Whiteley Creek Homestead

Yesterday marked the end of my first term towards earning my Bachelors Degree in Holistic Nutrition. I completed all tests, projects, and exams in my two courses Fundamentals of Holistic Nutrition and Basic Herbology. That is why my posts have been so few and far between the past few weeks. I have been one very busy student! Today, I began anew with my second term's courses of Gardening for Good Nutrition and Vegetarian (and Vegan) Diet and Lifestyles. The spring gardening bug has already bitten me, so I began the day with my gardening studies.

 
If I follow the method that the author suggests in one of my three gardening textbooks, I won't be spending the winter months dreaming about spring planting. I will be harvesting instead. In simplistic terms, he explains it this way. "Only the harvest season and not the growing season needs to be extended." This distinction is important because the harvest season can be extended by planting cool-weather and cold hardy crops using succession planting and crop protection. Extending the growing season involves greenhouses, grow lights, etc. It's about not fighting the seasons but working with them by choosing appropriate plants for each season. If you haven't read the book Animal Vegetable Miracle A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, I highly recommend that you do. It is about how a family challenged themselves to eat only food raised on their own property or from their locality… even throughout the winter months. I don't recall that they used four season gardening, but it certainly would have been useful in their challenge. They put up food to carry them through the winter months by utilizing a root cellar, canning, and freezing. The idea in both of these books is to plan meals around what is fresh and in season. It just makes simple sense.