Are you interested in growing your own food and embracing the beauty of a simple, self-sufficient lifestyle? Then you’re in the right place! Whether you’re planting your first seeds or tending a flourishing garden, you’ll find practical tips and projects to make growing vegetables, fruits, and herbs easier and more rewarding.
From creating a bountiful vegetable patch to harvesting fresh herbs for your kitchen, this space is all about cultivating nourishment, connection, and sustainability. Discover beginner-friendly guides, seasonal planting advice, and tried-and-true tips for growing your favorite foods at home.
Ready to dig in? Explore our gardening resources and see how growing your own food can transform your simple living journey—one seed at a time.
If you need a little help planning your garden and keeping your notes organized or understanding your climate, we can help.
Growing potatoes in the home garden is a really fun project. Potato plants require sun, well-drained soil and regular water, if you can give them those things, you can grow almost any potato variety. If you’re short on garden space, potatoes can be grown in containers or grow bags. True Potato Seeds or Seed Potatoes? … Read more
The dewberries are ripe and when the dewberries are ripe, you just have to rearrange your priorities and put picking berries at the top of the list. So far, we’ve picked about 6 gallons of berries. About half of that has been on our property. The berries are pretty small due to our drought conditions but … Read more
This weekend we planted another corn patch. We have around 45 plants that we planted 6 weeks ago and they are now about 2 1/2 feet tall. (it’s hard to measure since we’ve had alot of wind and they are almost laying on the ground). They should be ready to harvest in the next 6 … Read more
When we planted our spinach last fall I noticed that the dirt smelled like onions. Then I remembered that our green onions (sometimes called repeater onions) went to seed last summer and instead of pulling the head off the plant, we just let them fall. Some were already starting to send up green shoots. So … Read more
Sometimes zucchini gets a bad wrap, but if you’re serious about feeding your family from your garden then growing zucchini is great way to do that. Unlike winter squash that will produce just a few squash per vine, zucchini will produce many squash per plant. There are three main types of summer squash; zucchini, yellow squash (sometimes … Read more
Tomatoes are probably the most popular homegrown vegetable. Homegrown tomatoes are so much better than store bought tomatoes and that’s why so many people grow tomatoes. Even people who don’t garden will often plant a tomato or two in containers or sneak them into the back flower bed. For the most part, tomatoes are pretty … Read more
I mentioned earlier that one of our gardening goals is to keep our garden going all year. In keeping with full disclosure let me say that we have never been able to eat from the garden exclusively for a year, but we have that goal. Some years we do pretty good and some years we don’t do so … Read more
Several years ago I began compiling information about gardening in our area and putting it into a notebook. I listed each item we grew on its own page and when I would learn something new about that item I wrote it in my notebook. In the back of the book I had planning sketches of … Read more
We have had such a beautiful couple of weeks, it’s hard to believe that just the 2 weeks before that we had severe freezes going on. Those freezes did quite a bit of damage to our plants. I only cover the garden when it freezes, the other plants are on their own. I know, I … Read more
The chicks are here! Friday, Phoebe and Benjamin became the proud “parents” of 25 baby hens. We spent the weekend working outside, enlarging the chicken coop and making some pens for these little girls to be in after they leave our mudroom but before they go into the chicken yard. The older boys have decided … Read more
Remember when I said that Phoebe and Benjamin wanted to start an egg business. Well, some friends wanted to tidy up their back yard and so they gave us their hens. These were really more like pets than livestock, and came with cute names, such as “Fluffy, Tweetie and Blackie”. They are fitting in just … Read more
Last Friday night a friend called and asked if we wanted to come over and help harvest “a little bit of honey.” Do we???? Of course we do!! Gabriel has been entralled with bees forever and has wanted a hive for several years. Our friends have offered him bees, but until now we really didn’t … Read more