When I first got into this gardening trend I was just excited to be able to grow some of the food I ate. I think I was inspired by my father's garden when I was a kid. I loved helping him in the garden in the summer, and I wanted to be there every step of the way, from turning over the garden in the spring to picking the harvests throughout the summer and helping store them for winter. Granted his garden was not as big as the one I have today, but to a young child it was huge. I always enjoyed walking through it during the summer and helping to pull weeds, or pick green beans and tomatoes. Now that I have a little more control over the garden it is even more enjoyable to watch it grow through the season.
When we moved to the mountains I never dreamed I would be able to rent a place that would let me grow a garden like this. The cards just seemed to fall into place and we ended up on three acres with access to irrigation and were told that we could do whatever we wanted with the empty land. I felt like I won the lottery and immediatly fell into planning our first garden here in the mountains. We used leftover fencing from the previous tenents to lay out the first garden area and chicken coop. When we were done outlining everything I thought the garden was plenty big. I never would have imagined it to have gotten as big as it is today. That first garden was my first forays into constructing hoop houses, using straw for mulch and raising chickens. I read as much as I could that first year, and I still find myself referring back to those same books year after year just to brush up on plant spacing, companion planting and various other gardening methods that I want to try.
That first year was my first real experiences in preserving my harvests as I made my first batches of pickles, tomato sauce and salsa. It was also the first time in my life that I had ever gathered fresh eggs from my own chickens.
After that first year the garden took on a life of it's own. It started out as the act of growing some of my own food, but after tasting the goodness of things that I grew by my own hand, I wanted nothing but homegrown food in my diet. That led me to making the garden bigger year after year to see if growing almost all of my own food for the year was even possible. This year I expect that we will come close to growing enough of most of our favorite crops to last us a full year.
The chickens also started in much the same way. I just wanted to see how hard it was to raise chickens myself. I had no idea I would enjoy having them so much. The fresh eggs are delicious and the occasional rooster that has become a meal tasted better than anything I have ever bought from the store. I decided I wanted more of them too. I wanted to grow enough chickens that I wouldn't have to buy them from the store, but right now I don't have the space for a flock that big. Maybe someday when we build a good sized coop I will make this a reality.
I wanted to be able to grow more of my chicken's food as well. That is why I have planted so much corn, sunflowers, squash and beans. They already get to eat any leftovers and garden trimmings we might have to supplement their feed. I figure if I could supplement their feed with my homegrown things, then we could save a little more money in feed costs while at the same time providing them with high quality fresh foods straight from the back yard. In turn, they contribute to the compost pile with thier bedding and droppings, and help rid the garden of bugs and weeds when I let them loose at the end of summer. It is a complete cycle in the food chain and it's all in my backyard.
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