Amy DeGrado

Your post really spoke to spoke to me. I've upped my gardening game the last few years, and since about June I've been thinking, "this land needs to rest." So in early September I gathered the last of my harvest and walked away. Maybe I need a rest too? My friends and neighbors know that I usually garden year round, so when they have asked me what I'm planting for fall I see the strange looks when I tell them that I'm giving my land a break. I don't know when I'll go back, maybe spring, maybe I'll wait a whole year. All I'm certain of is that for now, we're both resting. Our land takes such good care of us, I want to know that I'm taking good care of it too. I want my land to depend on me to give it what it needs, just as we depend on it to give us what we need. It feels right to give my land some time to itself, a few seasons when we aren't always working on it, so it can do what it wants. I've been thinking a good bit about that passage of scripture, and even though it's not my seventh year it feels like the right time to give the garden space to renew itself.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. It was lovely to see my recent musings echoed on this page.

Hi Anne, yes I do companion planting and I've had good success with it. And I've planted marigolds around my squash in the past. This year I planted marigolds 3 times and they never came up! My husband and I have a joke that I am an enthusiastic but inconsistent gardener. My method is usually to plant so many vegetables that even when something fails we still have plenty of other stuff. And then I barter with my neighbors for the stuff that I wasn't able to grow.

Hi everyone! My name is Amy and my family homesteads on 75 acres in Central Mississippi. We've been at it for about 17 years. We've got an orchard with lots of fruit/nut trees, dairy cows, pigs, chickens, goats, ducks, rabbits, and bees. We've also got a veggie garden. My main area of interest is leaving our land better than we found it. My dream is that whoever lives here after me will inherit land with clean water, healthy soil, and mature trees. We're first generation farmers, and so much of our time (and money) has been spent on infrastructure. I'd like the next family to live here to have the advantage of stepping on to a productive homestead without missing a beat.

My goal for the upcoming year is to plant more trees - our land is mostly pasture, and we desperately need the shade. Another goal is to grow enough food that I have plenty to provide for my community. I have a big garden, and it's been reasonably successful, but when crops fail I don't always know why. In the past I've just shrugged my shoulders and started over. I'd like to develop a deeper understanding of the "why" so that I can stop replanting squash 5 times before I have a harvest. My garden has always been feast or famine. In the last 5 years I've gotten better, but I still have a lot of room for improvement.

I'm thankful for this site, and I am looking forward to getting to know you all while we learn together.

Amy