Tip of the day

You don’t have to rush into planting all at once.  For years, I would plant my entire garden in one day.  While I felt a great sense of accomplishment, I was so exhausted by the end of the day that it wasn’t fun anymore.  Then I discovered Sharon Astyk’s Independence Day Challenge.  The basic idea is to make one step each day to move you closer to a more independent lifestyle.  I realized that if I planted one thing each day, then I was making progress.  Now, I can’t always plant something each day.  Sometimes it is raining, sometimes I’m not feeling well, but having this liberty inspires me to plant more than I would have otherwise.  In fact, planting determinate crops (crops that come ripe pretty much all at once) as a succession crop (some seeds one week, some seeds two weeks from that time) you will have a more bountiful harvest.  Give it a try—you might be surprised at how much you plant over the course of a year.  Check out my Independence Days label on the left-hand column if you’d like to see what I’ve been up to in the garden and what steps we’ve taken towards independence over the last year.