Garden

Review Of: Grow Your Soil

November 4, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

I’ve told y’all many times that I am a soil nerd. I find it absolutely fascinating that you can go from poor soil to dark, rich soil in a season or two just by caring for the soil! The problem with a lot of books about soil is that they are DRY. If you aren’t interested in or have a decent foundational knowledge of biology and chemistry, you will struggle reading most books about soil. But Diane Miessler NAILED IT in her book Grow Your Soil.

Are you getting overwhelmed in the garden? Stressed? Or just not enjoying the garden like you used to? Check out our garden prompts! We send out weekly emails that get you back in the garden and out of your head! Turn the garden back into a place of love and joy instead of frustration and headache!

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My Thoughts On Grow Your Soil

First things first, the way that Diane writes is very similar to how I write, and therefore read. I was able to finish this book in about 2 days of completely uninterrupted reading. Well, except for sleeping. This book was a VERY easy read with a ton of really helpful tips and tricks for you to try in your own garden.

Diane’s Writing Style

The ease of reading makes this book not only an easy read, but allows you fully capture what she’s trying to tell you. As you’re reading, it really feels like you are hanging out talking to her. She has a sense of humor that comes through in her writing.

Also, she doesn’t use big, huge concepts and hard to understand words. While I’m not saying that it’s “simple”, this book is formatted for ANY gardener to enjoy it. I think this is very important when it comes to getting people to understand that building soil isn’t a complicated topic.

The Main Points

I don’t want to ruin the book for anyone, but I feel like hitting the high points would be beneficial if you are looking to purchase the book. Diane’s main points are:

Bring organic matter to the soil

Stop or limit use of inputs like pesticides and fertilizers

Cover crops are our friends

This is something that is echoed through every single book that I have read in regards to bringing your soil back to life. But one of the things that I really liked about Diane’s book, and her message was that it is more geared to the home gardener than Gabe Brown’s book Dirt to Soil, you can read my review on his book here.

While I really enjoyed Gabe’s book, it was harder to figure out how that works on a small scale farm or homestead. While we have acreage here, most of my garden space is in raised beds. I am able to put his teachings to work on my pastures with more success.

In Diane’s book, I feel like the information is actually geared to my garden space and what I am able to accomplish, which was great.

Where To Buy Grow Your Soil

I purchased my copy from Amazon, linked below. I’ve mentioned in the past that we don’t have a fantastic book selection in my town so I get most of my books from Amazon. You can also purchase from Barnes and Noble at $16.95 as of this writing.

I’m sure you could buy this book at a second hand store, but I can’t tell you that for sure.

What are you doing to actively grow your soil?

Let me know below what you have found that works well for building your soil!

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Why You Should Be Using Garden Prompts

October 26, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

Whether you are a brand new gardener or you’ve been doing gardening for a few years, using garden prompts in a journal is extremely important. It doesn’t matter if you are a straight to the point garden journal-er, or someone who is more fanciful and elaborate. Journaling specifically for the garden is going to help you improve your garden year after year.

Who Is Using Garden Prompts

That entirely depends on the gardener. I’ve noticed that there are usually 4 types of gardeners: The Utilitarian, The New Gardener, The Fanciful Gardener, and The Chaotic Gardener….. One guess which one I am 🙂

The Utilitarian Gardener

This gardener KNOWS the importance of their garden, but at the end of the day, it’s a project, chore, or other responsibility. It’s a place were they go to plant, weed, grow and harvest. They are very proud of their garden but it’s not their heart and soul. They’ve probably been gardening for several years but the wanderlust of the garden isn’t lost on them.

This gardener is using garden prompts as part of a system to improve their gardens year after year. Their garden and garden journal is probably a spread sheet and is extremely organized. There are lists of where they bought seeds, if they saved seeds, what they pruned and experiments they are running.

The New Gardener

This gardener probably doesn’t even know they should be keeping a garden journal. This is their first or second garden and they aren’t exactly sure what they are doing or when they should be doing it. The entire garden is an experiment in growing food. They are are super excited and tell EVERYONE about their garden.

