I know what you’re thinking. Nutrition? This is a blog about suburban homesteading! What does nutrition have to do with that?

The short answer is: a lot!

Think about it this way: you are the engine that gets work done around your suburban homestead and the food you eat is your fuel. Remember how the gas station has different grades of fuel for your vehicle? Well, that’s essentially what nutrition is for you – it is a quality scale of your fuel and it helps determine well you will perform.

What Does The Suburban Steader Know About Nutrition?

I have something to admit to you – I was a bit of a meathead in my past life. I spent a lot of time lifting weights and building my strength up in an attempt to get into powerlifting. I learned a lot about nutrition as a part of this endeavor. Admittedly, I was concentrating on how to build muscle mass but the knowledge base I acquired serves me well to talk about nutrition as it pertains to any goal.

What Should You Eat?

I could spend hours and hours writing on this topic given my experience. Heck, I could write an entire blog on this topic alone – but I’m going to concentrate on the basics for this post. And the first thing I’ll do is let you in on the secret of nutrition:

Keep It Simple!

Yep, that old KISS rule works perfectly when it comes to good nutrition.

Nutrition, from the athletic point of view, is very specific. Athletes who participate in sports which require large muscle mass – bodybuilders, wrestlers, powerlifters, football players, et – require a large protein intake. They concentrate on lean meats which provide the nutrients needed to build muscle. Conversely, endurance athletes such as marathoners, bicyclists, triathletes and the like concentrate more on diets that provide more extended energy levels. These diets typically involve larger amounts of slow burning carbohydrates.

I’m not an athlete, what do I eat?

OK, I know I’ve been dodging the question about how to eat well for good nutrition. The answer is this – eat natural.

Huh? What does that mean?

It means that the closer your food is to natural, the better the nutritional value. If you look at the ingredients on the box of whatever you are thinking about eating and it sounds more like a science experiment than dinner, I’d suggest putting it down and moving on. Fresh fruits and vegetables are great. Meat that hasn’t been pumped full of hormones, antibiotics and other crap is preferred.

Two things I want to point out:

1. Yes, this approach is very similar to a Paleo diet. While I’m not a complete follower of the Paleo approach (I have no problem with dairy and non-GMO grains in moderation), I believe that the general concept is a solid way to approach good nutrition.
2. Yes, this approach can be more expensive. Eating fresh (non-GMO) vegetables and fruit as well as grass-fed, free range meat is more expensive than the basics you find at the supermarket. I’ve heard this added cost referred to as a ‘six pack tax’ and, while your goal might not be to get into swimsuit model shape, I think it’s a good way to think about this added expense.

4 Quick Steps To Better Nutrition

Still not sure how to get started with improving your nutrition? Here’s four basic steps to get you started:

1. Journal Your Food: I recommend you track everything you eat for at least a week. Keep track of what you eat/drink, how much of it you ate/drank and how it made you feel. Don’t try to game the system by eating healthier – the temptation will be there – because it won’t help you improve.
2. Change One Item: While you keep logging your food, make one change and see how it affects you. For instance, if you have a beer or glass of wine every night, maybe you could cut that out and only have one on the weekend nights. Or, if you find that you’re eating only red meat and poultry, try throwing fish in one or two nights a week. Continue logging your intake and documenting how the foods make you feel. Pay special attention to how the new changes make you feel versus the old habits.
3. Find A New Place To Shop: You don’t have to completely change your shopping habits. Simply tweak it a little. Is there a farmers market you’ve been meaning to hit up? Give it a shot! Maybe you can get some of your veggies or eggs there. Increasing the value of some of your purchased goods will help increase your nutrition.
4. Repeat Step 2 As Necessary: Once your first change becomes habit, go back and make another change. As you work through this change, keep track of how you feel. If you feel better, it’s something you should work into habit. Keep using this approach and you’ll find that your entire nutrition routine is changed for the better in short order. The best part of this approach is that it’s much easier to stick to than changing everything all at once.

Additional Nutrition Resources

Here’s a few places you may want to explore for more information on nutrition:

• RobbWolf.com: Robb Wolf is a former research biochemist and one of the world’s leading experts in Paleolithic nutrition. His website is considered the go-to site when researching Paleolithic eating and nutrition.
• FitDay.com: FitDay.com provides a free online food tracking journal that I have successfully used to track and modify my daily nutrtional intake.
• Harvard School of Public Health – Healthy Plate: The Harvard School of Public Health has published an alternative food plate (compared to the USDA) which they argue “is based exclusively on the best available science and was not subjected to political and commercial pressures from food industry lobbyists.”
• Weston A. Price Foundation: Dr. Weston A. Price was a dentist who went on a search for the cause of dental decay and physical degeneration. During that search, he found a nutritious way of living that is very similar to a Paleo approach. While they differ in approaches, they are very much alike and a lot of information can be ‘co-mingled’ to create a very basic, but very nutritious lifestyle.

