Our seedlings have been started, and the sprouts are looking great! I hope that Memorial Day weekend we will be able to plant them in our gardens. I love to garden. When I was a child, I remember my dad and grandpa always had a big garden. My favorite was the peas and tomatoes. Picking a sun ripened tomato off the vine and eating it right there on the spot just makes me feel so good.
We currently have four raised beds that my husband built two years ago. At first we had a huge garden in the middle of the horse pasture, that was until the "great corn massacre". We put up an electric fence, but never turned it on because the horses always respected the electric wire.
I guess temptation got the best of them, because one afternoon when I got home from work, I saw my happy horses munching away on the almost ripened sweet corn that we would have picked within the week. My poor tomato plants were trampled, the lettuce was hacked, and my peas were all but gone. They were gracious enough to leave the squash, peppers, potatoes, and cucumbers alone. Lucky me.
Produce harvested for the store is picked prematurely. Then, it is put in an area where ethylene gas surrounds the fruits and vegetables. This causes them to ripen artificially. As a small family farm, we do not want to compromise on what Mother Nature has intended. Do not get me wrong, there is a place for GMOs and artificially ripened produce, just not in my garden.
Being self-sustainable is my ultimate goal for my farm and family. I want to live off the land as much as possible, with gardens, livestock and wild game; I think it will be feasible. The only thing I want to buy at the store is toilet paper, because newspaper does seem appealing to me.