This gardener is also absolutely enthralled with the coming and goings in their garden. They are usually a Google machine because they are constantly looking up things like “Should I prune tomatoes?”, “Why does my zucchini leaves have spots?” and my favorite (from personal experience) “What do I do with all these beans?!”

But they don’t write anything down. By the end of their 4th or 5th garden, they are questioning their sanity because they KNOW they planted tomatillos but there are NONE in the garden. They finally figure out they should be keeping track of SOMETHING and start working on their journals grudgingly.

The Fanciful Gardener

The Fanciful Gardner is the one that has plants EVERYWHERE! In the bathroom, the kitchen, an old boot in the garden. Their beds are overflowing with flowers, herbs and vegetables. They have, or are working on, harvesting the power of soil.

This gardener’s garden is probably pretty wild just like them. Their garden journal is a tattered notebook that is filled with random tidbits, pressed flowers, and notes. There’s seed packets, garden plans, sketches, dreams and poems.

PS this is the gardener I want to be but alas…. that is not the case.

The Chaotic Gardener

This is the gardener that always starts with a plan but it is abandoned within 10 minutes of planting their garden. Everything is done in fits and starts because ADD/ADHD is real. Their use of garden prompts is more a checklist to ensure that they don’t forget to plant the tomatoes…. like they did last year.

They constantly ask themselves, “What did I plant here?” because they deviated from the plan so spectacularly, they put the wrong plants in the wrong garden. And labeling things? That’s for someone with time. Their June and July gardens look like an August garden because they totally overcommitted themselves with not just one garden, but three.

Using garden prompts for them is an insurance policy that they KNOW they have to pay in full, otherwise they will forget to make the payments. And yet, they still manage to miss the payment and now their garden is overgrown.

Which One Am I?

Well, I want to be The Utilitarian and The Fanciful. But the reality is that my brain doesn’t work on a wavelength that allows for either. In fact, as I was writing this blog post, I was trying to figure out where I fit in to these categories.

Where Do I Fit In?

I am no longer the new gardener that is absolutely clueless and growing food despite of myself. Though, I still grow food despite my best efforts at unintentional self sabotage, like NEVER hardening off my plant starts and then wondering why they died.

I am definitely not The Utilitarian Gardener. I have a very utilitarian journal that I update as the seasons pass but my go to journal would make The Fanciful Gardener proud.

I am more The Fanciful Gardener who plants things where ever I want, simply because I love them.

But at the end of the day, month or season? I am The Chaotic Gardener, meandering through the garden, hacking away at unsuspecting tomato plants while Jared gasps in horror. Pouring mulch on weeds that I am WAY to lazy to pull. I am constantly complaining about chickens getting in my gardens with no intention of actually getting them out of the garden.

I will never be one to keep up with labels, instead always being surprised when a zucchini plant turns into a patty pan squash. Or that time I could have sworn I planted watermelon only to realize WAY to late that it was ACTUALLY a pumpkin…. oh well.

Why I Use Garden Prompts

I started creating garden prompts as a way to reduce my stress and overwhelm in the garden. But as I started to use them more regularly, I realized that when I take my tattered notebook into the garden, I can write about whatever I want. There is no set thing that I HAVE to write about. As I look at past garden journals, I see how far I’ve come.

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My first garden journals were an attempt at being something I’m not. Again, I am a Chaotic Gardener so trying to smash myself into the mold of being Utilitarian or Fanciful just isn’t going to work. But because I KNOW which gardener I am, I can use garden prompts as a way to keep me on track.

My garden journal and subsequent prompts are a mash up of homework, tasks and journal prompts. I’ve got over 600 prompts that I put into seasons to ensure I don’t get behind in the gardens. This allows me to track my gardens, plan my gardens and, most importantly, ENJOY my gardens.

Should You Be Using Garden Prompts

In short, yes. Everyone should have a garden journal. It doesn’t matter if it’s a spread sheet, notebook, old journal or a bunch of papers. You should always have a garden journal. You should absolutely have garden prompts that help guide you.

