more

Amazon Prime Day- Usually you can grab really great garden gear. This year one of their sales was a 4x8x1 steel garden bed for $35.

And seeds don’t go bad, so stock up!

I’ll be adding to this list as I find more sales for you!

Should You Plant A Fall Garden?

Absolutely, YES. If you can help it, don’t let your soil sit with nothing in it. There are a bunch of ways to help improve your soil, lessen your feed bill, and so many options when it comes planting a fall garden. I really hope you give it a chance. Even a small garden is better than no garden at all.

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Planning Your Garden

February 3, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

At this point, I am going stir crazy to get my gardens going. I desperately want to get my hands in the dirt and get back outside. We only have about 30-45 more days of COLD weather before we will start warming up. To be honest, that is mind boggling. Our last frost date this year is around March 23rd for our zone 7b. I couldn’t be more excited! But now is the time to start planting our spring seedlings and long summer plants. But how do you know what to plant? You start planning your garden.

Planning Your Garden

There are a ton of things that go into planning your garden. It’s not just I want tomatoes and peppers. It’s much more involved than that. But the good thing is, it’s not really a lot of work. Right now. As we go through this post, I’m going to show you the questions we ask and how we set up our plans to make sure we, and our animals, have plenty of food in the gardens.

What do you eat?

The first step in planning your gardens is determining what you want to eat. New gardeners will usually plant all sorts of things without really asking what they like to eat. They’ll take up huge beds or rows thinking that they MUST plant cucumbers, even though they HATE cucumbers.

But you? You are going to really think about the foods you like to eat, and plan accordingly.

Do you like tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, or berries? Figure it out and start working on how much you think you’ll need. I’ve got a post on what to plant in your veggie garden, to read more about this.

How much do you eat it?

The next step is to decide how much of that plant you want. There are somethings to keep in mind here. Let’s take cucumbers and tomatoes here. Let’s say you absolutely LOVE cucumbers, but hate raw tomatoes. BUT you eat a ton of tomato sauce and you want to can it.

You should look at how much fruit a plant will give. A cucumber plant will yield approximately 10-15 (or more) cukes depending on when you pick them. Don’t need or want 100’s of cukes? Don’t plant a bunch of plants. A tomato plant will yield approximately 8-10# of tomatoes per plant. A quart jar of tomato sauce needs approximately 5# of tomatoes, roughly. If you are trying to put up a lot of tomato sauce, maybe plant a lot of plants.

What kind of space do you have?

This is where I can’t really tell you how much or how little to plant. You’ve got to make those decisions based on your garden size. But I will tell you that you can absolutely get creative with your space. Tomatoes grow well in containers, so you don’t have to “waste” garden space on tomatoes if you can put them in pots on the back porch.

Planting plants like marigolds, mums or basil will not only help keep bugs off your plants help keep the soil healthy. When we are planting our raised beds, I plant something high, something low, and a root. For example, I will plant peppers, carrots and oregano in the same area.

Lastly, look into vertical gardening. Running a couple cattle panels or other trellising could save you a ton of space and allow you to use more of your beds!

Companion planting

Usually, I will plant a row of tomatoes, peas, and onions or garlic. The tomato plant shades the peas. The peas put nitrogen back in the soil. And the garlic or onions will help deter pests. This idea is called companion planting and is really beneficial to your gardens.

I will also plant things like oregano, basil and catnip, along with other herbs, around the garden in hopes that it will also deter pests. Flowers do a great job of not only repelling insects but also attracting them. Japanese beetles will eat my marigolds but leave my vegetables alone.

Another option is planting multiple plots of the same vegetables in different areas. Or even planting things you don’t like, like cucumbers. Let the cucumber beetles, squash bugs and other pests that LOVE cucumbers, squash, melons, etc, eat the cucumbers that you don’t like in hopes of protecting the plants you love like your cantaloupe.

Let’s Get Planning

Draw it out

Drawing out what you are planning is a great way to visualize your space. First, let me apologize for the the horrible photo, but it’s what I’ve got. This is our plan for our main garden. As you can see it is scaled at 2ft per square.

This plan really helped because I was able to figure out exactly how much space I have and how much space can be used for plants, walkways, gates and more.

Space

Another big thing to remember when planning your garden is space. You need space to move between the rows of your garden and your plants need room to grow. A lot of new gardeners will cram as much as they can in their row or bed and then wonder why everything is stunted. They will put their seedlings in the ground and then think, “It looks so bare” and plant more…. I am SUPER guilty of this, even now.

But if you stick to the recommended spacing, it won’t look bare for long.

Using the chickens

So one of the things that we are doing this year, per our plan, is to get our chickens in the garden. Here in Georgia, we have a ton of bugs and a ton of weeds. Last year, our garden wasn’t amazing for a couple of reasons but the two biggest where bugs and weeds.

