There's Never Been A Better Time to Start A Garden!

With all the craziness in the world right now, there has never been a better time to start a garden!  Now, you don't have to have a green thumb...all you have to be able to do is read.  Read seed packets, read plant tabs on starts, read a book about beginner gardening, or even just look up back yard vegetable gardening on Pinterest.

Some soil, a seed, a little water and sunlight will give you food for your family without having to rely on anyone else for your survival.  It's an amazing feeling to grow your own food!  And now that we've seen how quickly the store shelves can emtpy, it's has become a necessary skill set as well. 

I wrote a blog post a while back about how we made our raised beds for gardening.  You can read all about it HERE.  
We grow food all year long from just a couple of beds for our family of seven.  And even though we can sustain ourselves with our raised beds, I thought it might be a good idea to expand our growing space just a bit more during this uncertain time. 

I don't need anymore permanent garden beds, but I can increase our growing space temporarily by growing plants in five gallon buckets.

Our back porch will hold several buckets with tomatoes, squash, chard, and a few more bean and pepper plants.

It's a super simple process.  Just head down to your local big box store and purchase your buckets.  Drill a couple of holes in the bottom of the buckets for drainage.  Fill the bottom fourth of your buckets with yard waste: sticks, rocks, leaves, whatever you have to encourage drainage.  Next, fill buckets with a good potting soil and then plant your seeds or plant starts.  Make sure your plants get 6-8 hours of sunshine daily and water as needed.

I pray we are never in a true food supply crisis, but if we were, this set up could supply you with a safe and reliable source. If nothing else, try your hand at growing a tomato and/or a pepper plant in a couple of buckets and see how it goes...a home grown, vine ripened tomato tastes better than anything you could buy at the store anyway!