Garden planning in January 2022

First things first, write down what you want to eat. Salads, chili, spaghetti, stir fry. Then figure out you need to make it. Next search for those seeds. Buy them. Plant them. I use Baker Creek Seeds and MI Gardener as well as our local farm stores.

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So far this is what I have purchased for 2022. I still need to get lettuce, green beans and tomatoes. I have peas left from last year.  I’ve been thinking about doing pinto beans to dry again this year. They take very little of my time and last time they produced great. 

The onions and potatoes I have always gotten from our local farm store. I get a little excited when they get them in. Last year I bought 70 onion bulbs and twenty potatoes. 

From now on after this year, I hope to not buy many seeds.  It only takes a few seeds from each plant to save. Although last year I saved thousands of Pepper seeds and one hundred pumpkin seeds. Pepper seeds are overly plentiful and maybe the easiest to save in my experience. But someone knocked the trays off the shelf and the mice at them before I noticed.  Yes, we have mice in the country. We know how to deal with them. No need to go jumping on the furniture. 

I did save some 2021 calypso beans. They look like a cow pattern.  So that’ll be an experiment to see if they grow the same. They’re heirloom, so they should grow the same bean every time.  I bought a new packet though just Incase. 

The plan is to let one of each plant, of all the heirloom seeds, go to seed. Then attempt to save seeds from them. Over time I will have a collection of seeds that is perfectly acclimated to my growing region. Just for myself. Not to sell. 

Over the year, I randomly buy seeds starting disks and soil. I save all manner of containers and trays to use.  I’ve tried saving money to buy things all at once. But for me, that never works well. So I buy them online throughout the year. You can never have too many seed starting disks or soil in my opinion. It’s very likely that I’ll use a couple hundred starting disks and 75-100 containers.

Last year, I had extra funds so I invested in a larger folding table and some of the bigger grow lights. But the 25 yrs before that, I grew everything on a couple of smaller folding tables infront of my south window. It’s not huge. But it worked. I grew everything we needed for tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, etc. that needed started indoors. I didn’t start them as early as I do now. We had more than enough food from the old way. My living room becomes a greenhouse. I love it every year. 

Thanks for reading this boring stuff about gardening. 😂 

Work = reward

I started most of my plants back in January/February.  Lettuce and Kale were two of those.  Now they've been outside for a couple of weeks and some are ready to eat.  My favorite time of year.  When the food I've grown is starting to be ready.  To know that my salads are completely organic, grown in my own soil.  No middle man.  No price gouging.  No other people sneezing, coughing or touching it.  Just me.  The dressing, well, that's not mine, but I'm ok with that at the moment.  I'll make some when my dill and herbs are ready later in the summer.

A bunch of stuff

So I ventured out to the store today.  It was kinda chilly and rainy today.  On the way back there were some neat clouds rolling over the farm.  I like pictures of clouds so I got one.


I picked up another asparagus plant and a rhubarb plant.  I've got onions, potatoes, garlic, the blueberry plant, and a grape plant to get in the ground in about 3 weeks. 


The Micro Tomato has a bunch of tomatoes!  I can't wait until they're ready to eat.  I have three of these so I might have a ton of tiny tomatoes all at once.  They won't last long around here.

The blue berry bush is also growing good.  It's doubled in size.



This totally sums up my afternoon.  The morning was fine.  But after lunch has been one disaster after another.


Another kombucha batch is done.  It fermented for a few extra days, but I'll add some ginger or cinnamon sticks to it.


The sour dough seems to be doing great.  I've never made it before so I'm just going by what others have on their blogs.

My tea owl.  Just because she's cute.

Kombucha and seed starts

Kombucha is expensive to buy in the store.  A friend sent me a scoby and starter so I could make my own.  Best thing that happened in 2020 so far!  The bottles in the store run $3.99 and up in the store here.  So I was spending a ridiculous amount of money every week.  Now I haven't bought any from the store for a month.  So far I've done second ferments with blueberries, rapberries, cinnamon, and ginger.  The cinnamon was extra strong, but good. The others were awesome.  I have the big tea jar surrounded by one of my heated plant mats for now.  It's what I had so I used it and it's worked well.  Maybe too well.  I've read that it can take 2 weeks to get it how you want it to taste.  Mine is about 10 days.  Then just two days for the second ferment.  I've gotten great bubbles and what seems like a really good scoby both times.  Even started a tiny scoby hotel.









My girls like to buy cactus plants.  They're pretty low maintenance.  This one is growing little shoots already.















The pink celery from Baker Creek Seeds are growing good.  Celery from the garden doesn't have that nasty chemical taste that the store bought celery does.  I don't use chemicals on them so they taste like celery is supposed to taste.  Celery is kind of a picky grower.  It takes a good bit of care.


The cabbage is quickly out growing the flat.  This is a longer growing cabbage.  I really want cabbage so I started a few early.  I wont start the short growing varieties until the end of the month.



The youngest likes to help water the flats. He gets a spray bottle so he doesn't drown them out.

Coronavirus week 3 Garden stuff

It was a beautiful, sunny day in the midwest. The youngest thought the 'ready to spread' compost pile was fun to play on.


We spent most of the afternoon outside.  Cleaned up a bunch of vines and last years stalks.  It sure felt good to be outside!  We are not trapped in the house.  We can run free or work in the garden.


I thought I had like 500 sp foot.  I didn't plant the whole area last year.  Nope!  I planted much more than that last year.  After expanding to the west, I will have 6,042 sp ft of planting space this year.  Some towards the back of the garden space will probably end up being boxes.  I didn't map out how many sq ft will be dedicated to the medicinal herb garden.  Maybe tomorrow. 

The chives came back!  This makes me happy.  The rest of the perenials haven't started back yet but I'm hoping they will soon.


This is the begining of week 3 of the 'social distance to save our exitstence'.  The national stay at home was extended to April 30 today.  I fully expect the schools here will extend out to May 1 as well.