I are blogger.

I'm creating this blog mostly as a diary of gardening activities. It's meant more for my own use than anything else. There probably won't be much entertainment value here for most people...

In case anyone else is reading, here is a little about this project.

In the fall of 2009 I decided I wanted to try semi-large scale veggie farming. The largest vegetable garden I've ever had has been about 3000 square feet. I wasn't ready to go commercial but I settled on something around a half acre.

A good friend of mine, Bruce Urie, is letting me fence off part of a field for this project. It's part hay field and part pasture so it's flat enough to garden on but also has the benefits of electric fence and water line already run. It's also a nicely isolated back field so that when I make stupid mistakes no one will see them!

Bruce and his wife, Betty also own Stillmeadow Gardens and are also helping out with growing starts, spreading compost, and giving a lot of patient advice. Really if it wasn't for their support I would not be doing this.

Throughout the winter I have been reading up on types of veggies available from different seed suppliers. I settled on buying from High Mowing Seeds for a few reasons. First and foremost, they have a great reputation in the organic seed business. While my garden won't be certified, it's going to be grown organically and I feel better starting with seeds that come from plants that can hold their own without too much chemical help. Secondly, HMS is located within 15 miles of where I'm going to be growing, so a lot of these seeds are already tried and true in the area.

There are a few products that HMS either does not carry or don't have this year due to crop failures. I've been using Seed Savers to fill in these spaces. I also ordered a few odd hot peppers from them that catch my eye year after year. They won't get a lot of garden space but should be interesting to grow.

I use a lot of vegetables each year in canning, freezing and fresh eating but not nearly as many as I'm going to be growing! I knew I needed something to do with my overflow, but I didn't want to sell it. There are too many unknowns as far as what I'll be able to grow well for me to market it effectively ahead of time. Besides, I do enough marketing at work. I decided to give my extra to the Vermont Food Bank instead.

I quickly fell in love with this idea and got much more excited about the whole project as a result. At this point the garden is mostly planned around their demand for various produce.

Though the food bank will normally take what people are willing to give, Theresa Snow has been working with me to identify areas with the strongest demand. There's some stuff that they get a lot of and so I'm only growing enough for my own use. Other things, like tomatoes, are "real gems" as Theresa puts it and I am growing a lot of extra.

Hopefully this project will help feed some people who need it and also gives me a real market with real preferences so that a get a little practice with that side of things too. On the flip side, if I screw it all up and grow the wrong things, it still will be put to good use (other than in my compost pile).

So that's how I got where I am. At this point the garden is mostly planned, the seeds have been ordered and I'm just waiting for Spring to get a little closer!