21st century homesteading - part 1

One of the big drivers for me moving to the USA is the idea that I could move towards self-sufficiency in terms of growing my own food. Regular followers of my blogs might recall my lack of success growing a pineapple in Yorkshire, and my previous garden wasn't conducive to growing more than moss and an enormous rose bush. So I start on my homestead dreams with little in the way of experience, but lots in the way of manpower, enthusiasm and people willing to help me on the way.

I've forayed recently into growing veg and herbs in a ready made garden (thanks to Karyn) and learned a lot about planting distances, mulching and the use of black plastic. Only 3 plants (out of several dozen) have failed to transplant successfully, and the carrots, basil and sunflower that we're growing directly from seeds are all growing well, apart from the sunflower seeds that were eaten by animals unknown one night. We've bought some floating covers to put over the rest for protection, so we'll see how they progress.

I'm constantly in awe of the fact that you can put stuff in the ground, give it some dead stuff (compost) and water, and the seeds just do their thing, providing us with things that we can eat.

Today marks the biggest project that I've embarked on independently (or as independently as possible). Jake has been fanatical about watermelon from a young age, and for some reason it just tastes better and juicier over here, so naturally when we found plants at the world's most amazing garden shop, we bought one. Watermelons apparently need a lot of room to grow (they recommend 6 feet(!) between plants) and the vines can grow around 1 foot a week...yikes!

We didn't have space to do this in any of our current garden beds, so I made a new garden (the benefits of having 17 acres of land is you can just repurpose land as you see fit). It was a guided adventure, with plenty of advice and support from Dan and Karyn, but it was still easily one of the satisfying things that I've ever done. I'm documenting it here because a) this will be the basis of my future homesteading so I want to remember how to do it and b) I'm seriously proud of what I produced. Whether it makes any watermelons, and whether they're edible or not, will be another question, but one that is sort of beside the point. Cue photos!

The start (not this particular patch, but I forgot to take a "before" photo!

Step 1 - rototill on the R setting. Measure out the area first so you know where to go, and make sure that each pass overlaps the previous for better coverage. 

Clear out all the grass. This is time consuming and works better if you have some sort of sieve (I used a plastic bucket with holes in) and someone like Jake to talk to. This was the best part of my day, if not my entire time here, spending an hour with my hands in the dirt and my delightful son chatting away and "helping"

Rototill again, this time on the L setting. The soil should be much looser after the first pass and the grass sifting. Rake through to clear out any missed clumps of grass, rocks and other debris.

Add compost or similar. We also added a whole pack of peat moss and spread it around. Again, a helpful four year old with their own garden tools makes this a lot more fun. 

Add loam. In the end, we had about 5 buckets worth. A big tractor helps here. 

Once everything is all piled up, give it a mix and roughly spread it out. Don't make it too perfect as you'll want to add the ties in around the edge. 

Measure out the area, preferably by using the length of one tie (in this case, 12 feet) as a guide to make things easy. If you need to make some shorter, find a helpful man with a chainsaw. Make sure they are all level, which can mean digging around and straightening out for a while. Keep at it, because it looks good when they're all in the right place. You can fill in underneath and around with the mixed up dirt. 

Almost finished! Try to have the corners overlapping so you can screw them together (important when your four year old likes to walk along and balance on them!

One last rototill, made easier by a smiling baby on your back. Watch out for the ties if you haven't screwed them in yet!

Completed! Just need to plant up the watermelons now (more of which in another post perhaps)