he garden is where we learn by doing. There is sunshine, hard work, experimentation, and the steady joy of watching small efforts become something we can gather and eat. A tiny seed becomes a plant that keeps giving, and sometimes produces thousands of seeds to save for another season. Gardening keeps us grounded, reminds us that big efforts pay off, and that anyone can learn - being in the garden gives us a front-row seat to witness God's quiet miracles.

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Kratky Hydroponics

Seed Starting & Saving

Garden Design

omegrown food can look a little bizarre sometimes. Carrots may come out twisted, looking like tiny trolls. Tomatoes can have blemishes, funny rings, and cracks. Peppers may grow little warts, and one particular radish may appear to be wearing leggings. We could talk for days about why these things happen and what might need to be added to the soil and that is part of the learning process, but the bottom line is simple: this is food I grew myself, and it tastes delicious. It is not market-perfect with a sticker on it, coated to be shiny or last longer, bred for perfect uniformity of shape and color. This is our food. We know where it came from. We watched it grow from seed to harvest. We know what went into the soil and what did not. We know what we used to fertilize and treat for pests, and what we did not. It may look a little ugly sometimes, but it is ours, and that is gratifying. We don't use any synthetic chemiclas in the garden. For fertilizer we use aged chicken manure, horse or rabbit manure, homemade compost, crushed eggshells, mycorrhizal powder, and comfrey tea. For pest control we utilize diatomaceous earth, copper fungicide, companion planting, and other natural methods. This year we are learning how to use the nurse log technique, a natural approach inspired by forests, where fallen or decaying logs become “nurse logs” that support new plant growth. Instead of removing old wood, gardeners use partially decomposed logs as a growing base, allowing them to slowly release nutrients, retain moisture, improve soil structure to provide a habitat for beneficial organisms. Some of my favorite YouTube gardeners and homesteaders that have influenced me along the way include: Off Grid with Doug and Stacy, The Millennial Gardener, The Gardening Channel With James Prigioni, More Than Farmers, BD Home & Garden, and The Good Earth Farm Channel, just to name a few. Tap into all that incredible knowledge!

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Youtube.com/@OFFGRIDwithDOUGSTACY

Youtube.com/@TheMillennialGardener

Youtube.com/@jamesprigioni

Youtube.com/@morethanfarmers

Youtube.com/@BDHOmeGarden

Youtube.com/@TheGoodEarthFarmChannel

Seed Starting

We start in mid-winter in zone 7a, in a little unheated porch off the side of our storage trailer using the solo cup method on a couple of wire shelving units and seedling heat mats, simple LED shop lights (instead of expensive grow lights), and a bunch of plastic trays. We like to order non-GMO heirloom varieties from our favorite seed companies, like True Leaf Market and Seed Savers Exchange. The great part about starting your veggies from seed is it's very economical - compared to a single $6 tomato plant at a big box store in May, I can get a 250 mg pack of tomato seeds for $4.50, which contains 45-90 seeds. If they're good quality seeds, the germination rate is 85-95%. Started about 6-8 weeks indoors before the last frost date, that's a whole lot of tomato plants for under $5. And a whole LOT of tomatoes by mid-summer. The fun part about starting your veggies from seed, is you can choose crazy heirloom varieties that you won't be able to find at the nursery - with names like Green Zebra, Purple Haze, and Kellogg's Breakfast. The colors and flavors are like nothing your grocery store can offer. There's nothing like the taste of a home-grown tomato, picked at the peak of ripeness and warm from the sun - not even comparable to store-bought. We start our peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes this same way. Everything else I direct-sew when the weather is right. Sure, there are startup costs - seedling heat mats cost about $10, LED shop lights about $50, a few packages of solo cups, some trays to keep the cups in (such as dish pans, litter boxes, shallow storage tote, etc), seed starter mix (or a mix of peat moss, perlite, and vermiculite in equal parts.) But overall the cost is small compared to purchasing nursery plants year after year, and most items can be used for years to come. You don't need a lot of space either - this can be done in any room of the house, even a closet, a garage, a basement. You don't need a lot of space to grow food, even container gardening is becoming popular for people that only have a porch or a closet to spare. Start small, little by little, and you'll be surprised at what you can accomplish.

Seed Saving

Seed saving is one of the quietest and most rewarding ways to become more connected to your garden. Each harvest offers the possibility of carrying a little piece of this season into the next, preserving not only seeds, but also the story of what grew well in your own soil. It can also reduce the cost of buying new seed every year.

We learn by sticking our hands in the soil, watching what takes root, and sharing our honest experiments from seed to harvest. Join us as we explore new methods and cherish old traditions.

Resources...

Solo Cup method for seed starting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed8OR49Bj4k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS_OK_9swY4

LED Shop light setup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoVgSLNpzEM

Our favorite seed companies..

True Leaf Market trueleafmarket.com

Seed Savers Exchange seedsavers.org

Sow True Seed sowtrueseed.com

Cornell and other Cooperative Extension sources describe how locally saved seed may gradually become better adapted to a particular soil, microclimate, and growing season when gardeners repeatedly select and save seed from their most successful plants. The process is simple:

Buy seed → grow it → observe your garden → save the best → grow those seeds → save the best again → repeat.

When you save seeds from the healthiest and most productive plants, you are choosing those qualities to carry forward. Over several generations, this becomes a small form of amateur plant breeding, not the highly technical kind, but a patient, hands-on process of selecting plants that thrive specifically where you live. Over time, you may begin seeing qualities such as vigor, productivity, disease resistance, good flavor, and resilience in newer generations of plants.

Eventually, you may develop something rather special: tomatoes that are not simply a fun variety purchased from a seed company, but a locally adapted seed line shaped by your own garden and growing conditions.

In generations past, families often saved seed from their best plants and passed it down from one generation to the next. Sometimes those seeds remained within the same family for decades, carried from one garden to another and carefully grown, selected, and saved again. A family’s tomatoes, beans, or flowers became more than plants; they became living connections to the people and places that came before them. That is the fascinating promise of seed saving: a small, practical step toward a more self-sufficient garden, and a living legacy passed from one harvest to the next.

I’ve always enjoyed finding simple ways to grow more of our own food, and I wanted to experiment with growing a little something indoors through the winter. What I didn’t want was a complicated hydroponic system with pumps, filters, hoses, and a long list of equipment to maintain. Then I discovered the Kratky method, and it seemed almost too simple to work. We started with an inexpensive Home Depot storage tote that we modified with a hole saw (attaches to an ordinary hand drill and cuts a clean circular hole), a few net pots, and some liquid hydroponic nutrients. We were absolutely thrilled with the results. That little tote garden keeps us well supplied with fresh lettuce and herbs all winter long. Our favorites to grow are lettuce, spinach, parsley, and basil, and the minimal cost and effort have been so worthwhile.

The Kratky method is a wonderfully simple, passive way to grow plants without soil, pumps, or complicated equipment. The plants sit in net pots above a container of nutrient-rich water, allowing their roots to reach down into the solution as they grow. It takes very little space, making it a great choice for a sunny corner, kitchen window, porch, greenhouse, or even a small indoor growing area. For those of us who enjoy the satisfaction of raising some of our own food, it’s especially nice to have a way to keep the garden producing when the outdoor beds are resting for winter. With an inexpensive storage tote, a few net pots, and the right nutrients, you can create a simple little indoor garden that provides fresh greens and herbs when there’s not much growing outside. Sometimes, growing a little more of your own food doesn’t have to be complicated—it just takes a willingness to give something new a try.