Saffron is one of the most exotic seeming and expensive spices in the world. Yet I grow an abundant perennial crop of it in a weedy, but compost rich patch of ground in my North Carolina backyard. My backyard. Okay, so my backyard isn't exactly a typical yard. It's a homesteader's fantasy of organic food… Continue reading Growing, Harvesting, and Curing Saffron at Home (with Video)
Category: potager
Decorative and Useful Garden Fencing
You know that expression "good fences make good neighbors"? Well, I always thought of that turn of phrase as negative. That's probably because Robert Frost's poem, Mending Wall, made it seem so divisive and futile. Yet, it doesn't have to be that way. Good Reasons for Fences There are many ways a good fence can… Continue reading Decorative and Useful Garden Fencing
Growing and Harvesting Ginger at Home (with Video and a Peak in My Fall Garden)
Hi everyone! It's finally fall here in Northwestern North Carolina. After the intense heat, humidity, and heavy rains we've had for the last two months, this weather is an amazing gift. I just wish I could wrap it up and share it with the West Coast for awhile to help all those brave people out… Continue reading Growing and Harvesting Ginger at Home (with Video and a Peak in My Fall Garden)
Potager Gardening in a Crisis
The COVID-19 virus has made it difficult for grocery stores to keep shelves stocked. I visited the grocery for the first time in a month and was surprised to see so many shelves empty. Toilet paper, of course, was no where to be found. But, other things like flour, eggs, butter, and many fresh vegetables… Continue reading Potager Gardening in a Crisis
Choosing the Right Plants for Your Garden
Choosing the plants that will grow well in your climate, weather, soil type, and garden is quite complicated. That's why a big part of becoming a good gardener is learning how to read your landscape, understand your conditions, and carefully select plants that are most likely to thrive where you live. If you want to… Continue reading Choosing the Right Plants for Your Garden
What to Grow in Your Potager (including a list of 30 categories of plants to consider)
It can be difficult to think beyond the grocery store, or the farmers market, when deciding what kind of food to grow on your homestead. Every recipe we know, every cookbook we have, tend to rely only on the readily available ingredients most of us can access. Yet, the most thrilling part about having your… Continue reading What to Grow in Your Potager (including a list of 30 categories of plants to consider)
Vegetable Garden Planting Calendar
If you are new to gardening and looking for a quick and easy tool to help you decide what to plant when, check out this new planting calendar. The programming team at Morning Chores developed it. Then, I helped refine some planting dates and adapt it to work for many different climates. This is a… Continue reading Vegetable Garden Planting Calendar
The Power of a Well-Planned Potager
Do you want your garden to produce food even with 4 weeks of neglect in extreme heat and dry weather? Then plant a well-planned potager garden.
Harvest and Succession Plant Your Homestead Potager
The garden explosion happened. Those tiny, seedlings I showed pictures of in the last post Plant Your Homestead Potager suddenly started to look like fully-fledged plants. Even when you visit your garden daily, and observe the incremental growth, there is still this moment when you realize "Wow, this is a real garden." Honestly, it was… Continue reading Harvest and Succession Plant Your Homestead Potager
Plant Your Homestead Potager
Now that you've constructed your homestead potager, it's time to plant. Well, almost... There are two more things I suggest you do before you put plants or seeds in the ground. Pre-Planting Step 1: Start Compost Tea The first thing I recommend is that you get a five gallon bucket, fill it with rain water… Continue reading Plant Your Homestead Potager
Constructing Your Homestead Potager
With all the hard work of gathering inspiration, choosing a garden site, deciding on our paths and bed design, and formalizing your plan done, it's now time to break ground. This is the moment when the dream - a thing that lives in the world of ideas - becomes tangible. This is when the seed… Continue reading Constructing Your Homestead Potager
The Homestead Potager Garden Design
In previous posts, I covered some things I know to be beneficial about choosing your potager location and designing your paths and bed styles. I also explained why I think it's really important to make a vegetable garden functional and beautiful and inviting. Now I want to cover a few other practical considerations that may… Continue reading The Homestead Potager Garden Design
Homestead Potager Garden Bed Design
The first gardens were forest gardens. Actually they were more like cultivated forests than gardens. The plants that humans found beneficial, they encouraged. The plants that didn't have utility were removed. Eventually, early gardeners installed fences to protect their food supply from being eaten by other free-ranging forest animals. There's no precise information on when forest… Continue reading Homestead Potager Garden Bed Design
Pathways For Your Homestead Potager
When you see past the pretty flowers and profuse plantings, you'll discover that every garden has bones and secrets buried beneath. A garden's design and its underlying infrastructure dictate how well it works and how much work it takes to maintain that garden. The Beaten Path For example, when I visit a garden that has… Continue reading Pathways For Your Homestead Potager
Plan Your Homestead Potager Garden Location
A potager garden is a place to grow food, skills, and beauty. You can make one just about anywhere, in a lot as small as a few hundred square feet. However, when you spend a little time carefully considering your location and planning your design, your job as a gardener becomes a whole lot easier.… Continue reading Plan Your Homestead Potager Garden Location
