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Planting Less

November 24th, 2014

Generally I grow way too much garlic, which isn’t a big deal as I give a lot of it away. This fall I decided to plant only about 1/3 or 1/4 of what I normally plant. I didn’t buy any seed garlic since I used stock that I grew myself.
planting garlic
All my garlic was planted a few weeks ago, six varieties were planted. Yesterday I gave them a nice layer of duck house litter to protect them during the cold winter and fertilize them next summer. Here’s hoping for a much smaller amount of garlic to weed and harvest next year.

Are you cutting back on amounts of anything you plant?

8 Comments to “Planting Less”
  1. kristin @ going country on November 24, 2014 at 7:04 am

    Everything. We may even use cover crops and do a CSA next year. I’m trying to be realistic about what I’m going to get done with three kids under five taking up all my time. Makes me kind of sad, though.

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  2. Nebraska Dave on November 24, 2014 at 9:34 am

    Susy, yes, I remember that you did plant a lot of garlic last year. I don’t really use garlic so I haven’t planted garlic in my garden, yet. Every year I expand the garden a bit …. well …. except for this last year. The next couple years will be improving the structure and building more raised beds. Actually, next year the garden will have more tomatoes, green peppers, and cucumbers. My goal is usually not to preserve too much but grow things that I can give away and those seem to be the best vegetables for giving away. I found that green beans is a good give away vegetable as well. I’ve discovered that although eggplant and zucchini are easy plants to grow, it’s difficult to give it away. Most folks will take one or two eggplants or zucchini but that’s all. Each year I get more in tune with what friends and neighbors like to eat.

    Have a great planting less day.

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  3. DebbieB on November 24, 2014 at 9:50 am

    Yes – okra and basil and cucumbers. I planted 3 of each, and only needed 1. They took up a lot of space, and the okra and cucumbers produced more than we could eat or freeze realistically.

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  4. Misti on November 24, 2014 at 10:28 am

    Yes! Over the weekend I cleaned out the pantry of jarred/canned items that we made 2-3 years ago. We had SO many pickles that we never ate, jars of tomato jam, chow-chow, pickled radishes, pickled beets (what were we thinking on that?), that we never ate. I will never grow that many cukes again—in fact we’ve not grown them in a few years for this simple fact. If I do grow them again i’ll grow 2-3 plants, not the bazillion we did and just make fridge pickles instead.

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  5. annie on November 24, 2014 at 11:22 am

    I’m planting less of some things (tomatoes and squashes) because we have such issues with stink bugs and fungal problems here. Now that I have a toddler I just can’t spend the time coddling the plants so I’m going to plant fewer of the things that only do well part of the time and require lots of intervention.

    I am going to be planting more peppers (especially hot now that I’ve figured out how to make my own sriraccha, Also going to plant more broccoli and carrots because they usually do well as well as more greens, because they always do well. Those three things are going to be frozen, assuming there is any left after we eat them all winter, for us to enjoy during the summer when we’re missing the winter foods. Focusing more on onions and pole beans as well. I’m getting more realistic with my garden as I age :-)

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  6. Sarah on November 24, 2014 at 12:47 pm

    Cucumbers, okra, hot peppers. We just end up with way, way too much. I’m surprised you can plant garlic so late up there.

    Reply to Sarah's comment

  7. Kyle on November 24, 2014 at 2:32 pm

    I doubled my garlic plot this year!

    Next year, I am cutting back on anything with a short harvest life. My summer schedule wastes far too many lettuces, cucumbers, et al.

    I’m focusing on things that can “hold” long enough in the plot that all that gardening time, space, and resources isn’t wasted just because I worked long days that week.

    This year, I did great with favas, potatoes, rutabagas, pumpkins, acorn squash, chard, kale, garlic, and shallots. A lot of my other stuff either bolted or went to waste on the vine. :(

    Reply to Kyle's comment

  8. Charlie@Seattle Trekker on November 25, 2014 at 3:40 am

    I struggle with that same problem, I find it difficult to cut back on what I plant so I end up with more than I use. I am fortunate that the city has places where you can donate produce and will even have volunteers come pick it if you need assistance…I have friends who planted fruit trees some time back and picking the fruit is now a real problem for them.

    Reply to Charlie@Seattle Trekker's comment

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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