It’s almost that time of year again!  The time of year when I pull out my charts and my spread sheets and my saved seeds and begin to plan our garden.

This is my third year gardening and I can say that I’ve never done the same thing twice…kind of like homeschooling!  Ha!

This year I actually have a garden budget and I plan to finally use the square foot garden method.  I will be utilizing two 4’x8′ beds and one 4’x6′ bed.  The 4’x6′ bed will be nothing but strawberries.  I plan to preserve 75% of my strawberries in the form of syrup and preserves.  We go through about a jar of organic strawberry spread per week at about $4/jar.  My entire bed of strawberries will only end up costing me about $10, so even if I only get three jars of preserves, it will still be worth it to me; but I’m planning for a lot more than that!

In my other two beds will be the following:

peppers

tomatoes

cabbage

sugar snap peas

basil

cilantro

green beans

celery

lettuce

cucumber

squash

canteloupe

garlic

shallots

brussel sprouts

pumpkin

watermelon

kale

beets

onions

okra

corn

and spinach

I will also be growing potatoes and carrots in five gallon buckets and I have a blackberry bush and rosemary bush in other areas of my garden.  I’m so excited to start taking my weekly pictures again.  I’m hoping to keep a better record of my successes and losses this year.

Right now, Josh and the boys are out back building the chicken coop.  I imagine once it’s built, it won’t be long until we pick up our chickens.  I’ll post pictures when they’re finished.

Just a few steps closer to our little urban homestead.

~audrey

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 29th, 2011 at 7:50 pm and is filed under Gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.