Planning a Homestead Vegetable Garden for Fresh & Preserving

Homestead Vegetable Garden planning for Fresh & Preserving will help you be more self sufficient. Learn how to plan and plant your homestead garden for a highly productive season and get the most out of your small acreage garden for winter storage, preserving, succession planting and how many vegetable plants you will need to grow for preserving your winters storage.

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Want to learn more about gardening? Check our websites blog out for more information on gardening, pest management, weed control, disease control and other organic gardening methods.

Our Website:
alisorganics.com

Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/AlisOrganics/

Mailing Address:
760 Red Rock Road
St. George, Utah 84770

Our etsy store:
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I also write a blog geared for our zone 8, which I would love to write more often, but life is busy! however, you may find some good resources here.
http://outstanding-in-the-garden.com

Our CSA, where we provide food for families on a weekly basis and we also donate a portion of our produce to Elders or Someone in need in our community to provide healthy fresh organic veggies.
https://desertsagecsa.com

00:00 Planning Your Garden
00:20 First things first
01:05 Vegetables for storage & how many of each you’ll need
04:01 Check inventory and seed storage
04:30 Plan your design
04:53 Add pollinator friendly plants
05:42 Digital planner & planning
07:19 Know your microclimate
08:10 Direct sowing, transplant or indoor seed starting
08:55 Plant what does well in your region
09:35 Interplanting
09:46 Succesion planting
10:16 Staggering harvests
11:56 Plan to fail?
12:31 Plant spacing
13:28 Planting vertical
13:53 Plant position, row direction
14:33 Crop rotation
16:15 Be grateful!

Planting your homestead Garden so you have enough to eat fresh and enough to preserve for the winter months can be a little intimidating if you don’t know where to start I’ll share with you what I do and how I plan my garden out to get the most out of its space Also crop

Rotation secession planting interplanting and several tips to help you get off to a good start the very first thing of course that I do is jot down all the vegetables that I want to grow like making a wish list I want to make sure that I have enough vegetables

That my family and myself love to eat fresh then I think about vegetables that store well during the winter months and beyond that of course you definitely want lots of vegetables that can be bottled froze or even dried a quick and thorough way to make your list is just

Take the index out of a garden book and go through that or even a Seed Catalog those are really good because this Sparks some interest of maybe some new vegetables you haven’t heard of or that you want to try if you have a small garden then maybe you’ll just just want

To start with 10 or 12 different vegetables that you really like to eat I’ll go through a list of some of the vegetables that I grow specifically for bottling and winter storage plus how many plants per person that you’ll need approximately your list will definitely look different than mine but it’ll give

You a good idea and a good place to start tomatoes are easy to bottle up and they go in so many dishes cherry tomatoes are absolutely amazing when you freeze dry them if you want to make a paste or a sauce with the Tomatoes then you want to grow a paste tomato like

Amish paste or even San Marzano you want to plant about five plants per person onions are a staple that can be stored easily and can be used in almost any dish they’re also used in medicinal remedies like fire cider you’ll want to grow onions that store well sweeter

Onions like Wala walas and Vidalia don’t keep as long you’ll want to look for onions that have a high sulfur content like blush or Newberg and these last about 9 months grow about 15 to 20 onions per person cabbage is great fermented and can store easily all winter three to five plants

Per person can make a good amount of Kraut carrots are great to have fresh during the winter months and they can store right in the ground unless you live in a place where the ground freezes and doesn’t thaw until Springtime if that happens then you’ll want to pull up

Your carrots in the fall time and you can store them in a cool place in a Sandy box you’ll want to grow at at least 30 carats per person and if you do juicing you’re going to want to Triple this there are so many different types

Of winter squash and they keep well and require a little work for storage I’ve had spaghetti squash last an entire year in our Root Cellar Butternut delicata and acorn are all great Keepers and you’ll want at least one to two plants per person I grow a lot of cucumbers and

If you want to pickle cucumbers and make them nice and crisp you want to grow pickling cucumbers specifically but if you grow regular cucumbers just slicing they’re really great used in relishes and even refrigerator pickles I really like to grow at least two to four plants

Per person garlic is not only good added to foods but it’s also used medically as well soft neck garlic stores longer about 10 to 11 months you’ll want 15 bulbs per person potatoes are also great for several dishes red Norland russets and Butterball all keep well plant 10 to

15 plants per person dry beans store easily on The Pantry Shelf they pack a good amount of protein and can be added to potato soup or with some bacon or ham for a real quick warm winter dish I love cranberry dry beans but I also like to

Have plenty of black beans you’ll want at least 20 dry bean plants per person green beans are great bottled Frozen or freeze-dried they’re prolific and easy to grow if you’re growing pole beans you’ll want to grow at least 15 plants per person and if you’re doing bush

