Garden planning

 "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” - Winston Churchill.

    Winter isn't officially here yet, but we seem to be getting up in darkness and going to bed in darkness.  The nice weather we were having last week had disappeared and been replaced by...let's call them brisk...mornings and cloudy sky's.   

    Frost warnings and snow flurries are not on the agenda yet, but the days are counting down.   

    Up until this point, Sue and I had a vague idea of what we wanted to do come spring.  We knew that we wanted a garden; we knew that we tomato's, onions, a few herbs (Cue Simon and Garfunkel), garlic and a few other things.

    We also realized that, since it was just the two of us, any excess would either be canned or given away to family and the local food bank.  Sue was thinking that we might want to plant an abundance of pumpkins so that families that couldn't afford them would have something for their kids.  Which is just one of the many reasons I love her.   

    However, things like this require planning.   We had grown some things in Florida using containers on our porch, but nothing to the degree we were planning here.   

  

    We were thinking about getting three large large metal feeding troughs and placing them on blocks to elevate them.   Then drill some holes through the bottom from drainage.   This way we could garden without having to bed over that much, still produce enough food for us as well as saving 50 year old backs from any more pain or injury.  Sadly both Sue and I have bad backs.  Although I like the video above so we may try one bed like that, and have the other two beds be more "traditional."

    So the first question I had, as any beginning gardener should have is what growing zone am I in?  A growing zone, or sometimes called a hardiness zone, is basically the maximum and minimum climate that's suitable for plant growth.     In other words, it's an average of the first and last frosts.  

    We are Zone 5, meaning that our last frost date is sometime in May.   Our first frost date ranges from mid September to mid October.   That determines when we can plant, how long our growing season is on average and what we can plant.    This is one reason why the state of Pennsylvania is not known for it's pineapples.  

   

    We figured that our garden would have to go into the front yard for several reasons.  It's guaranteed to get at least six hours of sunshine.  It's close to our hose for water, and finally; although neither of us thought of it originally, if we see the garden everyday we are likely to work the garden everyday.  We are much more likely to actually work it if we can see it needs weeded, or if something needs a little extra hand or is ready to be harvested.  It's also flat.

     We also wanted to limit our garden to what we would actually eat.   As it so happens neither of us are big fans of things like lettuce or kale.  Yes, they are healthy and good for you, but we are not really big salad eaters.  So, maybe one or two plants.

    We would only plant maybe three to five tomato plants as well.  I am not a fan of fresh tomato but Sue loves them, and these can be easily canned and saved for pasta sauce and other things. 

    We also realized that even though lovage might be fun to try, it's something that we could put off for later.   As I learned more about it, it seems like it's going to be a bit to much for our needs at this time.

    Interestingly enough, the foods that are grown with the most pesticides are some of the most popular foods.  Strawberries, potatoes, kale, etc.  Which makes sense, large demand means you want the highest yield.   Since we were not really that much interested in yield we could avoid the chemicals.  We were thinking of planting those very popular plants.

    We are going to start small, we'll probably add some strawberries and such, but simple and easy should be the way to go for our first year of gardening.

    Our growing season would be roughly 124 days, give or take.   So we had to keep that in mind too, things like kale, radishes and turnips would grow quickly.   

    The more time I am spending researching and learning about gardening.  The more I realize how little I know about plants and food in general.  For example, it would never occur to me to plant certain things next to each other because they can deter insects or inhibit growth.

    That's a pretty cool thing, to learn something new and explore.   Plus, the best dinner I ever had was homemade spaghetti with a fresh tomato sauce.  The sauce was spiced up with zucchini and home grown fresh herbs.  I'm looking forward to having those experiences again.