I’ve scrounged enough of those clear refrigerator crisper drawers and will be using them for the mini greenhouses. It may look funny, but the materials are free to me… and it will give the log truck drivers something to talk about on their way to the mill yard

Good luck with your Feb 15 planting. Freddies had coupons for 40% off seeds, so I picked up the few I needed today. The rest of the garden is saved seeds.

Too cool about the edible landscaping! I’m getting ready to try early spring planting under a cold frame. Can it really be true that February 15 is a good time to start growing? We’ll find out soon. I’ll be germinating inside and hardening off before transplant…

Am enjoying winter veggies now – still fresh and doing well in the garden in January – Swiss Chard, celery, rutabaga, brussel sprouts, parsnips, turnips,carrots, and kale. Nice to have fresh veggies still available right outside my door Plus have spaghetti squash and potatoes still in storage, and plenty of dried veggies and herbs from the summer surplus.

In the permanent landscaping beds the asparagus is looking good, and the berries (about 8 varieties), while the rhubarb, chives, sage, and strawberries are asleep.

I also read Four Season Harvest, and heartily recommend it. For mini-greenhouses, I’ll be starting plants early under clear discarded refrigerator plastic veggie bins and meatkeepers – I think they’ll make good little greenhouses

I’m reading a great book, called The Four-Season Harvest – by Eliot Coleman, that talks about extending the harvest season using cold frames and plastic covered tunnels. I’ll bet you and Chris could stop dreaming about gardening and do it year round next year (as I hope to do).
___________________________
Wishing you a prosperous New Year!
Daiko

Not that that’s the whole picture, just an important perspective to keep in mind. My wife and I were given a bag of (somewhat…) fresh Salad Greens, and spent an hour last night picking through it. We could have bought a fresh one for $5, so we were working for $2.50 an hour. However, we had nothing else that needed to be done, and I enjoyed the close time with my wife, so it was definitely worth it.

It’s good to have a feel for what you’re worth, though, and hold it up to projects like this. Could someone do it for cheaper, and/or better quality? Is there other worth in the project – sense of accomplishment, quality time with someone important, it’s an enjoyable hobby, …

On that note, my wife had a nice sense of accomplishment at the end. Me, not so much, as my interest was in spending time with her, not in the specific project.

Something that you might want to emphasize too is the value of more vibrant and flavorful food that is gained through home gardening. There is no way that you can find better tasting food, than than coming from your own garden. Also, you should consider including the reduced cost due to less trips to the grocer, or at very least, spending less time at the grocer. There is also another rather difficult but irreplaceable value in gardening your own food; teaching your children where food comes from and the responsibility,value, and reward that comes from that labor. In compounded value, that teaching opportunity makes all other costs and gains look like chump change.

A University of California – Davis study highlighted the fact that fresh fruits and vegetables rapidly loose much of their nutrient value right after they’re picked due to oxidation. Spinach and green beans, for example, loose 75% of their vitamin C within 7 days of harvest! Many of the fruits and vegetables in your local grocery store are shipped thousands of miles from foreign countries, allowing their nutrition value to drop dramatically.

Your freshly picked garden produce is thus much more nutritionally valuable than any you could buy off a store shelf =)

I think a better way to measure savings would be to track what you normally spend on produce and compare it, or do both what the market value is and that. If having all this delicious home grown food in the house also helps prevent chip purchases, for example, also take that into account. If you have the numbers try to compare what you spent last year to this year, or what you spend in months with no harvest to months with a harvest-it would be fascinating and might equal more real savings, or be concrete enough to motivate someone like me to do some gardening (although I’d have to do container gardening).

I love these updates either way, though. Thanks!

Great post. Two trees I would recommend planting are:

1. Fig Tree

2. Chestnut Tree

Both trees will produce tons of goods. Figs are a wonderful late summer / early fall fruit and be dried or eaten fresh. They re great snacks and or you can cook with them.

Chestnuts (the Italian kind) are a wonderful treasure. You can roast them and eat them as a snack or cook with them (you can even make flour out of some varieties).

Here in Australia it is Summer and we have a lot of veges growing in containers and plan to dig up the paving to start a raised kitchen garden. We also have veges growing in the front yard, which has led to lots of positive conversations with the neighbours. Priceless!

I applaud your efforts to be self sufficient.

Your garden, though to some may seem relatively small, by comparison dwarfs my garden with its tomato & bell pepper plants and sunflowers.

I made the mistake of planting several zucchini plants a few years ago and got way more zucchini that anyone could ever want.

I plan on growing elderberries next year and my price point for sale would be at least $5/lb for frozen berries.

There’s nothing more rewarding than walking into your garden, picking a carrot, washing it with the outside tap and eating it right there and then. Wonderful stuff.