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You may have heard the recent news about the tomato crop failure due to the unusually cold winter in Florida. Perhaps we will be seeing more and more of crop failures due to weather or other causes. It’s a good idea to start yourself a garden.

One method I found extremely helpful is SQUARE FOOT GARDENING. If you don’t have a lot of space this is a perfect method. I happen to have land, but I am on a mountaintop and it’s very rocky land. I used the Square Foot Gardening method and built two raised gardens. I also use hanging baskets for beans and tomatoes.

I built a home made composting bin to recycle my scraps which becomes a good fertilizer for my gardens.

Gardening is relaxing, a family oriented hobby, free and healthy food and rewarding. No matter if you are a family of one or more, it’s wise to have a garden, recycle and compost your scraps, and save your seeds !!!! Be sure to buy heritage or open-pollinated heirloom seeds that have not been genetically modified. Find out if there is a “seed saver” group in your county where you can swap organic, non GMO seeds with others in your community. Your can find resources here:
http://www.seedsavers.org/

Here is an extremely helpful resource for Square Foot Gardening … it has all the information you need to grow healthy, organic vegetables, herbs and fruit in the least amount of space:

Making a compost bin from a garbage can is a simple process that requires air flow in the trash and can be accomplished by drilling holes in the trash can’s sides. Here is a how-to video:

As for soil, the Square Foot Gardener book does have some very useful information. What I did was I drove to the local sawmill and filled some plastic bags with sawdust (they gave it to me for free, I had to do the shoveling). Then I went to a local farm that raised goats (livestock manures can be valuable additions to soil) and got some goat manure, which was also full of wonderful earth worms. It is best to allow three months between adding any livestock manure to your soil and the harvesting of any root crops or leafy vegetables such as lettuce and spinach to guard against contamination. (Tall crops such as corn and trellised tomatoes should be okay.) I mixed the manure and sawdust together with some soil and WahLah … rich fertile soil.

Here is an excellent article from The Mother Earth News on 8 Steps for How to Make Better Garden Soil.

Make sure you and/or your family has access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Learning how to can food is the next step in the process and will stock your shelves with food.

Tags: composting, gardening