Like journal prompts for mental health, creative writing, or ANYTHING else. But you don’t have to use the prompts every day. You don’t have to write a garden journal entry every day. The prompts are simply a tool to help you enjoy your gardens while also allowing them to be the most productive.

Plus, who doesn’t want to gush about their garden to a captive audience.

Buying A Garden Prompt Subscription

Remember me telling you that I have over 600 garden prompts? Well, I created a garden prompt subscription that sends you weekly emails to help you if you are looking to be more intentional in the garden. When I tell you this saved my gardens as a semi New Gardener, I’m not lying!

I can’t tell you how many times I would forget to plant things or get overwhelmed with the sheer square footage of my garden and just start throwing seeds in beds. Yes, that happened. In my defense, I was OVER it that day. But as I grew my prompt list and started journaling, that stress and overwhelm subsided and I was able to enjoy my gardens again.

Creating Your Own Garden Journal Prompts

You can absolutely create your own garden journal prompts. In fact, I think it’s a great idea! My prompts are semi universal but also semi specific. While they can be used for anyone in any season, the reality is that those prompts aren’t specific to YOU and YOUR garden.

Be aware, it takes a LONG time to build up enough prompts to not repeat the same journal entry over and over again. It can also be hard to figure out where to start with your prompts. Do you want to focus your garden prompts on a task list? A reminder? Or do you want to wax poetic about your garden for every entry?

Lastly, the biggest problem with creating your own prompts, at least it was for me, is consistency. It’s very hard to start a habit of journaling in the garden. Especially in the winter or “off season”. That’s why I set up our email list to send out two emails a week. But you could put reminders in your calendar or on your phone.

Which Gardener are you?

Are you The Utilitarian, The New Gardener, The Fanciful Gardener or The Chaotic Gardener?

Let me know below which gardener you are and if you journal for your garden!

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Top 10 Ways To Improve Soil

October 19, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

As we are steadily moving towards cooler months, and for some of you freezing already, now is a great time to start looking into ways to improve soil. You don’t have to do any of it right now, especially if it’s too cold to work the soil or grow a cover crop. But having these ideas in your journal as ways to improve soil will help in the long run.

10 Ways To Improve Your Soil

Mulch

Mulching is usually a forgotten chore in the garden but it is so important. I know what you’re thinking, “I don’t have any plants in the ground, why should I mulch?” Because mulching, no matter the season, keeps weeds at bay, puts organic matter back in the soil and helps retain moisture in the soil.

Cover Cropping

This is another huge thing that gets left out for most new gardeners. They think, well I’ve harvested what I need so I’m just going to rip out all of the plants. Then they don’t put any new plants to make sure that the soil stays covered.

I use this mix from True Leaf Markets for the kitchen garden. Depending on what I need in my big garden will depend on what mix (or self mix) I use. I usually try to do a mix that my chickens and ducks can eat on. But regardless of what you buy, something has to be planted in order to keep your ground soft and workable.

Organic Matter

This goes hand in hand with mulching and cover cropping. Soil needs to have organic matter to give it better structure. If you have ever lived in a place with clay soil, you know it is clumpy when wet or blows away if too dry. We want to change the structure of the soil by allowing roots to grow and create channels. The more growth and channels, the more water can be absorbed.

Low or No Till

Tilling isn’t bad per say, but over the last hundred years or so, we have come to realize that tilling may not be the best thing for the soil. When you till, you are ripping the soil apart and that means you are ripping apart the microbiomes that live in the soil. To make this more relatable, it would be like a nuclear bomb going off in your town every couple of months. Everything is destroyed and you have to rebuild season after season.

If you can limit the amount of destruction to the soil, you will have soil with better moisture retention and a lot less run off. Not to mention it’ll have the channels to retrieve nutrients from deeper in the ground.

Leaves and limbs

We’ve been taught to think that leaves and debris is something that must be hauled off. But you are getting rid of one of the best (and FREE) resources that our land gives us! Throw those leaves into the compost or straight onto a bed to act as mulch. Trust me, your garden will thank you for it.