We plan to “plant” our chickens in the garden to help with bugs and weeds. We are building chicken tractors that will be 4ftx8ft. They will also have roosting bars, nesting boxes, feeders, etc in these tractors.

We noticed that we have had a lot of poultry loss over the last several years. We’re not 100% sure if it is from predators or the chickens just wandering off. So we will be putting the chickens in their tractors and then rotate them through the gardens. We’ll see how it works.

Order your seeds

Once you have figured out what you are going to eat, how much, and where you are going to put it, it’s time to order your seeds. It is always preferred to save money and save your seeds, but sometimes you can’t do that. Either because you don’t have seeds to save, hybrids, or it’s just easier for you to buy them. I will usually place my seed orders in December or January, so now is the time to get this done.

I recommend Eden Brothers or Territorial Seed Company. I’ve had really great success with their seeds. They’ve also got some great flower bulbs as well.

When your seeds come in, start looking at when you need to plant them according to your last frost date. Mine is March 23rd so I’ve started planting my peppers, pumpkins, and other slower maturing plants. This will save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

Start your seedlings

So there are a million different ways to do this. The first time we tried to start seedlings, we had poor germination and what did germinate, we didn’t know what it was. Now, we use this shelving unit in our living room next to the windows. Our living room stays warm and gets a lot of sun. Stay tuned for our greenhouse build!

The tray above is simply a 1020 tray that does NOT have holes. We do not water from the bottom. We mist and use domes to trap moisture and heat until they are established. The little pots inside? Simply amazing! I love these little pots. They have held up very well and I highly recommend them.

Lastly, and I cannot stress this enough. LABEL EVERY SINGLE PLANT! Don’t think for one second you will remember what plant this is! Seriously, trust me.

That’s pretty much it! I know it’s a lot but the biggest things to remember is this. Only plant what you will eat, unless you are using it as a companion or sacrificial plant. Leave plenty of room for your plants to grow. Start your own seedlings so you have more options and save money. And last? Remember, playing in the dirt is good for the soul.

How To Create A Digital Seed Inventory

January 5, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

Every year, it’s the same problem, “What seeds did I buy last year?” I have yet to meet a person that only buys exactly what they need. But most people forget what they purchased last year, if they liked it, how much they still have, etc. Every gardener, farmer, or homesteader, needs a seed inventory. There are about a million ways to create a seed inventory, from paper to digital to mental. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter HOW you keep track of your seeds, as long as you do it. Today, I want to show you how and why I have a digital seed inventory and how you can do it too.

Before we get too far into this post, I wanted to give a suggestion about keeping a garden journal. A digital garden journal is a fantastic way to keep track of past, present and future gardens. Our Digital Garden Journal is a great way to keep up with everything without getting too overwhelmed.

Buy Now

Why A Seed Inventory

I want to say this first, you don’t have to have a digital seed inventory. In fact, if you want to keep it old school with a pen and paper? Go right ahead. I’m not here to judge. I just want you to be able to keep track of your seeds. In my garden planner, I’ve got several charts that help me track everything from seeds/seedlings, orchard information, pests, and more. This is my printed planner that helps me keep track when out in the garden. But I prefer my digital seed inventory for a lot of reasons.

First, when I order seeds, I am on my computer. Rarely, if ever, do I go into a store and buy seeds that I NEED. Those seeds are the seeds I saw and thought, “Hmm, that looks interesting.” And they get thrown in my cart. The seeds I need for my garden are bought online. That’s because I know exactly what I need, the amount I need, and I can usually get better deals that way.

Second, it helps me save a TON of money. I am an impulse buyer. No matter what I try to do to stop that, I am going to see something and snatch it up because it looks cool, could solve my problem and so much more. But the reality is that having a digital seed inventory on my phone tells me EXACTLY what I have on hand, and which storage bin it’s in.

Third, it helps me keep track of start times, harvests, and more. I enjoy being able to quickly look back at a seed in my inventory and see that it germinated well, produced a ton, and, probably most importantly, how many seeds I have on hand right NOW.

One of our five year goals is to feed ourselves and animals 75% from our land. That’s a ton of food. But to get to that goal, I need to make sure that I am only buying or saving the seeds that I know will work.

Creating A Digital Seed Inventory

A simple spreadsheet is really all you need. It can be as fancy and in depth or as simple as you want. My seed inventory is pretty in depth because I want to make sure that I can track as much information as possible. But sometimes there is a need for simplicity and I that is where my garden journal comes in.

If you are choosing to start your own digital seed inventory, then you need to write down the things that you want to track. Do you care what color the pepper is? Do you care if it’s a transplant or direct sow? Where you bought the seeds?

You also need to think about how you are going to access it when the time comes. Are you only going to use it at home? Then it probably doesn’t need to be web based. Are you looking for seeds from a local farmers market? Probably should be web based like Google Sheets.

