Elizabeth Beadles

:wave:

Hey there! I'm located in Gibson County, but we also garden in Vandeburgh County. Due to our wonderful small towns restrictions, we can't do much with animals/livestock. I'm a total newbie to gardening, but I'm going for a polyculture type garden this year and I'm trying to find some trees to put in our yard to maximize our small properties yield. I'll sub to your channel when I get a few minutes on my phone!

Good question.

I think that self-sufficiency is real and very important, BUT I believe that many have misunderstood this to be a lonely journey, which it isn't. Self-sufficiency is about aligning yourself with a support system that you also contribute to.

Permaculture relies on a community within nature, and I believe that human beings thrive better within a community too.

So I think I personally draw the line at whatever is too much for our household to achieve. We live within city limits, so we are unable to keep livestock. We don't have tons of room for trees. We have excellent soil quality though, and so we can grow lots of vegetables, enough to feed at least one whole other family.

Alder Burns wrote:It might be that with beds as small as you've got you can reach in from the outside and clip off the heads and leave the rest of the stalks standing there as a trellice for the beans....

I'm thinking this may be a possibility. Possibly, for the sake of experiment, we may put a couple pole bean plants in this plot once the grains have started to shoot up.

We have a plot in our front yard that is approximately 7'x5' that I hoped to plant some amaranth and/or quinoa in. I didn't realize that amaranth was considered a weed and now I'm concerned that the two will compete too much? Haha, I really don't know much about this kind of thing.

Anyways, on the other side of the porch is another 7'x5' section that currently has some russian red kale, would it be a bad idea to plant some kind of grain there?

I've been searching and reading about different ideas, but I'm curious if anyone has experience using a grain plant like amaranth or quinoa as part of the "three sisters". I'm very new to gardening, so I just want to clarify - would a pole bean be best or could this be a good way to support half-runner beans?

I grew up as a tomboy who thought gardening in all forms was "girly" and "stupid". Once I grew up and moved out of my parent's home and got married, I became really interested in sustainability and nutrition. This has blossomed into a real passion for learning about all things gardening, permaculture, farming, and homesteading. I put down my magazines and now I read seed catalogs while I jot down notes like it's a school book.

My husband has always been the one to deal with gardening things, and his knowledge is just passed down bits from his grandfather's before him. This year, he will be working very hard and won't have much time to dedicate to our garden. I have a lot of book knowledge (and I'm gaining more all the time), but I don't have much hands on practice.

I'll probably have a lot of questions and I'm excited to have lots of people here who just might have some answers