Beans at least double or triple that amount be realistic you don’t want to overdo for the space that you have as you start to plot down what you’re going to plant where you’ll find that you might have to whittle down that list by having a list you can quickly go through

Your seed inventory and see what seeds you already have because they need to be used up first and then order more I also like to take this time to go through the seeds and look at the ones that maybe I didn’t care so much about they didn’t

Perform well or they didn’t taste good and decide whether I want to discard those are not most seeds will last a minimum of 3 years if they’re stored properly there are a few exclusions like parsnips think about how you want your garden to look how you want its functionality do you

Want to grow in rows do you want to grow in square blocks or do you want just vegetables scattered throughout the garden it’s a good idea to know this before you start plotting it down on some paper think about adding some pollinator friendly plants like some herbs or flowers or maybe even both

These add a great benefit to the Garden you can interplant them with a lot of your vegetable crops and that way it doesn’t take up any extra space but the big thing is they invite in those beneficials and that helps increase our pollination which gives us more fruits

And vegetables I love adding some flowers on the ends of each of my beds short sunflowers are great because they don’t get too big but they’ll offer a little bit of shade for some of the other plants nters are great because we can eat the leaves and the flowers and

Once they start to go to seed you can actually eat the little seed that’s still green and soft as a replacement for Capers and I like amaran because I can grow that collect the seed and all of the leaves are edible plus it looks pretty I don’t generally plan my garden

Digitally I’m pretty oldfashioned and I use pencil and grids there’s lots of digital planners and apps that you can design your garden with and what I found through my research is a lot of them can be frustrating and kind of over complicated but but I actually did find

One that I really like it’s easy to navigate and it’s called HOA sketch they also have a community page and it’s free to use and it’s for gardeners that just want to share their ideas or ask questions it’s kind of a fun thing to get together with other gardeners in

Chat I’ll put a link in the description below so that you can go check it out and then let me know what you think about it one thing that I’ve seen with almost all of the garden ABS is their planning dates can be off just a little

Bit we have a little bit of a microclimate here so my dates are off about 2 weeks they suggest that I plant Brasa crops in April well if I were to do that they wouldn’t have enough time to head up before we got too hot so just

Know that and adjust to your area sketch out your garden like a bird’s eye view mark down any rows that you have or raised beds and you also want to make sure that you make note of any perennial vegetables or herbs that you have in

That Garden I have a lot of garlic in my garden and it’s an early variety and it’ll come out out in miday making it perfect for warm season crops to go right in its place I’ll put in Winter squash and summer squash here and it works perfect because the ground always

Has something planted in it if you live in an area where your garlic doesn’t ripen until July or August then a fall crop is probably going to be the best option following your garlic know your hottest part of the garden the windiest and the shadiest because this is all

Going to affect what you plant we if you’re growing vertically then you need to think of a spot in your garden that doesn’t get those prevailing winds that can damage those crops if I were to plant my pole beans out here on the edge of my garden where the strongest

Prevailing winds hits then that can destroy those leaves on those pole beans then it takes a lot of time for it to recover and that lessens the Harvest I have a bed on the south side of my garden and it gets some dappled light from the apple trees and this is the

Perfect place that I can be planting greens like lettu uses chards collared greens they all do really good in this area so you can see that knowing your spots in your garden that are hot windy or Shady are really beneficial I like to make a note on my vegetable list whether

I’m doing direct sewing transplants or starting indoors and I just do this by an I for starting indoors DS for direct sew and T for transplant I’ll organize my seeds in a little small file box and I’ll do this by month by month of what I’m going to be planning each month and

Then I’ll write on the seed packet the date that need to either direct sew or start indoors need to keep in mind that plants differ in their tolerance for hot and cold how fast they grow and mature a lot of areas can grow two or even three

Crops in the same bed that same year you’ll need to know which of your vegetables are cool seasoned crops and can tolerate a frost and your warm seasoned vegetables that absolutely cannot tolerate a frost and make note of that I love heirloom tomatoes they’re my favorite but some years they don’t

Produce so well here our summers are really hot and that can cause them to drop their blossoms plus they’re more susceptible to Tomato viruses so I always like to have a backup plan I’ll plant 50% airom tomatoes and then 50% of just some basic red determinant Tomatoes

These seem to never fail and always produce pretty much all at once so I can spend a couple of days bottling and preserving for the winter if you like to bottle salsa then make sure you make a note of all of the vegetables that you’ll need for making that salsa tomatoes onions Peppers

Garlic salt lantro you got to think ahead I like to plant a lot of pickling cucumbers so that I can preserve pickles for the winter time and to save space I’ll plant deal right alongside with the Cucumbers they make a great companion plant secession planting is planting one

Crop every few weeks so that you get staggered Harvest over a longer period of time and these crops are usually a faster growing type of a vegetable radishes are really good example of secession planting in February the 1 of February I’ll plant a small row of radishes then in 2 weeks later I’ll

