What are we growing this year?! 2024

Finally, the thyme has come! 🌱

It’s time to plan our 2024 garden! My favorite time of the year is sitting by the wood stove with my seed catalogs, garden plans, and homesteading books. I love dreaming about my upcoming garden thinking about what I want to do different, or add, or no longer grow again, etc.

But! Before you jump into your seed catalogs and get yourself overwhelmed, make sure you check out my recent blog post about my best 3 tips to consider before you start crop planning. It’s helpful!

This year, we are buying the bulk of our seeds from Berlin Seed. They are local in Ohio and I love that they only carry Non-GMO seed. They also have tons of supplies for gardening, and I think this year I am going to grab a soil blocking tool to give that a shot. You have to download their pdf catalog on their site and call in your order. They’re Amish and don’t have online ordering.
The rest of our seeds will come from Johnny’s Selected Seed.

Ok, now let’s get into the list. These are crops that we are growing this year because we love them, we crave them in winter, and we are sure to preserve them. Or, we want them for medicinal use.

Let’s start with the cold weather crops!

Spinach: Hammerhead, Bloomsdale
Lettuce: Green Ice, Tango, Buttercrunch
Romaine: Paris Island
Arugula
Broccoli: Waltham
Cabbage: Stonehead
Radish: Watermelon, Cherry Belle
Beets: Red Ace
Carrots: Danvers 126, Royal Chantenay
Peas: Super Sugar Snap

Next, let’s move onto the warmer weather crops.

Tomatoes: Amish Paste (roma tomato for canning)
Brandywine Slicing, Buffalo Sun, Celebrity Plus
Cherry Tomatoes: Sungold, Indigo

Bell Peppers: California Wonder, Jimmy Nardello, Lunchbox Snacking peppers

Green Beans: Blue Lake, Dark Horse

Beans: Calypso (new to us this year! will be a dried bean for preserving)

Sweet Corn: Peaches & Cream, Silver Queen
Popcorn: Lady Finger (new to us this year!)

Cucumber: Diva, Homemade Pickle

Cantaloupe: Hearts of Gold, Sugar Cube
Watermelon: Sangria, Sugar Baby

Onions: Patterson, Red Wing,

Zucchini: Sunburst, Gold Rush

Butternut Squash: Waltham, Honeynut
Acorn Squash

Herbs. These will be grown for many reasons. Of course for culinary use, we will dry them and store for winter too, but also for medicinal use and attracting pollinators and insects that will keep pests away.

Basil: Sweet Large Leaf, Holy Basil
German Chamomile
Cilantro (I don’t eat this, it will be for space filler and pollinators)
Dill: Bouquet, Fern Leaf
Plain Italian Parsley
Garlic & Onion Chives
Echinacea
Calendula
Comfrey
English Lavender
Greek Oregano
Sage
Thyme (regular and magic carpet)
Rosemary

And there we have it! That is my plan for our summer garden this year. There are several plants that I will grow successions of so that we have continuous harvest, and some plants that I will (do my best to) extend into the fall and winter. I’m working hard to convince my other half to build me some cold frames close to the house so I can have a small kitchen garden all year. We’ll see what happens ;)

I’d love to know what you’re growing this year or if you’re trying anything new! Tell us below!

You should also check out my Crop Planning 101 ebook that I created last year to help you figure out what to grow, how to store crops, and so much more info to help you plan your garden year.

Crop Planning 101: What Should I Grow?

Today I’m sharing a few snippets from the first chapter of my Crop Planning ebook. This ebook is super helpful in making sure you have a successful gardening season. From deciding what to grow, how to grow it, when to harvest, to crop storage, how to afford your garden, and seed saving. You may want to check it out for your spring garden planning!

So you are ready to plan your 2024 garden.

Before adding a gazillion seed packets to your cart, and going way overboard with purchasing (no? just me?) we want to consider a few things first:

First things first, before even adding a single thing to your cart, you will want to sit down and make a quick list of WHAT your family actually LIKES to eat, and will eat. As I’ve mentioned in recent past homesteading events, if your family doesn’t consider Brussel sprouts as a big winner on the dinner plate, probably best not to plant much of it. But alternatively, if your family gobbles up green beans and cherry tomatoes, definitely add a couple varieties of each to your list.

Figure out what the main crops are that your family will eat and enjoy. Both fresh - AND - preserved. Which leads me to my next tip…

Add to your list the top foods that you can preserve for winter. For us, that looks like tomatoes (sauce, salsa, crushed), green beans, zucchini, squash, beets, potatoes, onion, garlic, corn, and more. Those are the veggies we love to have stored up in the pantry to cellar for winter eating. If you are not big into canning and freezing, maybe just make a small list of 1-3 items that you’d like to learn how to can this fall. Or freeze. Anything you can do to keep your garden working for you all year long!

Next tip:
Figure out what foods you often buy from the grocery store that you can grow yourself. What’s in your cart weekly? This will help you have a guideline for what should be in your garden.
Also, consider what veggies taste better out of our summer garden as opposed to the January Kroger shelf. These are definitely the foods we grow to preserve, because we for sure love the taste of sweet corn and pasta sauce that came from our sun-ripened summer garden and not the canned food aisle at the grocery. This will help you create your list.

Lastly, which crops will provide you the highest value?
What I mean by that is, what crops can you yield the most from that are still easy to grow.
For example: tomatoes. Tomatoes are not only great for fresh eating, both slicing and cherry, but they are great on salads, sandwiches, in soups and pastas, etc. And they can amazingly well! Tomatoes are one of the easiest crops to preserve. So because you can eat them fresh and turn them into soooo many other things, they are a huge bang for your buck!

A few others would be carrots, squash, beets, sweet corn, onions, cucumbers, and green beans.