Wrap Up

This topic can leave you with your head spinning or it can inspire you to learn more. I hope it’s the latter.  I know you are not a nutrition expert by any means, but I hope that this post has helped you move along in your search for better nutrition.

Remember that, as a suburban homesteader, food is your fuel and nutrition is a way of describing the quality of that fuel. Also, remember that nutrition is an ongoing education – I’ve been involved in this world for the last fifteen years and am still learning every day!

Please let us know any nutrition tips or question you have in the comments or on our Facebook Page.

photo credit: BobPetUK via photopin cc

If you’ve been following Project TWH, you’ve learned how to find room to homestead, performed a suburban homestead site survey, planned your summer garden and maybe even used the kill mulch technique to get your garden area ready. Now it’s time to really get your suburban homestead moving in the right direction – we’re going to plant your summer garden!

If you refer back to The Weekend Homesteader, you’ll see that planting your summer garden has four main components to it:

• Knowing When To Plant
• Succession Planting
• Knowing How To Plant
• Garden Maintenance

When To Plan Your Summer Garden

Determining when to plant your summer garden is probably one of the most frustrating parts of starting a suburban homestead garden. Plant too early and your crop is prone to late freezes that could kill it off early. Plant too late and your crop might bolt right to seed and have a horribly small yield.

What’s a gardener to do?

If you remember the 5 Tips To Start Your Garden that I provided a while back, you’ll remember that the first tip was to know your zone.

Your hardiness zone is a good indication of when last freeze and first freeze occur in your area and it also will have information about when to plant different species relative to these dates.

You can find more information on your hardiness zone by clicking here: USDA Hardiness Zone Map.

Back in the article on Planning Your Summer Garden, I gave you five or six different vegetables that I considered ‘easy’ to grow. In general, the swiss chard can be started about a month before last frost and the rest can be planted after the frost-free date. Mint can be planted just about any time of the year.  You should consult with your seed providers and local nurseries for tips specific to your area.

Succession Planting

What’s worse than having a small harvest? How about a HUGE harvest that all happens at the same time? What are you ever going to do with ALL of these vegetables when they show up at the same time?

By staggering your planting, you will pretty much guarantee that not all your crops show up at the same time. How you use this method is up to you. Personally, I try to stagger plantings every week or so. That means that when the crop in one area is harvested, I’ll have some more coming up in another area a week later and a week after that in another area.

You can also use this approach to work with your schedule. Are you a teacher with the summer off? Plant so that there’s no harvest until mid-June. Or, if you plan to be on vacation mid-August, plan out your plantings so that nothing will be ready for harvest then.

How To Plant Your Summer Garden

You just dig a hole and throw the seeds or seedlings in. Right? Well, it’s not quite that simple, but it’s not terribly difficult either.

Here’s the really simple approach I recommend:

1. Rake back the mulch
2. Depress the soil as required
3. Place seeds in ground
4. Fill hole, tamp in place

It’s really not that hard. All you really need to remember is that the seeds you’re using need access to soil and water so making sure they are planted deep enough (but not too deep) is important.

If you’re using the Square Foot Gardening approach, I recommend building the garden stamp shown in the following video. Super easy to make and VERY useful:

[youtube_sc url=”yOZNRvlECic”]

If you’re using seedlings (or sets as others call them), I recommend planting them so that the first set of leaves is right above the soil. This approach gives the best chance for roots to grow and will also give your stems the most stability as they grow.  You might want to consider some fertilizer when you plant your seedling as well.  The application of fertilizer during planting will typically destress the situation for the young plants and give them the nutrients they need to begin growing in their new surroundings.

Summer Garden Maintenance

Again, this step isn’t rocket science. If you take the time to mulch, it will definitely help. You’ll spend much less time weeding and the water you apply to your summer garden will be retained much better.

Basically, you need to do three things to keep a garden in good order:

1. Weed
2. Water
3. Harvest

You don’t have to worry about harvesting (with the exception of beans lettuce) for a while and the other two steps are relatively straight forward. It’s really hard to screw up a garden once it’s set, so take it easy and have fun.

Wrap Up

There you have it, how to plant your summer garden. It’s not terribly difficult and really is one of those things that you learn to do by doing it. So, please, go out and get your hands dirty this weekend! You’ll enjoy it!