There could be issues with the leaves and branches composting and sucking up a ton of nitrogen. But I have not seen that to be an issue. But I also cover crop with nitrogen fixers.

Animal Bedding

I talked in depth about using animal bedding as compost here. It is probably the best and easiest ways to fill up or top dress a garden bed. Especially, when you are looking for free or cheap materials for your garden beds.

You can also use pine shavings as mulch too.

Eliminate pesticides and synthetics fertilizers

When I read Gabe Brown’s Dirt to Soil, he mentions that when you use synthetics you are creating “lazy” plants. If the plant doesn’t have to work to get its nutrients because you give it to them, the plant isn’t going to be as hardy or give back to the soil. Same thing with pesticides. Even natural fertilizers and pesticides are creating a situation where the plant doesn’t have to defend or protect itself.

We don’t use any amendments to our beds except compost and animal bedding. That’s it. We learned very quickly that our plants were healthier and are better able to fend off pests if we just left them alone. So that’s what we do.

Animals

Animals are a phenomenal way to improve your soil! To put it very simply, you put an animal in a portable pen, give them some hay and let them be in that pen for 1-4 days depending on the animal size and size of pen. After you move them to a new area, seed where they were. If you can keep this up, they will slowly but surely fix your compacted soil!

Our pigs have been instrumental in bringing our property back! They turned hard, compacted clay, that a tiller couldn’t get into because of the rocks, into the softest black soil within 3 rotations!

Crop Rotation

We’ve all heard this one. You’ve got to rotate crops to keep pests, fungi, etc from becoming a problem. But it’s actually more than that. When you rotate your crops from a heavy nitrogen feeder to a nitrogen fixer, you are giving the soil a chance to recover. We want to make sure that we don’t put heavy feeders in the same place for about 3 planting seasons.

For example: You planted Corn in summer 2022, Squash in Fall of 2022, and Tomatoes in summer 2023. Your soil is going to be bone dry when it comes to nutrients. But if you were to plant beans, peas, and garlic in fall of 2022 instead of squash, you have broken the heavy feeder cycle without having to amend the beds with inputs.

Plants

Plants probably the most under rated way to improve soil health. I used to pull spent plants from the ground and give them to my chickens, goats, pigs, whatever. But when you rip out plants, you are taking all that carbon out of the soil. You are wrecking all those channels and creating more work for the soil microbiome to fix.

The best thing you can do when you are done with a bed is to just hit it with a weed eater, clippers, etc and just chop and drop it just above soil level. This will leave all that carbon (roots) in the ground to compost and feed the microbiome.

What are your favorite ways to improve soil health?

These are just my favorite ways to improve soil health. In fact, these are the only things I do and we have seen a HUGE improvement in planting. It used to be that we would have to use a drill attachment augur to be able to plant. Now, I can just stick my hand in the dirt and move the soil out of the way. How cool is that!?

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November Garden Chores

October 11, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

As the season winds down, so does the garden. We started writing the monthly chore list as a way to help those that are new to gardening and are not really sure what to do. We also talk about what we do specifically for our zone 7b. You can still do some of these things but if you are colder (or warmer) than us, you may need to make some adjustments. Our November garden chores are more focused on keeping things warm and covered than anything.

3 pictures of garden space with the words november garden chores

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November Garden Chores

Our November usually consists cover crops and harvesting various fall crops. There’s also the mad dash to cover everything with frost blankets when the temperatures dip. It’s also the time that we work to make sure that everything is mulched well.

Cover Crops

Every year, we work really hard to put cover crops in the garden. Sometimes we’re too late and other times the chickens eat all the seeds. BUT we do try to get our cover crops in and for the most part we are pretty successful. We use TrueLeaf Markets to get most of our cover crop seeds because the pricing is great. I really like the fact that their selection is pretty big and that allows me to make my own mix.

