Feeding Your Family From the Garden

Last spring, I was giving someone a ride and in the back of my Jeep I had an assortment of plants.  They asked if I needed help planting the garden.  For me, planting is not a one time event.  I'm always planting something because my goal is to always have something to harvest from the garden.

Most people are hobby gardeners and there truly is no more rewarding hobby.  But can gardening really provide food for you family year round?  Is it affordable and possible? This has been my goal the last 16 years in New Harmony.  

The key to being able to feed your family from your garden instead of the grocery store involves four elements:

1.  Being aware of proper planting times and utilizing cool and warm season crops

Seed Planting Schedule

2.   Providing crop protection so you can plant earlier

3. Utilize succession planting

4.  Intensive planting

In my area most gardeners hit the garden centers around Memorial Day and plant the garden in one day. Don't misunderstand nothing is wrong with that, I just have a more extensive vision.


Gardening season never ends in my mind.  Four season gardening and succession planting provides our family with continual harvests.  Canning, drying, and freezing help of the winter months and hunger gap. We raise chickens for eggs, a couple pigs, and milk goats for milk, yogurt, and cheese. While we are not independent of the grocery store, a large part of our diet is home grown.

So while most people plant once. I am always harvesting and planting and weeding except in the winter then I am pouring over seed catalogs and planning out the following year.

If time and interest are concerns then gardening as a hobby in the summer is great but, yes, you absolutely can eat year round from a garden.  It is very rewarding and delicious experience. With the prices in the grocery store on the rise, it is also much more affordable.  The health benefits and safety of your food are also a bonus. Flavor is what will get you hooked and keep you hooked on producing your own food.  Whether home grown veggies, fruits, or meat there is no comparison.

This approach requires more planning and planting.  It starts with you seed order.  You need to have enough seeds of crops you plan on continually harvesting.  Cool season crops can be planted in early spring and then again in late summer with minimal protection and you have fall harvests.  Certain crops like carrots and beets can be seeded every couple weeks until the end of May and then seeded in late summer for fall harvests.  Carrots and beets harvested in fall overwinter in your refrigerator giving you fresh carrots and beets through the winter.  Other good crops to store for winter meals are potatoes, winter squash, rutabagas, kohlrabi, and parsnips.

How to Have Continual Harvests

Row Covers

So to those like minded individuals who enjoy the lifestyle of self-reliance and provident living dig in and enjoy the satisfaction and fulfillment that comes from providing as much of your own food as possible. So spend less time in grocery store and more time in the garden.  Get those seed catalogs and a calendar and start planning!