soil: a plant's home.

I have taken a much-too-long break from blogging here on "little seed." The last six months have been the best of my life. Even in the hardest, most sleepiest of times, I love being a mom. I'm very thankful for our daughter, Rynn, who will be half a year old in less than 2 weeks!

One of the things I've been up to in these past few months is continuing my horticulture education online through NC State University. For the next few posts, I'll be taking over this blog to write about Home Food Production (the name of the class I'm finishing up this semester). I'm excited that this blog is an avenue to further my education and satisfy a requirement for my semester project, but also that the class & project are leading me back to "little seed" to continue writing & sharing here with you.

Home Food Production is exactly as it sounds - cultivating food in your own backyard. This involves home gardening and animal husbandry (beekeeping, chickens, livestock, etc.).

Home gardens are an important way to get the fresh fruits and vegetables that our bodies need to be healthy, vibrant, and best equipped to fight disease, infection, allergies, colds, and many other ailments. I think a lot about what I'm putting into my body and how it will affect me. But often times, I stop short there and don't venture to think about what fed my food. As Michael Pollan said in his book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, "you are what what you eat eats too." And that's important.

Right now, I'm at home. My home. It's set up just how I want it (for what my budget allows). To my left is a beautiful fiddle leaf fig tree that towers over the cozy couch I'm lounging on to write this post. The rug on the floor is funky & vibrant & I enjoy looking at it. The temperature is just right. I have food in the kitchen for when I'm hungry, and my little companion, a shepherd/cattle dog mix named Tucker is curled up beside me. I am comfortable. I enjoy being here. And more than that, here in my home, it's set up so that I can thrive. I'm not starving myself, freezing to death, or surrounded by things that are dangerous to me or that I hate.

In the same way that I'm able to grow & live abundantly at home, plants need a home that's set up just right for them to allow them to thrive, and SOIL is the plant's home. The soil is allowing water to stay or drain. It's holding the foods the plant needs. It's jam-packed with microbes and insects. It's makeup determines if the plant will succeed. Yet, overwhelmingly, our society chooses to "enrich" our soil artificially with chemical fertilizers that fall short of creating a good home for the plant. And beyond that, our methods of farming and even home food production have been successful in depleting our soil rather than improving it.

Sir Albert Howard, an English botanist and pioneer in organic farming, put it this way: "Artificial manures (synthetic fertilizers) lead inevitably to artificial nutrition, artificial food, artificial animals, and finally to artificial men and women." 

Dan Barber, the famous chef of Blue Hill restaurant in Manhattan, agrees. He sees an absolutely vital connection between how we cultivate our soil, how we grow food, and how we EAT. He discusses the "future of food" in his book The Third Plate, and writes, "Healthy soil brings vigorous plants, stronger and smarter people, cultural empowerment, and the wealth of a nation. Bad soil, in short, threatens civilization. We cannot have good food - healthy, sustainable, or delicious - without soil filled with life."

So how can we practically, in our very own backyards, begin to enrich our soil? Read more in my next post of this two-part series on soil.

little by little: a practical gardening post

I have to admit... our house is a wreck.

But, I'm finally starting to feel pretty good about our garden.

This year, I followed the 6 P's that my father-in-law George taught my husband Caleb when he was younger: Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. And so far, it's working out. I hope that this post will inspire you and give you some practical ways to boost your harvest this year.

The most important thing I've learned in gardening is to not wait until the last minute. As a major procrastinator, this is tough for me to do, but it pays dividends in the gardening world (& in life) to prepare ahead of time. {See my last post on preparation & anticipation.}

If you don't have a place designated for your garden already, start there. Create a plan for your space, sketch your vision, and take some measurements. Then hit the hardware store to get what you need to build and purchase for your space.

This year, we moved into a new house & decided to do three raised beds in the sunniest spot in our backyard. If you're managing a larger space, look into a local landscape supply company for mediums like gravel (for good drainage in your beds), soil, compost, and mulch. You'll pay a much lower price, and if you don't have a truck of your own, many places will deliver it to you. Even with a delivery fee, you'll still make out well ahead of where you'd be purchasing bag after bag from the store.

Add hardscapes to your landscape as needed, using the plan that you create (more details below) as a guideline for what you need. Caleb helped me build a great trellis for my pole beans & squash, shown here:

Once your space is created, draft up a plan. This year, I created my own {self-titled} Planting Matrix. I relied heavily on my local co-op extension as a resource to create this personalized matrix. For the Piedmont region of the Carolinas, this guide by NC State is excellent: Central North Carolina Planting Calendarfor Annual Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs. Using the data found here, I created an Excel spreadsheet with 2 tabs: Layout & Schedule.

LAYOUT: This is where your mind can dream & your creativity can flow. Pick a mix of vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs that sound delicious or beautiful to you and include these in your space. Arrange the plants within the space how you want them, taking into account things like amount of sunlight, where you'll add hardscape elements like trellises, and what time of year and how long each plant will remain in that space. Go ahead and make a plan for what you'll put into place after a plant is spent for the season.

{I added these dahlias for a pop of bright color & to attract beneficial insects. Marigolds are also useful for attracting friendly bugs, & their petals can be added to give salads a little citrus zing!}

I encourage you to use a digital method for drawing up your master plan. It's easy to change and move things around, print out a page for reference while planting, and a great way to share your ideas with others via Google docs or social media outlets.

{my personal garden bible - the layout matrix}

SCHEDULE: Pay attention to the days to maturity for the plants you've selected, and try to space out when you'll be reaping the harvest of different veggies & fruits. Not only will this cut down on having a surplus & waste from everything in your garden being ready at once, but it will allow you to keep grocery bills down and maintain a steady flow of produce out of your garden and into your home & mouth! Create a schedule ahead of time and stick to it as best you can, using guidelines for your region regarding the last frost and best conditions for seed germination for the variety of plants you choose. You may want to start some seeds indoors and transplant them outside when temperatures warm.

{Kale is very hardy & seeds can be planted directly into the ground. It will germinate even in cooler temps.}

{These poblano peppers were started indoors & transplanted to my raised beds once the weather warmed.}

Once your space is created (hardscapes in place), your soil is prepared (make sure you have good organic matter in your soil and go ahead & top it off with mulch), and you decide on your layout & schedule for planting, you've set yourself up for some major success and hopefully a bountiful harvest. Now get to planting!