Planting time is just around the bend!

Winter is finally officially here and yet there is no snow to be found.  As we come to the end of the year, we sit here around the table at our homestead and we discuss what plants we are going to be planting this year, which month to begin our seedlings and where we should build our green house so it has enough light until we transfer our seeds. In the next month we will be making a list of all the seeds we have and what seeds we need in order to plant a large garden to supply our family with enough food to last until the next season , with the cost of food continuing to rise we try to teach our children the benefits to all our hard work, and by growing our own produce we do not have to question whats in it, nor do we wonder where it came from!  No GMO's on this homestead, just natural organic seeds grown in the earth that we are provided with and animal compost. 
Everyone's needs are different so the amount we plant may be very different from your homestead but cucumbers are a must for us, the children love homemade pickles and relish and they are always the first item we run out of on the homestead. Tomatoes and squash are tied for second as the garlic is already in the ground, even though we only got 86 bulbs planted this year it will have to do as we did not have enough time to rip a large area before frost came. On top of that we are trying to begin some Apricot trees and Cherry trees from seed so we have them outside in pots in hopes that they will sprout in spring, sure they will take 3-5 years before producing us with any fruit but it will be well worth it to have our own trees.
  Moving here was a quick and overly rushed decision and therefore we were unable to bring our greenhouse structure with us but it was made quite simply and kept the heat in enough that during spring and summer you would literally sweat buckets, so we will try to make a larger replica of our old design.  Here on the homestead cheap and simple is the best way to go, so we tend to re-use a lot of items in order to suffice.

---