Our Garden
The first year the plan was to plant a 1500 sq ft garden, not to killthe animals, cut firewood, and start a compost pile. The compost pileturned out okay.
The next year was to have 3000sq ft of gardens and have water running to them.
The third year was to plant an orchard and fence it in. Run irrigationto it and expand the gardens to 6000sq ft. 3000sq ft orchard. Startgoing to the farmers market to sell something other than honey. We alsobuilt a greenhouse in the fall.
Next year we planted another garden making it 19000 sq ft. and tried toproduce for the entire year at the market. We also installed dripirrigation, which greatly reduced the time spent watering. We alsobegan selling produce directly from the farm.
This year we expanded the gardens to 40000sq ft. and made 300 feet ofhoophouses (mini-greenhouses) and doubled the days at the market.
The soil is clay and because we live on the side of a valley we canonly garden on the benches on the side of the mountain. Compost, goatmanure and cover crops are used to build the soil. We grow organicallywith no chemicals. Picking bugs off of plants, crop rotation, and usingrow covers helps to control many of the pests.
