I didn’t grow up on a farm, just plain old 1/3 of an acre suburbia. As a child, my best friend and I tried to create our own “secret garden” in the woods behind my house without much success. I watched my mom bake bread and can grape juice. She taught me to sew and signed me up for a quilting class. As a teenager, I worked at a petting zoo with Nigerian Dwarf goats, a Sicilian Donkey, pot bellied pigs, and miniature horses. Little did I know that all these early influences were sparking my interest in homesteading!
I traveled the world for a few years on behalf of USAID and then settled down and married a tech-savvy Eagle Scout. We moved to our 5.7 acre suburban homestead in the Mid Atlantic in 2016.
After 16 years in Maryland at various levels of gardening, I am still not an expert gardener, but it is the skill that folks most frequently text me for help with. I hope that I can offer some tips that will help other small farmers in Mid Atlantic zone 7 and surrounding areas. In my struggle to keep on top of all my garden projects, I drafted, tested, and after 2 years have finally published my Homestead Garden Journal and Planner for 2023,