Plant another row of radishes and then by the 1st of March I’ll plant my last set of radishes and then I’ll have the Staggering Harvest you could plant a couple of different varieties of broccoli with different maturity dates and any vegetable for that matter this

Way you can plant them on the same day but they’ll mature at different dates this is called staggering maturity and you can find the maturity dates on your seed packets or even your plant labels continuous planting is the ultimate garden tool continuous planting is when the spring broccoli meets the early

Cherry tomatoes and those Tomatoes later get touched by a frost but fall greens and root crops are ready over time you’ll learn your natural Rhythm for your space and climate but it does take some practice this is something that I love to experiment with I’m always think

Thinking about crops that can be grown together especially during the crossover season in the springtime I’ll plant lettuces and spinach and once our soil warms up and we’re past our frostfree day I’ll pop right in the middle of those greens some of the warm season crops that are taller like eggplant and

Peppers by the time that the lettuce is gone to seed or it’s bitter and it’s time for it to come out those warm season crops have taken over inner planting is one of the best ways to get the most out of your space you can plant Brassica crops but in between them put

Lettuce or green onions to maximize that amount of growing space for food now stups are great planted here and there and all over the garden they’re great pest disruptors one of the big benefits about inner planting besides getting more food in a small amount of space is

You’re not leaving that soil exposed so that means less weeds and it’s also going to retain the moisture better because you’re creating a living mulch one of the most important things I think when you’re planning a garden is to be flexible and there is that saying fail

To plan plan to fail but when it comes to gardening I think you ought to plan to fail with Gardens something will always fail something will die or get eaten dug up or not Thrive be ready to move on and plant on get something growing in that space that’s appropriate

For that time of year and don’t worry about what was plotted out I start with a plan and try to stick with it but it seems at the end of the year it changed here and there for one reason or another rethink your plant spacing there is

Truth to some of the rules about spacing overcrowding can cause disease due to the lack of air flow but I take plant spacing recommendations with a grain of salt most of the recommendations come from field trials that are performed in Long rows in large fields and designed for large Farms tractors and Equipment

Can get through easier that way but think about this most plant tags on tomatoes will say to space your Tomatoes 3 to 4ot apart well if you only had a 4×4 bed that means you can only get two tomato plants in that bed now that’s not reasonable for the home Gardener and

It’s not necessary even in a larger Garden I don’t adhere to these rules my spacing for tomatoes are anywhere from 18 in and no more than 24 in but I do grow them vertically and I tie them up and do some pruning this will allow some more air

Flow planting vertical will allow more planting space below and it’s a great way to increase your planting footprint so when plotting out your garden think of the areas you can put trellises Towers cages or whatever you want to grow on and plan for what will be

Planted on these and around them I love cattle panel arches they’re functional and will last a lifetime remember when you grow vertically you’re always going to have a shady area ours will always be on the North side and the sunniest on the south I can can really take

Advantage of this I can plant things that don’t tolerate the hot summer Suns like our nters that would normally burn out during the summer time and plant something that loves the sun on that south facing side and that brings me to the direction that your beds should go

Should they go north and south east and west well it really doesn’t matter your garden will occupy a space and all you got to do is think about putting the taller plants in the back and the shorter plants in the front so that they can get some sun

So no matter the direction of your beds it’ll work crop rotation is something I feel differently than most crop rotation is meant to prevent disease buildup in the soil and it’s meant to help maintain soil fertility if you plant a heavy feeding crop a light feeding crop should

Follow but here’s some food for thought if you kept your soil fed your plants are going to be healthier if you replenish your soil often with things like compost and organic fertilizer your soil’s health and INF fertility isn’t a problem and what if you only had one 4×6

Bed does crop rotation really matter I don’t worry too much about crop rotation unless I see an issue with my plants do crops rotate in nature no nature drops its leaves in the fall they decompose and they enrich the soil and I really like to mimic Mother Nature as much as

Possible but there is one crop that I do rotate each year and that’s tomatoes because they’re more susceptible to soil born diseases and by all means if you have problem with a crop then you need to rotate and you just got to do you

This is just me make a list of all the things that you’re going to be needing in your garden this year so that you’re not scrambling when you’re the busiest if you had a pest outbreak last year then maybe you’re going to want to have some organic pest control on hand or

Even some insect barrier have your fertilizers and compost on hand sharpen your tools get everything ready so that when it’s time to Garden it will definitely be more more efficient this year planning your garden is a great way to overcome those dreary days of winter and get you excited for the upcoming

Spring and it’s coming fast be sure to check out horta sketch in the link below it just might help you get organized this year be grateful for the opportunity that you’ve been given to grow a garden and put healthy food on your table thanks for joining me and God bless