The seed catalogs are pouring in spilling over my desk and into my floor. I have searched a dozen, three or four times already, highlighting that which I love most. My goodness how gorgeous are the photos of the Baker Creek catalog, how lovely the descriptions in Pinetree Seeds catalog, how practical the plants for my area in Southern Exposures Catalog, and how very inexpensive the seeds in Morgan County seeds. It makes it all so hard to decide!

To be fair, deciding on seeds, fertilizer, and any other things for gardening usually takes an age for me. First, I go through and find out how much I already have to plant. I take an inventory of sorts. I have found NUMEROUS herbs to plant, several packets of summer squash and pole beans. I probably don’t need one more packet of them! However I have zero bush beans!!! So after my inventory of type of seed and how many, I do look to see what I have absolutely nothing of or not enough for this growing season, like my bush beans. I put that on the top of my priority list of “Things to get before March”. This is important, because a lot of seed houses will be in full rush season in just a week or two.

Then I got through my inventory and see what I do not have for next growing season that I need. Need is the operative word here. Do I need flowers? No. Do I need onion seeds or sets? Yes. We eat onions daily almost. This is on my list to get through out the year. Last year, I was trying to get this list fulfilled just about anywhere and found it very trying. I topped it off at a local gas station that had seed savers vegetable seeds for sale off in a corner somewhere. I still don’t have everything obviously, but it would have been a lot worse if I hadn’t been searching all of 2021.

Finally, I make my list of “nice to have” Nice to have for me is plants like sea kale. I had it once, it didn’t do very well for me, and while it’s still on my list to establish, it’s not a priority. Other “nice to have” things are perennial broccoli, tree collards, and things. It won’t make or break my food garden if it’s not planted, but I would like them there to reduce my worries.

My current top priorities for getting seeds and tubers for are; bush beans, potatoes, onion seeds (I have one packet, not enough for the year), popcorn, sweet potatoes, and some winter squash. I have a plethora of tomatoes, summer squash, egg plant, lettuce, cucumbers, herbs, hot peppers, carrots, turnips, radishes, mustard, arugula, chard, and pole beans. With what I have I could probably plant enough to harvest enough veggies to make 52 freezer meals of eggplant parmesan, 52 freezer meals of zoodles and pesto, and perhaps enough for 52 pints of carrots, tomato sauce, pickles, and pickled hot peppers. Not exactly enough for a year of eating to be certain. It only gives me 2/7 of the dinners, a few nights of sides, and a couple snacks.

With Inflation the garden will be more important than it has been

in a decade. Many years ago, most of our food was grown here on our ten acres. We didn’t have work or food stamps. We had no vehicle. We were literally scratching out a living. We did have goats, chickens, a pig, fruit trees, and a huge annual garden though. We managed after 2015 to pull ourselves out of only having home grown and home cooked food available. Back then, our home and land were our main source of calories that was supplemented with an annual purchase of bulk rice and beans that were delivered to our door.

Although we are making five times what we made a month from selling on Ebay back then, we are facing the same financial strains. Why? Are we spending way too much? Well, we are paying for a vehicle which would free up 20% of our monthly income without that payment, but we would also have no way to get to work or anything else including the grocery store because we are so rural. We have no rent or mortgage. We have basic utilities and some small credit card debt. We have less than $2,500 in credit card debt.

To be fair, I do not believe we spend too much compared to other Americans, but it is clear that we do for our income. Some reasons why is that payments on some things have doubled in price. Fixed debt like our truck payment is the same, but variable interest rate debt has doubled their monthly payments. We are making those. We would like to pay those off as soon as possible. Our utilities have increased by almost 30% due to price increases. We are cutting down our usage, but not 30% down and so we must either cut further there or cut elsewhere.

Food prices have literally shot up through the stratosphere. I could buy two pounds of sugar for $1 last year. This year it is $1.85. I could buy 12 half ounce servings of pork rinds for $1.50 last year and this year 4 half ounce servings are $3. This is why the garden will be our most important aspect of saving money this year. I hope to finish my seed lists and garden plans by the end of the week, so that I can order everything we need. From there I will draw up a work plan to make sure I get everything in the ground, fertilized, weeded, harvested, and preserved on time. It’s going to be like a fulltime job, but it’s what I will have to do in order to avoid the grocery store as much as possible.