Some Recommended Reading
Self-Reliant Living, Dr. James McKeever
America's Garden Book, James Bush-Brown
Getting the Most From Your Garden, Rodale Press
The Green Thumb Book of Fruit and Vegetable Gardening, Goerge Abraham
Lots to learn here. Rodale press has very good books on gardening, fruit trees, etc, get those (see below, bottom). You don't always want to be a cheapskate, like I was, and learn by trial and error. So I recommend you get some good books at Amazon. It is well worth the trouble and pays out handsome dividends. Some searches were already done here just for you.
Best wishes for your prosperity, Rich Kimura, www.Cirrovista.com
PS. I highly recommend the MANTIS ROTOTILLER shown below. It is very effective, and reliable, and tills down to 10" deep, more than enough for my garden. We've been using it for 3 years and never had a problem with our MANTIS ROTOTILLER!
Our Garden
Gardens are a fun way to get your own ripe, flavorful, organic food. We have a small garden about 23' x 30'. The soil was pretty bad, but we hauled in leaves, compost, rabbit manure (highly reocmmented!) it's pretty black now! All those leaves and grass are a gold mine of nutrients. Your garden can provide all the fresh vegetables you can eat, for part of the year. For us the season lasts from about April - October. Sometimes we'll eat lettuce for month, then zucchini for months! The kids ...well, they sometimes complain, but it's food! (note the lack of compassion in the tone here). We need to plant more onions becuase we always run out. Our garden saves us money too, about $150/month in food bills too!
Do a little planning and design your garden for vegetables you like.
We like to plant potatoes, onions, garlic, beets, zucchini, acorn squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, and herbs.
Work and Till the soil, plant seeds, water, fertilize, and weed your garden and nurture it just like your marrage! We use a Mantis rototiller, good price ~$280 on eBay and reliable and light and easy to use!)
There are lots of good books on gardening, get some and read up. (see some good books below)
It's great when the family can work on the garden together - have the kids choose things to plant, and then they can watch it grow. Below are some good books on gardening (some referenced below). My wonderful wife and like to work in the yard together, and will do more after I retire, Lord willing.
Ants are wise. Why? They store up food in the summer when it's plentiful, and it gets them through the harsh winter. There is some wisdom here in planning for tough times. I take our massive quantities of tomatoes and put them right into a ziplock bag and freeze them! My wife make raspberry jam and I dry apples.
Just learn a little bit each year about gardening, it's fun.
Plant some fruit trees, grapes, or raspberries (thornless).
We like Gala and Fuji apples, and orange flame, black monukka, and concord grapes, and raspberries.
