Seasonal Sunday: How Does Your Garden Grow?

Gardening is a culmination of most things I loathe.  Being outside, touching dirt, bugs, to name a few.  In a strange twist of fate, I love it, even though it has so many attributes of despised things.  There is something inherently satisfying and rewarding found in gardening, and it has become a big part of my family's life.  

I'll cover more gardening when the time is perhaps more appropriate, but for now, we need to be thinking ahead.  You should be thinking about what you want to grow and where it is going to grow.  

Since 2014 I've kept a composition notebook with a diagram of each year's garden and notes for that year.  This way I am able to easily remember where I have planted things from one year to the next since many crops must be rotated.  I usually make notes about when I planted, when the first harvest of each item was, and how that year did.  If I try a remedy for a particular problem I document that and whether or not it worked.  I am not a very good gardener and this helps me learn from my mistakes and hopefully do better the next year.  Sometimes I am lucky and everything goes to plan, other years it is a crap shoot and an utter disaster.  Last year was the latter, the weather was crap and it was one of our worst years.

We have four garden boxes that the handsome husband built.  Each one is 4 feet by 12 feet.  I also have a sunny area below our deck that I utilize some years.  I like to start everything that I can from seed.  It feels like I've accomplished more this way.  It feels like a more wholesome and fulfilling process to me when you start with seeds and end with (hopefully) an abundance of fruits and vegetables.  

I prefer to order my seeds from Seed Savers Exchange.  I feel like my garden has done best with their seeds, although it probably has nothing to do with it.  Whatever works right?  I placed my order back in December because that's how I roll.  

This year I will be growing the following:

Adelaide carrots

Amish Paste tomatoes 

Aunt Mae's Bibb lettuce

Beefsteak tomatoes

Brandywine tomatoes

Cargo PMR pumpkins

Cherry tomatoes, large

Cuccumber, baby

Delicata squash

Dragon carrots

Dragon's Tongue bush beans

Green Peppers

Provider bush beans

Roma tomatoes

Spinach

Traveler jalapeno

Yellow of Parma onions

Yukon Gold potatoes

Zucchini, regular