The reason for my own mix is because I want to make sure that I am addressing problems found in the garden (low nitrogen, impaction, etc) but also planting things that my animals can eat. I don’t want accidently plant something that will kill my goats.

Harvesting

While in some places, there’s snow on the ground. In Georgia, it’s just cool/cold at night. Sure, we’ll occasionally get a frost but it’s not too bad. But we have to stay on the harvest in order to make sure that we don’t accidently forget something out there. Here’s looking at you last year’s zucchini.

We usually have several bean plants that we are still harvesting green beans from. Some, we let go until they are dry so we can save seeds. But for the most part we are really looking for fresh eating.

Frost Blankets

This is the time of year that our frost blankets are getting a workout. While we don’t want to cover everything, like the onions and garlic, we do want to make sure that the things that are tender get covered but only if the temps are going to get at or below freezing.

Usually we put the frost blankets on after dinner and take them off in the morning before all the other chores. We try to make sure that we only put them on if it’s going to be cold enough. This cannot be said enough.

Why don’t we cover the garlic and onions? Well, we want them to “die back” so that they start growing well again in the spring and summer. They don’t actually die back, but they need enough cold to set good bulbs.

Mulching

Mulching is probably just as important as water for the garden but is always the first thing that is forgotten. Every time. Mulching is this magical, amazing thing that solves a ton of problems in the garden.

Weeds? Mulch. Still have weeds? Put more mulch down.

Watering too much? Mulch. It helps the soil retain water.

Compacted soil? Mulch! It will start to decompose on the ground and the soil will take it up and start to compost it.

Cold? Mulch. It acts as insulation.

Heat? Mulch! It will keep the ground cool.

The only thing it doesn’t do is help with pests.

Can you tell I love mulch? It’s probably because I hate weeding. I will seriously shovel wheelbarrows full of mulch before I pull a weed. Which is ridiculous but it is what it is.

Not That Many November Garden Chores

As you can see, there really isn’t THAT many things to do in November. It’s mostly protecting what you’ve got going and harvesting as you can.

What do you do in your November gardens?

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October Garden Chores

October 5, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

I was going to do a month by month to do list all in one post, but I soon discovered that the post would have been extremely long. So instead we are going to go over what to do in your garden by month. While the posts will generally be shorter, I think it’ll break down easier and be less overwhelming. I’m also going to write this for those in zone 7 since that is where I am and this is what I do. I don’t feel right making a blanket post and you’re in zone 4 and can’t do half of this stuff. You can absolutely adjust this based on your growing seasons, frost dates, etc. So here is my October garden chores.

October Garden Chores

There is a fair amount of things that should be done in the October garden but it is not as exhausting as the spring or summer gardens. October is the month of final summer harvests and starting to harvest the fall garden. We are also prepping gardens for winter. Since, we are always pushing the limits on our fall gardens, we have some prep work that needs to be done before we actually button up for winter.

If you are struggling to stay consistent, focused, and less stressed, sign up to be notified about our garden prompts! It’s a weekly email that helps guide you in the garden! It has greatly reduced my stress and anxiety and gotten me back to loving the garden!

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Finish Pulling Summer Plants

Usually we are done with this chore in September, but sometimes we’ve let a tomato plant or sweet potatoes go for a little longer, depending on our weather. This means that we can have a ton of things to pull down, even if they are still producing for us.

We do not actually pull plants out of the ground, unless they are weeds. We choose to cut plants at soil level to allow the soil microbes to keep working and feeding. We started doing this after reading Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown, you can read my review on the book here.

If the bed is “done” for the winter, we will either lay the cut plants on top to act as mulch or we will put a chicken tractor over the cut plants and let the chickens do some work. If we have planted cover crops we will move the cut plants to the side and seed that bed with cover crops. Once the cover crops have sprouted, we will put cut plants back over the sprouts.

Planting Onions and Garlic

We plant all of our onion and garlic for the year in October to harvest in May/June. This means about 400 each of garlic and onion, which is a TON. But we usually eat about an onion per day and can run through some garlic pretty fast. We also try to put some to the side for replanting the following October.