Please let us know any tips you have for planting your summer garden in the comments or on our Facebook Page.

photo credit: Distant Hill Gardens via photopin cc

Over the last few weeks, I’ve talked about Finding Room to Homestead and how to perform a Suburban Homestead Site Survey. Now that you know how you’re going to approach your suburban homestead and where on your land you’ll be conducting different suburban homesteading activities, it’s time to plan your summer garden.

For most suburbanites, setting up a garden is the first step to a suburban homestead. Guidance from The Weekend Homesteader is quite useful in making sure that you avoid a few pitfalls and are aware of a couple of tricks and tips for this otherwise simple task. With that thought in mind, we’ll be covering the following topics in this post as well as talking about how we implement these areas of knowledge on the Suburban Steader Homestead:

• Garden Size
• Garden Location
• Garden Layout
• Simple Vegetables and Herbs

Garden Size

If you remember one thing from this post, remember this:

You don’t set and forget a garden

You will be working this area extensively throughout the season – weeding, harvesting, planting and maintaining. The reason I emphasize this point is because the biggest mistake you can make when you plan your summer garden is to bite off more than you can chew. Designing a space that is too large will be more detrimental to your suburban homesteading success.

Why is too big worse than too small you ask?

The answer lies in availability of time. You only have a certain amount of time that you can spend gardening. This fact is especially true with suburban homesteaders as they are not working the homestead all day, every day. Typically a garden is a weekend and/or after work activity for most of you.

So, how big of a garden should you build?

If you’ve never gardened before, I suggest you plan your summer garden in an area that is roughly four (4) feet by eight (8) feet. This approach will give you forty-eight (48) square feet of gardening space. Anything more than that is going to be too intimidating. You can have a few side items if you like outside of this area (potted tomatoes, blueberry bushes, etc.) but the majority of gardening should happen in this area.

Note that Anna Hess disagrees with me. She recommends beginners can go up to one hundred forty-four (144) square feet – three times what I recommend! All I can say to that is remember that it’s always easier (mentally and physically) to expand your garden than decrease its size.

Suburban Steader Homestead Garden Size

For the last half decade or so, I’ve used a roughly forty-eight square foot area for my garden. By using the space efficiently – I implement Square Foot Gardening principles – I have successfully offset my family’s vegetable consumption by a significant margin. Please do not take that to mean that we are anywhere near self-sufficient.

I’ve doubled our garden space this year with the addition of a four foot by eight foot raised bed. In addition, I have some perennials (blueberries, strawberries, etc.) on other locations which are above and beyond this ninety-six square feet of garden area we now have.

Garden Location

In my last post, I talked extensively about how to lay out your suburban homestead based upon a long list of factors. There’s not much more to be said here that hasn’t been outlined in that post. The one bit of advice I would give is to plan your summer garden so that it is not far from the house. The closer you are to your garden, the more apt you will be to work on it and the better success you will experience.

Suburban Steader Homestead Garden Location

As you’ve seen in this picture, the new garden box I put in is right next to our patio. The old garden box is about as far away from the patio as you can get on my land. This update is already paying dividends. I spend a few minutes each day tending to the closer garden box whereas I don’t walk out to the other one as much. This little bit of knowledge has taught me that I’m going to put the more needy crops in the closer box.

Garden Layout

I have two main tips when you plan your summer garden on your suburban homestead:

1. Remember the Two Foot Rule
2. Visual Record Keeping

The Two Foot Rule

This rule is something I learned from Mel Bartholomew in his Square Foot Gardening principles. Most people cannot reach into a bed more than two feet. If you design your garden so that you can reach every piece of soil with this rule in mind, you’ll never have to walk on your garden (compressing the soil) and you’ll be able to utilize all your land. That’s part of the reason I recommend four foot by eight foot beds. As long as the maximum dimension on one side is four feet, you’ll be able to reach the middle on either side.

Visual Record Keeping

I’ll be perfectly honest – I have a crappy memory.

I can’t remember what I planted or where I planted it, especially if I’m starting from seed. That is why I use a visual record keeping system. Not only does it remind me of what I planted where, but I can track when I planted it, how many plants/seeds I planted and plan accordingly.

I use a piece of software called Garden Planner from GrowVeg.com. While I’m a kind of tech geek, there’s nothing wrong with good old paper and pencil to keep track of your garden layout.

Simple Vegetables and Herbs

All this work to plan your summer garden and you don’t even know what you’ll be growing yet. Not any longe!.

It’s time to pick your produce!

