Summer gardening...Now is the time to start prep work!

So, it's that time again. The winter ground will soon warm and it will be time to start the work for that beautiful and productive summer garden. Quite possibly my favorite time of the year!

Last summer we used as a practice year, throwing together a summer garden way too late in the season. But, we did have a good turn out of yellow squash, okra, cantaloupe, corn and some brussel sprouts. We learned many things from this garden. Here is list of the main points of interest.

• Plan ahead! We started our plants in the ground in mid-June. That is way too late for a summer garden to start here in North Texas. We lost our brocolli, watermelon, tomatoes, peppers were lacking, corn was sad, eggplant was a no go and cucumbers failed to thrive.

• Our soil (red clay) would need lots of conditioning for the types of plants we would like to produce this year.

• Row gardening was very time consuming and the weeds sometimes took over the produce.

• Planning is essential to timing the harvest for plants that produce consistently or plants that produce one thing and then are finished.

• Heirloom seeds produced much better than the newer 'hybrid' seed.

• There was no need for anything other than organics in fertilizing and pest control. We had nothing we could not handle with the use of all natural products.
• We gathered seed from our top producing plants so that we knew the quality of the seed for this year.

So, obviously the art of gardening and good production was one that was a bit out of reach last summer. But we learned so much and have studied, researched, documented and planned for a fantastic crop this year! Our progress will be chronicled here on the blog with frequent updates and pictures of our processes and harvest.

We hope you will enjoy watching things grow as much as we enjoy working the earth with our family and learning with each and every success and failure!