Today I posted a video sharing our launch of the new kitchen garden:
Daisy and I are working on this space together, as it will be both a place for growing food for the table and for saving seeds for her plant nursery. The other kids are helping here and there as well, especially the little ones who like to be wherever we are.
After the events in today’s video, we got more kids together and cleared a larger piece of the Sidewalk to Nowhere. Daisy and I also built a couple more beds and paths that connect with the first one we built.
The heat has made working outside unpleasant, but we are getting some done in the morning and evening as we can. But mid-day in an Alabama summer is terrible! Even the mornings are so humid that your shirt is soaked with sweat after minimal exertion. Fortunately, in a few months, the weather will be great and we can work all day.
Experiencing the heat of a Deep South summer makes fall all the nicer when it arrives.
The idea of meandering paths through a cottage garden / kitchen garden is appealing to me. I don’t have to make a big garden all at once here. We can take our time and use permanent materials so it looks beautiful. The pieces of slab and bricks we’ve been finding in the woods make nice pathways. It’s time-consuming, but we’re making it happen.
One bite at a time.
On our previous properties, we were too constrained by weirdly planned spaces that we had to suffer through as renters.
Here we can walk out from the kitchen, through a little porch and into the garden. We don’t have to walk down stairs and around to the backyard, or walk a hundred feet through the trees to get to our garden, or, like we did at one rental, walk a block and a half to the garden we were growing on borrowed land.
We are planting a garden in the space most convenient to the kitchen. Previously, it was a fenced area full of a half-dozen dogs. Now we are readapting it.
I, for one, am tired of buying produce! A few months of moving is no good for gardening. In a few weeks, we should have a decent fall garden going, then by some time in October we ought to be getting harvests for the kitchen again.
10 responses to “The Kitchen Garden Begins”
DTG loved the video you’ve been my goto plantsman for about 3 years now and just wanted to say thanks for the content you provide that’s been helping and will help me and my family when the inevitable happens.
I do often wonder why you don’t take sponsorship I’ve seen fairly new channels get them and they don’t get as many views or have the community or the longevity you’ve had. Just a thought
My books are what I believe in and like to promote. Long ago I had to write advertising copy, and was constrained by contract to sell things I sometimes didn’t like or believe in. By taking the ad money, I am beholden to a company, and I’d rather not. It doesn’t pay that well anyhow. I’m already compromised enough by taking the ad money from Google Ads, which runs whatever random thing it wants at the beginning of my videos.
Though I might be tempted if someone wanted to send me a tractor.
We loved watching the family create this space, it was a fun video! Everything I’ve seen on using cardboard always says to remove any of the packing tape, but in true DtG fashion you left it on. We’re about to foray into using it to try and suppress Bermuda grass so we were glad to see you leaving it on!
Thanks, David. I try to take some or all of it off, but if it’s a pain, I leave it. Eventually the cardboard rots and we can pull it out if we find it again.
Love your lifestyle and planting concepts….keep up the good work,.
What I’m wanting to do is buy from Daisys seed selections…but am having a difficult time finding the the right location on your website…
Everglade tomatoes…
She is here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/GoodGardens
I have an 8″ john deere tractor still in the package.
I agree on the weather. Don’t let the garden tasks overwhelm you. We have a 30×80 spot between the baby tomato and herb garden and the row garden that never got worked last year and a constant morning glory issue. Tennessee’s subfreezing winter nights will stop all the weed growth. Plus make for cool all day working conditions. Even ½ a day twice a week is plenty of time while the weed growth is near zero.
“8” John Deere” – I laughed out loud.
That’s a nice path through the garden but you really shouldn’t have moved those gravestones.
“That’ll come back to haunt you…”