This will be my sixth season of growing vegetables. I am trying to grow most of the vegetables I eat, year round, in the very small back yard of a house that is smack dab in the middle of a hillbilly town in upstate New York. Last year was my first year trying to preserve some of the food I had grown myself. My original motivation for growing my own foodstuffs was that I could see the writing on the wall, and knew those of us who could produce our own foods were more likely to not die of starvation when the NWO plans came to fruition, which will be soon by the likes of it. In other words, I'm a bit of a prepper. If it comes to hiding out in a shack in the woods somewhere to survive, I'll be a goner. But if we can remain in our homes, I've gotten this one well outfitted and stocked for me to survive.
One of the prepper preparedness people I follow here suggested that we begin to eat the foods we have stored, in order to determine if we could actually live on the stuff. This I have begun to do. In two short weeks of trying to live almost exclusively on the foods I have stored, I've learned a tremendous amount, the most important of which is:
One cannot live on pickles alone.
I am already sick of pickles: cucumber pickles, beet pickles, watermelon rind pickles - yuck! I'll can half as many pickles next year, or better yet, have half of the pickles from this year left over for next year so that I won't have to can any pickles at all. The problem with that is that this year's pickles, my first ever, are all pretty bad. Edible, but just barely. Too much vinegar!
I'll be adding pressure canning to this year's learning curve, so that not everything I have in my cupboard is made with either vinegar or sugar, sometimes even both.
I'm already out of my own onions, potatoes, and cabbage, so I'll up the amounts of those that I plant next year, and have two varieties of each as well. Thankfully, the hills around here are teeming with excellent farmers, who supply me with splendid vegetables, honey, maple syrup, meats, poultry, dairy products and eggs. As long as I can continue to get foods from them, I should want for nothing.
Next year, too, I will grow more greens inside! I am surprised at how much I miss having a good salad, or cooked fresh greens, during the winter. I've gotten out my grow lights and started in on fresh greens for eating now, but next year I'll get those going much earlier. They are so refreshing!
Fresh vegetables from the garden, even in deep winter
Back in early December, my hoop house looked like this:
and I planned to leave it up for winter so that I could spare myself the trouble of having to re-erect it in the spring for very early plantings. Alas, it now looks like this:
Incredibly, there are still edible greens under that mess:
I'd heard herbs would be usable all winter. I didn't quite believe it, but here they are. Although there are not many, there are enough sprigs of this and that to give me the taste of fresh veggie goodness for another month at least:
I'd harvested a lot of my Jerusalem Artichokes when I moved them to the back fence, envisioning them towering over the ripening seed pods of poppies in August and September. Those rhizomes I harvested, the first picture in this post, are scrawny and dry compared to the shallow and very plump rhizomes poking out of the ground today. I believe (correct me if you know!) that I could harvest these in deep winter on those days that the ground has thawed a little - no need for indoor storage.
Planning for the 2024 growing season
My garden planning for the upcoming growing season is in full swing. I got some onions going from seed mostly to figure out how to do that - I've ordered lots of onion sets so I won't need that skill this year, but one never knows about the next year, now does one? I also kept some seed potatoes to learn that skill, even though I've ordered lots of seed potatoes too. I ordered seeds for new stuff (just realized I didn't order any bean seeds!), two types of strawberries, and asparagus, which I have no idea where to plant in this very small space. I hope to get a few more medicinal plants in this year, specifically yarrow, rose, witch hazel and bergamot.
It's all a learning extravaganza over here. Except for not being able to leave my garden for more than a few days at a time from April to September, I'm eager for growing season to get underway. I love hanging out in my garden, producing food for me, my family, my friends, and my pets to eat.
This is my entry to Hive Garden Community's monthly garden challenge for February 2024. Come join us! Show off your gardens, and see the many wondrous gardens of the world!