This can be a pinch point in the garden because we have such a long growing season. Because we plant in October and harvest in June, we don’t want want to put it in a bed that we will need for spring or even early summer planting. This is when having a plan for the following year and understanding exactly what you’ve planted, where, etc is so important. It’s also a really good idea to make sure that you’ve got a good garden journal.

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.

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Another option to avoid a pinch point in the garden is to use the garlic/onion beds to provide bumper crops of tomatoes, peppers, squash, etc. In our zone (7b), our last frost is anywhere from April 15th to May 1st and our first frost is from October 15th to November 1st, and it is never the same. We plan our summer gardens off where the garlic and onions are and just prepare that bed for a bumper crop.

Barn Clean Out

While this doesn’t seem like a “normal” garden chore. We go through and thoroughly clean out the barn, chicken coops, tractors, etc and make sure that all of the animal bedding is either put into the beds that will be “bare” over winter or put into the compost piles.

I wrote a post about using animal bedding as compost here. This allows us to have a fresh space for the animals going into winter and also sets up those beds or compost piles for the following spring. While it’s not as much of a back breaking chore as it is in the spring, it is a really good time to amend beds that may have had heavy feeders in them the previous season.

Animals In The Gardens

This is the time of year that we let the animals eat the gardens. Not the whole garden, but we will put them into the garden areas that we want eaten. This helps us because we don’t have to chop and drop as much and the animals get a “free” meal.

For the chickens, this means putting their tractors over the kitchen garden beds and letting them go to town. They amend the beds, eat left over plants, and eat a bunch of pests that are in the beds. We have had a lot of luck with this but I’ve had a lot of people ask about the high nitrogen in chicken manure.

We’ve not had a problem with ANY plants burning because we don’t put the manure directly on the plants. What we do is add hot manure to the compost pile and let it age a bit. Or we will put in a bed that has gotten pretty low, and we add a bunch of soil or other compost over it. That way, it can continue to break down and drop all that nitrogen back in the soil.

Watering!

This is a chore that a lot of people tend to forget about, myself included. It’s just not as hot! So there’s not really a need to get out there and make sure that the garden gets watered. The problem is, where we live, it doesn’t really rain a whole lot in September and October. Sure, we’ll get a shower here and there but it’s not uncommon to go weeks without a real rain.

Make sure you’ve still got your garden on a water timer like this one. We hook a 4 spout splitter above the timer like this one. This ensures that we don’t have to constantly adjust the water timer if we need to use the hoses.

You’ll also notice that you won’t need to water as often or as heavy, provided you’ve been mulching. That’s because the sun isn’t as bright or hot and, of course, the days are shorter.

That’s about it for my October Garden Checklist

I usually try to get out in my gardens at least 3 or 4 times a week at this point because I’m still harvesting green beans, peas, squashes, etc. But for the most part, my gardens are getting buttoned up for winter.

Don’t forget to check out our garden prompts!

Let me now in the comments what you do in October!

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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.

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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.

But after hearing a ton of horror stories about toxic compost, I am really leery of bringing in soil or compost from outside sources.

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.

One of the things I didn’t like was the constant “you can do it too”. Now, I understand completely that the book is not necessarily meant for the small homesteader. It ABSOLUTELY applies to us, but I am already interested in regenerative farming and hearing again and again that it can work for us was slightly annoying. Not enough to discredit what he was saying but enough for it to be redundant.

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.

Putting chickens to work is also great when you have WAY too many chickens and you’re not really sure what to do with them.

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.

What To Do With Used Goat Bedding

August 18, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

Put it in the garden! No, really! Don’t let that beautiful, nutrient dense material go to waste. The reality is any 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 Goat Bedding As Compost

The first reason to use goat bedding, and really any 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 goat 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

If you are asking yourself, “what to do with used goat bedding?” The answer is simple. Use it as a bulk material to fill beds, planters and more. 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 Types Of Bedding To Use As Compost?

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 Goat Bedding As Compost

In closing, you should absolutely use goat or other 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.

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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.

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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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