While many aren't thinking about tilling up a garden yet, the time is now to get ready. Selecting seeds, enriching soil and starting some early vegetables indoors all can be done now. Even building a greenhouse is an idea that can be done over the winter months. But what happens when you don't have unlimited space or have restrictions where you live? When space or zoning causes problems for some, homesteaders don't just throw up their hands and give up, they search out ideas and get creative.
There are many ways to utilize a small place to grow your own food. Many cities now have community gardens, where unused plots of land are turned into personal garden plots maintained by people from the community, if yours doesn't have one why not start one by proposing it a town council meeting.
We have some books that have helped for people that have small acreage and want to utilize it to their fullest advantage. One short but comprehensive book we like is The "Have More" Plan "A Little Land-A Lot of Living" by Ed and Carolyn Robinson.
I will do a drawing January 26, 2011 and give one copy away from anyone who posts a comment at the end of this article. It is a very helpful little reprint of a classic published by Storey Publishing and it shows how to thrive with only 2 1/2 acres of land, how to purchase the right property, build the out buildings, make a part time living from the extras produced and all aspects of homesteading from animals to buying useful tools.
When we were missionaries in Ecuador, someone gave our family a copy of container gardening to take with us, knowing we would be living in a large city, it was gratefully received and there is a copy here: http://www.gardening.cornell.edu. . It has a lot of information to make container gardening profitable and fun for the whole family. The whole website has a lot of handy gardening ideas for everyone from the inexperienced, hobby gardener, or veteran farmer. In fact, I probably will try some container gardening this year, since last year our garden was a flop(more on our flop garden learning, next post). We lost hundreds of tomato plants due to scorching, bought more and then got a fungal virus and we ended up with a handful of decent tomatoes, it was sad and we almost gave up on trying to produce anything on our land.It was a good lesson on perseverance.
Quite a few years ago we had friends that lived in the city and rented an apartment, they grew a cucumber plant from a cup in their kitchen window and let the vine grow up their window. They were actually harvesting cucumbers without even trying. It was amazing to watch that one little seed grow all summer and produce more and more cucumbers.
There was also a family that spent some time with us last winter that were missionaries in China. They have since moved to Mongolia but they spent time learning under Joel Salatin and are using his techniques for teaching farming to the native people there so that they can be self sustaining. If you don't know about Joel enjoy learning more here:http://www.polyfacefarms.com/.
As for seeds, everyone seems to want to buy non-hybrid heirloom varieties, rightly so with all the GMO varieties out there. They can get pricey on all these survival blogs and websites, but we have been using a family owned business in Missouri that sells quality heirloom seed at a inexpensive price. Find them here : http://www.heirloomacresseeds.com/. Their seeds have worked well for us and they always appreciate people sending them heirloom varieties to expand their stock. Also, check out their catalog and get one mailed to you, it is an education in itself for planting your crops. We save the catalogs and use them when planting year after year.
A good way to get a head start on gardening is a greenhouse. While there are hundreds of greenhouse plans available to purchase, here is one free greenhouse plan in pdf version small greenhouse pdf. Here is a website source with a lot of choices to think about. http://www.bluegrassgardens.com. I've seen some portable greenhouses used and they work well if it's not windy where you are. But a portable one like this one:
If you start thinking how to creatively grow things it is amazing how it can change your outlook on being more self sufficient. The key is to keep trying, if one thing doesn't work, it's not the end, it's only part of the learning process. It is far better to learn now and fail, then wait till you have no other choice and have to fail when failure means your family starving.
Remember: Leave a comment and your name will be entered into our book giveaway. Start getting creative and share your ideas, we'd love to hear them.
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