Progress is slow, but it's still progress.
We are still waiting on funding to enable us to buy homestead land. That said, I've learned a lot in the last 6-9 months. I've made some mistakes, had some victories and made some plans.
First, the victories. Strawberries. I turned one bed into a strawberry patch and nothing worked out nearly as well as they did, which is awesome since they're one of my very favorite things! I did manage to have a garden this year. My brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, etc.) were wiped out by flea beetles You'll know then if you see them because while they're ravenously devouring your veggies, they do look and behave exactly like fleas, including the jumping. From this lesson, I found that the brassicas that I planted directly had a much easier time of surviving the onslaught than the ones I transplanted. I think this has something to do with the vulnerability of a naturally weaker plant. I've heard this theory, but now I've proved it to myself. Also, I think I may have planted them when it was too hot for them because I was feeling greedy for them. The brassica family is my favorite veg to eat. :) Anyway, planting things in their season is dreadfully important and I'm not sure I understood that completely. Secondly, Colorado's growing season is probably too short for tomatoes. This makes me sad, but not despondent because I have some pots. I put some of the cherry tomatoes in pots and brought them in before the first frost. These guys are now providing a lovely bounty right when I want them most - when its starting to get cold. I will probably start tomatoes in pots early this year and leave them in the pots, toting them outside when it gets warm enough. Problem solved! Speaking of pots, I had great success with salad greens in stackable pots. That's definitely something I'll do again. I also had some great victories with peas, which, as it turns out, are amazingly delicious right out of the garden! They're so sweet, they're almost like candy. I'll be doing a lot more of those next year for sure.
The mistakes... ok, I've already covered most of those, but beyond that, I don't like growing corn. It's a pain and takes up too much room for what you get. I'm done with that unless I end up somewhere with a ton more space. I'd also like to address my landscaping. I live in suburbia. I am therefore pretty much obligated (if I don't want to be chased out of town with pitchforks and torches) to have a front lawn. Lawns suck. They take up a lot of water and don't really produce much of anything useful except for deer habitat. Now, I don't mind our local herd, because they eat up the fallen apples, reducing the likelihood of pests the next year, but that's about all they do for me besides increase the cute factor of my neighborhood. The back yard, however, has a 6 foot privacy fence around it. The lady that owned the house before me was an awesome gardener. I, however, do not have the time or patience to futz with cutesy little paths and the hours of weeding that this yard would take every week. So I think we need a re-design.
That leads me to the plans for next year. Tom has agreed to make the old dog run in the back yard into a chicken run for me. My mother is putting together a coop for me for Christmas. We're going to take out the decorative, wild flower infested beds and replace them with raised veggie beds instead. We'll have some little decorative fencing to provide some play space for the chickens as well. I'm targeting spring to get three little pullets. Probably barred rocks. Also, I am determined to swipe back my square foot gardening book from my mother and really put it to use. I think that would have been helpful to have read already, but hindsight is 20/20.
Anyway, it hasn't been a horrible first year. I'll try to post some before and after pictures as we complete these projects. My husband even has a clever plan for heating the chicken water with solar heat... but more on that later.
