Garden Plans and Goals

Hey there!

I’m so excited to share our garden plans and goals with you today! I talked about developing our homestead a bit the other day, which you can find HERE if you missed it, but today I’ll be getting into the specifics of our garden.

Each year I try to learn more about gardening as I grow. I’ve planted most of these things before, but this year feels a bit more intentional. Over the winter this year I read some gardening and homestead books, and watched way too many videos. Now I can’t wait to get my hands in some dirt! No matter your gardening experience or space you have available if you’d like to start growing your own food or flowers you can do it!

Below is a graphic I made of our gardens layout and under it you can see the key that identifies everything that we’ll be planting in our garden. Then I’ll chat a little about each plant or section 🙂

Most of our seeds are from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, which I’ll link HERE.

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Garden Plan Breakdown

1. Fruit trees – We’ll be adding another row of fruit trees this year. So far we have apple, peach, and pear. We’ll also be planting fruit trees around the property because goodness knows we’d love to have more trees for shade and wind protection. So why not have some of them also bear fruit?
2. Sunflowers – I planted a variety of sunflowers and a wildflower mix as a back drop for the garden last year and it was my absolute favorite! Sunflowers are my favorite flowers and our flock loved the seeds throughout the fall and winter too. We’ll be extending this garden bed a bit and only planting sunflowers in it this year.
3. Grapes – We’re excited to grow grapes and would love a whole row of vines. Ed used to make wine and we’d love to do that again along with other preserves from our very own grapes!
4. Blackberry bushes – We planted several blackberry bushes last year and at some point we’ll be moving them closer to the greenhouse as landscaping. Just like the trees, we plan to add a variety of berry bushes around garden and property as landscaping we can eat!
5. Herbs – I’ll be tucking in some companion plant herbs in the garden beds where it’s beneficial to the other plants. But I’m also going to grow some of them in containers around the greenhouse. I plan to cook with them, but also dry some to use in make salves, tinctures, teas and more! I’ll write a separate article on the herbs I’ll be planting and their uses.
6. Pumpkins – We loved having a pumpkin patch last year, and so did our sheep and Henry lol! So we’ll be relocating and making it bigger this year.
7. Cucumbers
8. Cantaloupe
9. Watermelon
10. Zucchini will grow where the pumpkins were last year, but we’re going to double the garden bed size and add another hog panel for them to climb. They are also companion plants.
11. Tomatoes
12. Marigold
13. Parsley
14. Carrots will be in the first raised garden bed. I built these beds 2 years ago and they’ve worked wonderfully! You can see how I made them HERE! These are also companion plants.
15. Peas
16. Broccoli
17. Brussel sprouts
18. Sage again these are companion plants that benefit from one another. I’m not sure if any snap peas even made it in the house last year lol!
19. Lettuce
20. Spinach
21. Basil will be growing in another raised bed. We eat a lot of salads so I’ll be direct sowing the lettuces as well as starting seeds in the greenhouse on a rotation. I’ve also been starting some of these seeds inside as sprouts and micro greens, you can follow along with that on Instagram @midcounty_journal and I’ll share how it’s going here soon too.
22. Thyme
23. Potatoes
24. Beans
25. Onions will fill the last bed and I’ll probably sneak in some garlic here too! I harvested potatoes into November last year and think they’ll do even better with these plants being beside them.
26. Flowering trees – these are just for fun 🙂 I’ve always wanted to plant 3 flowering trees on each side of the driveway as you come up, and 3 would fall on the garden side. My longer term goal is to develop our garden to be full and lush with plants and flowers that compliment each other and line the pathways. So you can pick and nibble as you walk through and stop here or there to sit and relax 🙂
27. Bees – last minute I added the bees to the graphic because how could I leave them out?! Our hive survived the winter and we can’t wait to add another hive or two this year. I think they’ll be happy with all our garden additions. Hopefully happy enough to make some honey to share with us! I have lots of plans for that honey and the wax too 😉

Flower Garden Plans

If you read my last article you may be wondering about the rest of the flowers I mentioned. We’ll be tilling a garden bed that will run the full length of this pasture fence line on the outside for a variety of flowers. It sits directly across from the garden. It give this section of the property purpose and get to enjoy the view from the kitchen and living room 🙂 I’ll share all the flowers I’ll be growing here in the next article! I cannot wait!!

Garden Plans and Goals

Gardening can feel a bit overwhelming, or maybe that’s just me? I find that there’s so much to know and no matter how much I learn there’s always more. So I’ve decided that’s just part of the fun, and have learned to relax about it a bit. Being outside in nature is my favorite place and grow things we can eat is honestly an amazing feeling. It’s as simple as that. Yes I’d like to work towards creating a permaculture here, but it takes time and I’m here for the experience. So my advice is to have fun and to grow what you eat or what you love 🙂 And remember they say the best gardeners have killed a lot of plants lol!

Let me know what questions you have and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Much love!