Make sure that the things you want to know are easily accessible within that spreadsheet.

If you aren’t quite sure what you want in your spreadsheet, I have my digital seed inventory that you can purchase in our general store. This is the same one I use. The cool thing about it, is that while it is in depth, you can delete the things that you don’t want or need.

Need Help Organizing Your Seeds?

In my digital seed inventory, the first column is “location”. Pro tip? Get yourself a couple of photo storage bins like this and put your seeds in it! This is seriously the best garden purchase I have made to date. These storage bins have 18 4×6 storage containers.

On the outside of the bin, I write which bin it is A, B, C, etc. On the inside 4×6 bins, I write A1, A2, A3, etc of the corresponding bin. This way when I look at my inventory, I can see that corn seeds are in bins C12-C18. That way when I go to plant that corn, I don’t have to go find it, lug out a million seed packets, and risk losing a couple packets. This has been my hack for the last 10 years and I will always use it.

No matter if you are using a box to store your seeds, a pen and paper to keep track of how many seeds you have, or going all digital and super organized. The reality is that if you are buying seeds, using them and growing food? You’re doing pretty amazing!

How To Build Raised Garden Beds

September 18, 2022 by Leigh Leave a Comment

While it’s definitely easier to just buy a raised garden bed, kits or other premade/ prefabricated beds, I do think that building them from scratch is a great way to go. I’ll explain why in a minute. The idea of using raised beds was, at first, a ridiculous idea to me. I’ve got great soil, why do I need a bed? But after our first garden flopped, maybe learning how to build raised garden beds is a better idea.

What are raised garden beds?

Simply put, it is a structure that sits on the ground that you add soil, compost and other organic material to grow things. That’s it. But it is definitely more than that. You see, our soil in Georgia is usually red clay. But there’s a reason why Georgia is a huge agricultural state, we can grow just about anything in this soil. That also means that our weeds are super plants, too.

A raised bed is a great way to keep weeds from growing and stealing water and other nutrients from your plants.

Raised beds also help those with ailments or disabilities that can’t be on their knees in a garden.

Also raised beds help create a designated spot for fruits or vegetables that you want to save seeds from.

And they look prettier.

Susan over at Learning and Yearning as a great guide to raised beds. I took a lot of inspiration from her and Kathi over at Oakhill Homestead when I was brainstorming, designing and building our raised garden beds.

To Buy Or Build A Raised Bed

Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? There are somethings you need to consider when it comes to building a raised bed. Things like your skill level, cost of materials, and customization. If you are not handy with tools or don’t have any skill, building a raised bed may not be a good option. The cost of lumber is extremely high in some parts of the country and that makes building one out of reach for some people. If you are looking for certain dimensions, building one may be a better option.

When we were looking at raised beds, I wanted to conceal the area in front of our front porch. The gutters get overrun when it rains and creates a lot of issues with run off.

Our dogs like to dig and wreak havoc in the front yard. The goats like to hide under the porch and the chickens like to lay their eggs under there too.

So I wanted to help hide some of this as well as keep creatures out. In front of the front porch is a 12ft section on each side of the stairs. And one side has a walk way to the porch, and the other side is wide open. The raised beds/ planters had to be tall enough to keep goats from walking right up to it. Trying to find something that was prefabricated was going to either be insanely expensive or not the right size.

It Was Better For Us To Build Raised Garden Beds

We found a couple of prefab’d raised beds like this one, and this one. But those are really expensive and still not the right fit for what we needed. So Jared and I brainstormed what we could do. I told him what I wanted: 2.5-3 feet wide, 12 feet long, and about 24 inches tall. He got to work designing and sketching and handed me a material list.

I went to Home Depot and got 45 dog ear pickets and 6 3x4x 8ft posts and he went to work. We also got some lattice to discourage the critters from going under the deck on the sides that would be open until we could build more beds.

How To Build Raised Garden Beds

It was pretty easy for Jared to build the beds and he got them both done in a day.

He stared with cutting all of the lumber to size.

Cut List

Pickets- cut off the dog ear. Then find your half way point (should be 5′ 5″) and cut there. If you are doing a custom size, cut to that number

3×4- Cut in half

Take your extra pickets (we bought 5 extra) and cut those to 18 inches

Instructions

On a flat and level surface (unless you want your beds to follow the contour of the ground), screw each picket onto a 3×4 timber.

Do this with the front and back of your bed.

Line them up so that you can attach your side picket. Do the same for the other side. You should have a rectangle.

Then start attaching pickets all the way up until you have your desired height. Ours was four pickets high.

Then go in and screw those 18in pickets half way between the 3x4s to help stabilize the pickets to help keep them from bowing when the bed is filled with soil.

