Planning for a Garden

One of the best parts about having a farm is almost here! Growing Season! Being the Virgo that I am (as my bosses would say) means that I'm almost as excited about the PLANNING of the garden as I am about the actual production of our own food.

We've narrowed down the sites where we want to plant, have begun prepping the areas (aka- weed whack the heck out of it), and starting choosing what we want to grow. My mother in law gave me very sound advice- focus on a couple of things and learn to grow them well before expanding and trying new things. She obviously knows how enthusiastic I can get about things, and while her attempts to reign me in were valiant, she failed. Gwen, I give you permission to say "I told you so" later this autumn.

Plethora is a kind word to use when describing the number of seed packets I have acquired so far this spring. To be exact, I now have 44 bags of seeds (only 4 of which were given to me by someone local), totaling $125. I consider it an investment in my future. I just couldn't help myself. I started by purchasing seeds from some small companies close to our region in hopes that they would do well here. I couldn't find a local seed producer (I have found one since then, but even I have my seed purchasing limits) so I chose a few online. I got the majority of the seeds from Kenyon Organics in Utah, a few from Box Garden Organics in Idaho, and some lavender from Paula Jeans Garden down in Missoula, MT. After that I rounded out our collection with some seeds from Irish Eyes Garden Seeds from Washington that I picked up at the local hardware store. I tried to focus on organic and heirloom breeds, but it got to the point where every time we went to a feed store or hardware store I got a case of the "Ooooohhhh, that looks good!" and I just couldn't resist.

The Seed Collection

In the end (I hope it's the end) we have 3 different kinds of sunflowers, regional and bee attracting wildflowers, some herbs, paste and eating tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, carrots, winter squash, cucumbers, beans, and a few other varieties. Some of them, like the hot peppers, are dependent on our ability to set up the greenhouse. At the moment I'm not sure that's going to happen this year because we have so many other projects going on, but we're going to try. We may try to start some of the seeds early in the shop with a grow light we got from a friend, but really I'll just be happy if we can get the ground tilled and ready by the last frost in early June.

To prepare myself between now and then for this adventure I have torn apart every gardening magazine I own (mostly Mother Earth News) and organized the articles into categories for fruits, vegetables, other food (like grains), soil health, pest control, seasonal gardening tips, and general gardening tips, to make them easier to navigate. This way I can also add in my own notes about each thing from the books I plan to read about gardening. First up will be Organic Gardening in Cold Climates and The Montana Gardener's Companion. I also plan to start reading Zone 4, a magazine just for Rocky Mountain gardeners.

The Garden Site, Pre-Weed Whack

Farming Doesn't Start in the Garden

I wish that someone had told me that when we bought a farm we should allot a generous budget to a books fund. I know lots of people who are fans of libraries, I am too, but for something as ongoing and involved as farming I really need to have reference books on hand. The internet also has a wealth of information, but there's just something special about having a "Go To" book in my own personal library.

The book I'm reading right now is the Winter Harvest Handbook by Eliot Coleman. I figured that buying the house at the end of June, settling during July, and having family visits from August-October, winter was the first season I would get to think about gardening. As I learned from the book, I'm probably wrong, but I'm still going to try.

We have a shed in the middle of the property (north of the house, southwest of the shop) that we have no real intention of using as it is now. It's a metal sided, wood floored shop that has definitely seen better days. It smells of animal urine, has had wasps take nest in it, and I'm pretty sure that the smell and my dogs interest in getting under it means that skunks have taken up residence under the floor. It was also assembled to close to the cherry trees so that branches rest on the roof, and to close to the raspberry bushes so they get no sun. It has to go.

My idea, and the main reason I bought the Winter Harvest Handbook, was to move the shed frame to the front (south side) of the property where it would get the most light and replace the metal siding with plastic, or greenhouse siding. I want to repurpose the shed.

That is still the plan, but the capability of using it this winter is in question. According to the book (that I'm only about 50 pages into) we should succession plant, or plant the same crop several times, so that we can get that crop over a longer period of time. Their recommendation for their zone in Maine (the same zone as ours in Polson, MT according to garden.org's Zone Finder) would be to plant cold hardy vegetables in August, September, and October so that you can harvest throughout the winter. Well, August is almost behind us and the first half of September is booked. The soonest we'd get to this plan is the end of September- that leaves October for planting. Perhaps we could get one round of winter veggies in this year? I guess we'll find out...