Fruit of the Earth: My Joy of Homsteading

          On our third of an acre backyard, one with more land, time and resources can very well say that my family doesn’t “homestead” in the popular use of the word.  It’s true that we’d starve were we to solely rely on our garden outputs; yet, since I’ve no other name for it, I’ll call it homesteading.

          After reading the invaluable book, How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons, we (Dad, Mom and I) dug a 5x 10 square foot plot to grow peas, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers (2010).  We used the “Bio-intensive” method described in the book.  This involves planting a variety of crops close together to ward off pests.  First we “double dug” the section.  This is when you dig one shovel down and put the dirt in a wheelbarrow or bucket and dig another shovel down, flipping the dirt over.  The book goes into further detail about this, but the reason for this is to aerate the soil.  With this accomplished, we chose plants based on how much we ate certain foods and how much room we had.  Except for the peas, we had a good output. 

The following year we expanded our garden, eliminating the peas and growing broccoli along with our regulars.  We also tried corn and strawberries in separate patches from the main area.  Everything yielded well except for the corn (we guess it didn’t get enough sun where it was or a lack of nitrogen) and broccoli (our climate was too hot for it). 

This past year, we expanded yet again, bypassing the corn and adding crookneck squash, eggplant, raspberries, bush beans and a top hat blueberry plant which refused to grow beyond about four inches.  Again, we had a great yield (62 eggplants from 7 plants, 59 crooknecks from 5 plants, and too many beans, strawberries and tomatoes to count).  The raspberries we grew won’t yield until this next season and we have 5 plants which exploded from a stick about a foot to over 6 feet tall. 

We also have a large woodpile which saves my Dad a considerable amount of money on oil.  The satisfaction from having at least some sense of self-reliance is expansive.  Although my younger brother doesn’t take much interest in it, even he eats some vegetables from our garden.  My Mom, Dad and I have learned a lot about growing food ourselves; from starting seeds indoors to the final harvests.  This knowledge will stick with me because I know it gives me inherent satisfaction; and we’ve shared our knowledge (along with our surplus of food) with friends, family and neighbors.