Prepping Your Garden Beds

To start, I highly recommend using a liner. Katie over at The Homesteading RD has a great article all about different liners and why you should use them. Now, we didn’t use the cedar like she suggested for two reasons; one, cedar is still pretty expensive and two, because I didn’t to go BACK out to the store. Instead, I used our woven ground cloth.

If you are going to use any kind of plastic or cloth for your beds, I suggest stapling it to the sides of your pickets. But make sure you use plenty of slack in your liner, the weight of the soil, compost and other filler will tear it.

Filler

Since our beds were 12 feet long, 2.5 feet wide and 2 feet tall, we needed a TON of filler. Now, we could have gone and gotten a bunch of soil, but that’s expensive AND the soil will get compacted over time. That’s not what we want.

About 2 months ago, Jared went through the property and cut down a bunch of mountain laurel. If you don’t know, mountain laurel is extremely toxic to pretty much everything. But our goats didn’t get that memo and without fail someone always eats it and gets sick.

So I had this giant pile of laurel that needed to go. After a ton of research, including calling the Arbor Foundation, I found out that laurel doesn’t leach toxins as it decomposes. Score.

I filled the beds with as much laurel as possible. We cut down big branches and stuffed them in the bed, being careful not to puncture the liner. It took about half the pile but my beds were about 80% full.

Compost

Next, Chase filled the beds with compost. He’s in that wonderful teenage stage where he likes to pick things up and put them down. Repeatedly. But hey, it works for me. He did a fantastic job and the beds were about 90% full….. Or so I thought.

I ordered my soil, peat moss and the rest of the things I needed for finishing off the rest of the area. Including Halloween Decorations.

I wish I would have realized before buying all of this that it was heavy. I knew it was heavy, but I guess I didn’t realize HOW heavy it would be.

Driving home, on curvy mountain roads was a test of not only my driving skills but also my patience. But we all made it home in one piece and nothing fell off the back of the truck. Score.

Soil

What you fill your beds with is totally up to you. As I said above, I would highly recommend using some sort of filler that is decomposable and a liner. When it comes to soil, we used regular top soil since we were adding peat moss and already had compost and the laurel in the beds. Also, since we aren’t 100% sure what we will be planting in these beds long term, I didn’t want to put in something that was going to be highly acidic or alkalotic.

Plants

What does well in raised beds? Literally everything. I want these beds to house our garlic, onion, and carrots. I may even put our regular potatoes and sweet potatoes in there. Again, I’m not entirely sure. But for now, I threw in some great fall plants and we’ll see what they can do.

Our Take Away

We figured out that raised beds are a great way to go to help conceal the disaster of the front porch.

It takes a TON of soil and other filler to fill these beds so take that into consideration when building these things. Not just height but width and length too.

Run hardware cloth around the top if you want to keep chickens and goats out.

Do not compact the soil in these beds! As you add soil, spread it around so it can fill holes in your filler but don’t cram it in there.

The beds themselves only cost about $60 each to build but ended up running us about $100 each to fill. Keep that in mind when you start this project.

Garden

Why I Read It

I already knew we had clay soil, but…

Where To Purchase

How The Book Reads

My Take Away’s From Dirt to Soil

Cover Crops

Tillage Kills

Building Soil Is…. Easy?

Use The Animals

My Garden Process After Reading Dirt to Soil

How To Put Chickens To Work

Chickens In The Empty Garden

Free Range In The Empty Gardens

Chickens In The Compost

Putting Chickens To Work In Active Gardens

Putting Chickens To Work When You Have Predators

Putting Chickens To Work

Why Use Animal Bedding As Compost

Use What You’ve Got

Bulk Materials

Adding Nutrients To The Soil

Improving Soil Structure

What Animal Bedding To Use

Use The Manure You Have

WHAT BEDDING TO USE FOR COMPOSTING

ABSOLUTELY USE ANIMAL BEDDING AS COMPOST

Why Plant A Fall Garden

Because You Can

In Season Food

Soil Health And Weed Control

Livestock Fodder

Because It’s Cooler!

When To Plant

Understanding Your Frost Dates

Write It Down

Check Your Seeds

What To Plant

Make A List And Check It Twice

Have A Plan For What You Plant

Pro-Tip…from not a pro.

Should You Plant A Fall Garden?

Planning Your Garden

What do you eat?

How much do you eat it?

What kind of space do you have?

Companion planting

Let’s Get Planning

Draw it out

Space

Using the chickens

Order your seeds

Start your seedlings

Why A Seed Inventory

Creating A Digital Seed Inventory

Need Help Organizing Your Seeds?

What are raised garden beds?

To Buy Or Build A Raised Bed

It Was Better For Us To Build Raised Garden Beds

How To Build Raised Garden Beds

Prepping Your Garden Beds

Filler

Compost

Soil

Plants

Our Take Away

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WELCOME

COME AND GET IT!