Planning and planting for spring!

Over the winter I have been thinking about what are our family farm/garden goals. The kids want to grow some different things and I want to grow more. Period. We eat alot and I want to can, dry, preserve, freeze and be able to eat as much as we can! 

I love January and February because I can dream, and plan without actually doing the work yet....That makes it really fun to let my imagination go (or in this case grow) wild! Due to some changes in our area we were forced to move our chickens and now have twice the garden space as before. That means I can plant and grow twice as much!

 We need to grow enough to feed most of our animals....The total number of mouths to feed keeps growing, but that doesn't deter me from making plans. Where the chicken yard was, the soil will be quite rich, and have partial shade in the afternoon.We dumped about 4 yards of wood chips over the area and have already transplanted some perennials and planted some buckwheat and broccoli.  I'm excited to try some more cool season things and plant them over there, and with more full sun space available I can add twice as many starts and seeds as before. 

Lil man helping spread wood chips over the beds. 

We follow the Ed Hume Gardening and Planting Calendar, so we started some cool season and flower seeds in the middle of February. These little babies are nice little sprouts right now. 

Some of our tomatoes starts. We started 8 different varieties, I'm getting excited when I think about all the fresh, yummy tomatoes we can eat, and making sauces!