Before Ryan and I married in 2006, the Lord laid it on our hearts to find a piece of land and live as self-sustaining as possible. Within a year’s time, we had purchased the 4 acres we are on now. The land came with a 1977 mobile home (yes, 1977)! We were poor and had barely any budget and chose to remodel the mobile home. We had absolutely no idea what we were doing, but we gave it all we had!
Before our first anniversary, we had remodeled the mobile home enough to make it comfortable for our family of five and plowed and planted our first garden!
We started small and had surprising success, and that success kindled the fire to learn more. All three kids were still at home and our budget was tight. We used free and found resources like bamboo from my grandmother’s property and reused fence and t-posts.
I had read about composting and we started our first compost pile. For the four years that we lived on our property, our compost pile didn’t really “compost” much. I learned just this past year that it’s best not to place a compost pile near pine trees. The pine tree contains terpenes that when washed down by rain, have an inhibiting effect on seed germination and the composting process. As you can see from the picture below, our compost pile was almost directly under a large pine. Oops!
I began really studying companion planting and learned all that I could from public television and HGTV. My favorite shows were Fresh from the Garden with Joe Lamp’l on the DIY Network, Gardening in Georgia, and The Georgia Gardener with Walter Reeves. Gardening by the Yard with Paul James was another favorite. I watched everything they offered and learned so much. To this day, I continue to learn from Joe Lamp’l from his weekly podcast and his current television show, Growing A Greener World.
I visited my local county extension office and loaded up on all of the free gardening publications. There were tons of gardening advice prepared from the University of Georgia that applied specifically to my gardening area. Helpful planting charts, gardening planners, and brochures that went into great detail about how to garden successfully were just a few of the available resources. Eventually, I learned that the University of Georgia had a list of downloadable PDF files on their site so I saved them all to my computer. They can be found here. I have many of these documents printed and kept in my annual garden planner for quick references on planting dates and specific suggested plant varieties. I’m sure other states have similar resources.
I scoured the internet for resources and blogs (blogs were just becoming a thing back in 2007) and absorbed everything I could find on gardening.
We have a local festival in our area called the Cherry Blossom Festival. One of the events is an annual Used Book Sale. Ryan and I attended and I was so enamored with what I found, that I attend every book sale I can get to now. We purchased used books on gardening, homesteading, living off the land, raising animals, survival, food storage, all of the things that the Lord had put on our hearts. I learned that anything published by Rodale contained information I wanted to know about gardening organically and working with nature.
Over the next four years, we expanded and experimented. Side by side, we planned, planted, and dreamed. During those early years together, we never imagined how the things that Yahweh was teaching us then, would become such a force in our lives and the lives of those we love in this day and time.
Even though we were living a healthier lifestyle, my health took a turn for the worse. That’s a story for another day though.
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