New Adventure

If you have not discovered from my previous posts, I am not a great writer. So hopefully, you won't have to endure many of these disjointed posts! 

There is a quote about following your passions to discover your purpose. Well.... gardening is my passion. An edible yard is my ultimate dream! Just the thought of friends, neighbors, and family tasting everything in sight makes me happy.
2014 has been a journey of discovering:

1. I can plant peas very well in NC.
2. Tomatoes are very fickle when planted outdoors. 
3. I have learned a myriad of other NC nature features, as well.

This year, we just moved to a smaller yard. I am trying to find if I have a book on how to feed a family on a quarter of an acre. Since everything is packed, I am really hoping that I have that book! Either way, we are beginning with building stone steps: not exactly plants. I plan on taking pictures of the yard's before and after. The new challenges we face with this yard are:

• smaller acreage
• less variety of organic sources for compost
• sloped landscape

I plan to come up with new compost sources by adjusting to these challenges.

• I can still use egg shells. 
• I can also use a lot of my fruits, veggies, ect kitchen scraps. 
• I plan on using our coffee grounds, epsom salt, and since this property has nothing but pine trees on it, I will have no shortage of pine needles to use as landscaping mulch. That's a plus!

I missed planting season for onions, asparagus, and such. I won't have much money as usual for buying a lot of garden soil so I think I will focus on building a successful worm farm. I am trying to convince my husband to try our hand at key hole gardening, but he's not buying it.

There are not only environmental challenges but also social challenges when it comes to our new garden. We now live in a suburban environment and I am fully aware of how some people do not appreciate the decay of nature, they wish to only visualize a vibrant, growing, living yard. With that in mind, I am trying to come up with a permacutlture yard unique to NC that encompasses all seasons. No small task, I'll admit. Lots of planning going into the next few years. I've gotta admit, as a Texas native, I find a lot of the NC plants hideous; but that is just my personal viewpoint and hope to learn to love a lot of their foliage and appreciate their native beauty.

So far, our plan is for evergreen back drop. Evergreen means the plant is green all year long. I've found  Coastal_Planting_Guide.pdf of NC native plants. Another website I'm perusing is NC Cooperative Extension

On that note, I leave you with an oldie but a goodie.

2011 Tulips from our previous yard