As a novice gardener, Anna Hess and I agree that picking simple, easy to grow vegetables will give you early wins and build your confidence. With that thought in mind, we recommend the following items:

• Swiss Chard – A summer green that is virtually work free. Cooks up like spinach but much easier to grow.
• Summer Squash (inc. Zucchini) – Big and beefy, these veggies will provide you with lots of produce as well as lots of confidence. There’s something boastful about growing a plant as big as summer squash can get. With that in mind, summer squash does take up a lot of room, so if space is at a premium, you might want to think this one over.
• Green Beans – Quick to sprout and quick to harvest, these guys will give you a quick, bountiful victory. Bush beans don’t need a trestle but will grow very quickly meaning you’ll be replanting a lot.
• Tomatoes – They love sun! While they’re a bit more finicky than some of the other veggies mentioned, you can’t beat the taste of a homegrown tomato. Buy them in seedling sets and plant them deep. Too much water is a problem for these guys.
• Mint – A quick grower and a perennial to boot! Mint will take over your garden if you’re not careful so make sure you have a root barrier in place or, better yet, start it in a pot.
• Basil – Drop the seeds, water and walk away. You’ll have fragrant leaves all summer.

Anna also recommends okra – I can’t really comment on that as I’ve never grown it. I will say that the items I would add to the list are romaine lettuce and broccoli. Both grow rather easily from either seed or seedlings.

The most important thing to do when picking what you grow is remembering what you eat. It’s a shame to grow tomatoes if your family dislikes them. At best, you’ll have a harvest and not know what to do with it and, at worst, you won’t work your garden because the outcome doesn’t interest you.

Wrap-Up

There you have it – how to plan your summer garden in a few simple steps. Remember that, at the end of it all, gardening should be a relaxing endeavor, not something you feel is a chore. That’s not to say it’s not a lot of hard work, but if you find yourself resenting the garden, take a step back and figure out why. You should be enjoying this work – you get to reap all the rewards!

Please let us know any tips you have for planning your summer garden in the comments or on our Facebook Page.

Are you interested in suburban homesteading but aren’t quite sure where to start?  Anna Hess’ book The Weekend Homesteader may be just what you’re looking for!

The Weekend Homesteader Overview

The Weekend Homesteader is an interesting book because it is broken out into monthly chapters with each month having many little sub-projects.  Interestingly, the chapters start in April and conclude in (yup, you guessed it) March.  The idea is that, if you follow the book, you’ll have a project lined up for every weekend and they’ll be specific to that point in the year.  For instance, the projects for August (February in Australia) include:

• Seeding Saving
• Food Drying
• Build A Chicken Coop or Tractor
• Install A Rain Barrel System

Not all these projects can be completed in one weekend – creating and managing a budget in July is an on-going activity – while others can be completed in a few hours – mulching your garden is fairly simple if you have enough material.

The Weekend Homesteader – The Good

Anna obviously put a lot of thought into The Weekend Homesteader.  There is a large attention to detail in this book shown by the continuity of projects – there’s instruction on soil management one month and planting the next – to the simple but aesthetically pleasing way it is laid out.  To me, the pictures are what really make the book.

The Weekend Homesteader – Building A Chicken Coop

The Weekend Homesteader – Planting Trees

Anna also spent a good amount of time upfront defining the estimated cost, time, difficulty and ‘kid-friendliness’ of each project.  This information is quite useful to those of us with families who might require a bit more up-front planning when beginning projects.

The Weekend Homesteader – The Bad

Well, these aren’t really bad, but the heading goes with the theme (spoiler alert: we won’t have a section title The Ugly).

My first disappointment with The Weekend Homesteader is that the monthly tasks don’t really line up with my area of the country.  Anna and her husband live in southwest Virginia (according to her website).  Let’s just say that southwest Virigina and Long Island have very different weather patterns and some of the timing she suggests doesn’t line up with what’s feasible where I live.  I imagine many others will find the same problem.

Second, Anna and her husband are full time homesteaders.  They bought their 58-acre homestead in 2006 and have been working the land ever since.  The fact that a full time homesteader is giving advice to weekend homesteaders is a bit odd.  I don’t believe the information is necessarily bad, but the general impression of “look, we did it, you can too with only a few hours every weekend” seems a bit misleading to me.

The Weekend Homesteader Wrap-Up

Overall, I recommend The Weekend Homesteader to anyone, especially suburban homesteading newbies, who are looking to set a course of action for their first year.  The general timeline may need to be tweaked for your hardiness zone (you can read more about that topic in our previous article) but the overall message is solid.  There are good projects – some simple, some not simple – that will bring you from scratch up to a good level of self-sufficiency in a short amount of time.

Click Here To Buy The Weekend Homesteader