Re-thinking Our Food Patterns

When you homestead for a few years you fall in to a natural rhythm of when and what you do. The seasons come and go and you repeat the patterns of each season. Each season we add a few projects and they become part of our rhythm and pattern. We are busy identifying the new projects we should add, but we are also re-thinking our patterns and rhythms of raising our own food. 

Our food patterns for our geographic area involve planting in the Spring and harvesting in the Summer and either canning or freezing fruits and veggies. Our diet has been heavily focused on protein and starches with the fruit and veggies adding variety and flavor. How much we grow and preserve is based on this level of consumption. For our family of 10, we preserve about 1200 jars/packages.

We have been shifting our diet to be more focused on protein and veggies. This change is for a variety of reasons, but we have realized how much closer this diet will bring us to producing all of our own food. With our increased consumption we would need 3 times our current level of preservation or we need to re-think the pattern. In re-thinking the pattern we are focusing on three things: 

1) extending our fresh harvest season by packing the hoop house full of cold hardy vegetables to be harvested as needed;

2) growing more throughout our normal season by taking out rows of finished items and re-planting; and

3) growing more squash and corn as starchy veggies to fill our diet. 

Focusing on these three goals has significantly increased my gardening time. I spend about 25 to 30 hours per week weeding, removing rows, and planting. This does not count the time I spend harvesting, planning, researching, and ordering seeds. My husband maintains a separate garden and spend about 10 to 12 hours per week weeding and managing water. The kids and I do almost all the planting for that garden. The children also contribute a few hours each week to weeding. 

During the last few weeks I have been starting my Fall garden seeds in my little greenhouse and transplanting seedlings to the garden. I put in brussel sprouts and two more rows of cabbage.  I ripped out the peas and started 3 new rows. I plan on at least one more planting of peas in the garden and one in the hoop house. I have also put together a detailed planting plan for the hoop house for winter.

I have had to completely re-think how we do things and it takes a lot of time upfront to make these changes. In seasons to come it will be part of my rhythm and pattern and I won't have to think as hard about it. 

The garden is doing fabulous and my motto this year has been - plant carrots anywhere there is room! We are also working on some new projects l hope to write about soon.