Garden Planning, 2021...Part 1
We've been gardening on this piece of land for about 25 years now. Some years, we've grown a really high percentage of what we eat. We grow less now, for a few reasons.
Vermin. Mostly, deer. When we first moved here, we never saw them. Now, they are a constant, and really destructive. There is very little here that grows naturally that they want. This is the prairie, and it's mostly grasses. Deer are browsers, preferring non-grassy plants like trees and shrubs, so they spend their time ravaging gardens and landscaping. If you can't tell, I'm not a big fan. We also have things like birds and gophers and bugs that do their own damage, but nothing like the deer. We have to garden in fenced, covered spaces now - partly due to weather, mostly due to deer. We also have some space around the edge of our basement walkout where we have herbs planted. It's not covered, but so far, the deer have not walked down the stairs to eat my parsley. So far.
Weather. The last few years, we have had chilly springtimes, and a random late frost or two. We get a lot more hail than we used to get, and we've been having random frosts early, toward the end of our season. Last season we had a killing frost in early September, and then warm, gorgeous weather until early November, but it didn't matter - everything was already dead.
Cost. We have some options here to get produce at low prices year round. Some of that is the supermarkets, and we have a store that is marketed as a "farmer's market" but it's more of a small supermarket that is half produce. It's called Sprouts, and I love it. They have great sale prices and the quality has been good overall. This is also a dry climate, and it is more dry now than it was when we moved here. It's not so much that water costs us a lot - we have a well, and our cost to operate it is low. Still, the amount of water we would have to use in ratio to our results...with the possibility of damage from weather or vermin, it gets to be more of a risk.
These are the over-arching factors that determine how much we will garden this season. Next time, I'll share our plans for what we are growing this year.
Will you be growing things this year? What factors do you consider when you're planning your garden?
Comments
We are growing pretty much every veggie we can, and will start seeds soon for things like tomatoes and peppers. We don't do good with melons, though, so probably won't even try this year. Since we are in town now, I don't do great with vining winter squash--not enough room. But, I'm still experimenting with our little city lot and shall see what I figure out in the future.
We have deer and we enjoy watching them; however, when they get out of hand, during hunting season, my husband puts them in my freezer.
My brother lives in a subdivision and he had a problem with deer. He got a gizmo from off of the internet which is a motion detector that attaches to his garden hose. When the deer get too close, the sprinkler shoots them. Of course, it also got his cat and him when he mowed his yard.
Jeanie@GetMeToTheCountry