So now that you have your list and it’s time to shop, you have a better understanding of what you should purchase and how you can plan out how much of each crop you’ll need (preserving vs just fresh eating…you won’t need nearly as much lettuce seed as you would tomatoes).

And don’t forget, it’s ok to also purchase a few crops that you love, simply because you love them! Gardening is such an art. It can be beautiful but also so so beneficial for us.

If you have any questions on garden planning, reach out or check out my ebook that goes into more detail!

I’m rooting for you! :)

Easy Zuppa Toscana with Local Farm Raised Pork

I recently made this recipe for our Ladies Homestead Night Out and wanted to share it with you all! This recipes uses Italian pork sausage from Carroll Creek Farms. They are a local farm in Waynesville, Ohio and we love visiting their meat retreat store! The rest of the ingredients came from our garden or back yard. Enjoy!

Zuppa Toscana

Ingredients:
1 pound ground pork or sausage
1 yellow onion chopped
1 clove garlic chopped, or 2-3 tsp garlic powder
1.5 pounds potatoes
2 quarts bone broth
2 cups chopped kale
salt & pepper to taste

Start by browning your meat and chopped onions together.
Once the meat is almost browned, I like to make a small well in the middle of the pan and add the chopped garlic. Sauté until golden.
Next add your bone broth and bring the pain to a medium-high heat. Add your chopped potatoes and allow to cook for about 15 minutes until potatoes begin to soften. Reduce heat to a simmer and let simmer 30 minutes.
Right before serving, add your chopped kale so it can wilt just a smidge. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and any other herbs you’d like, depending upon your sausage flavorings.
Optional: Add a splash of cream at the end and top with parmesan cheese.
Best served with warm sourdough. :)

Easy Sandwich Bread Recipe

I started making bread about two years ago when I bought my first sourdough starter. I make a lot of recipes with sourdough, but struggled to find an easy sandwich bread recipe that didn’t call for other complicated ingredients. Well, I guess that’s not entirely true… I have taken my basic sourdough recipe and shaped it into a sandwich bread pan, but it didn’t turn out the exact shape I wanted for consistent “same size” slices.

And since we are a family that can tolerate gluten, I decided to find a recipe that was simple and used minimal ingredients. I care more about what’s in my recipe, so in this case I’m fine with using organic unbleached AP flour.

A few notes about this recipe:
It’s super flexible! I have taken this exact recipe and added mix-ins to it and it’s turned out beautifully.
Some ingredients we’ve tried are cheese & jalapeño, herbs, cinnamon & raisins, seeds, and I recently made a loaf with oats added on the top. It was yummy and a perfect fall bread!

Another thing to mention is that this can be baked into a round artisan loaf. You can’t get quite as fancy with scouring (its not needed) and decorating like a sourdough boule, but you can certainly grease a round glass dish and bake the dough into a round loaf. This is fun for dinners like soup or chili, or for gifting to friends and family.

Ok, now onto the recipe…

Drop your email above and I will send you the recipe via a pdf printable that you can print out and save or laminate. I frequent this recipe so much, so I have it printed out in my kitchen so I can reference it without my phone. We make 2-3 of these loaves per week! They are sooo yummy and this bread makes great grilled cheese and French toast. :)

Let me know if you try it!

Start your fall garden now

Have you been gardening this summer? Ready to take it a step further and plant a garden for a fall harvest? It’s super easy to plan out your garden for fresh veggies the rest of the year!

The trickiest part of fall gardens is knowing when to plant your veggies, during the summer. For example: in order to have a good harvest of sugar snap peas in late September, seeds need to be planted at the end of July.

I am going to include a list of what we are planting and growing for a fall harvest. And even what/how we can cover crops to extend even after a hard frost!

But first I want to share with you about this new seedtime app that I discovered this summer. It’s free and amazing! If you get easily overwhelmed by knowing what to plant and when, this app is going to be for you.

In a nutshell, it’s essentially a plug in crop planner that tells you exactly when to prep a bed, start seeds, direct or transplant, when to weed your bed, and then when you should expect a harvest. The layout is a calendar and each crop is color coded.
It’s as easy as hitting the button “Add Crop” and choosing carrots, and the software does the rest for you! Check out the screen shot below of the start of my calendar.

So you can see if you look at the left column, each crop is color coded. You can click on each one and it will highlight it on the right and show you each step, and when it needs to be done.

Again, this is free to use! You simply just need an email to create an account and you can get started right away designing your fall garden. This can of course be used in the spring too, to plan out your garden. Including multiple successions of crops like lettuce or beets.

I won’t go back. Haha, once I tried this, there’s no way I’m going back to planning my garden on my own anymore. This is such a simple way to do it!

You can customize it to your zone, as precise as adding your address so it knows your exact location. The light and dark blue shaded areas show you when your area would expect light and hard frosts. So that’s helpful too!

Here’s another look at my calendar going into October.

So you can see that some of my crops go into the time of year where we might get a light frost. Since I know that, I might cover some of my crops like root veggies with straw or plastic just to keep the soil warm enough to harvest until they’re gone.

There are many ways you can cover your crops to extend harvesting (and growing) times. You can use hoops with a row cover or plastic, straw, old windows by building a frame around/above your plants, or if they are in containers, by bringing them into a side porch or small greenhouse structure. I plan to just cover mine with hoops + plastic, and straw over things like the carrots and beets.

What I’m grown this fall/late summer:

Peas, Carrots, Green Onion, Beets, Radish, Lettuce, Spinach, Kale, Broccolini, Late Cucumbers, Zucchini, Green Beans, Sunflowers.

Be sure to check out the Seedtime App by clicking the photo above and creating your free account. You can schedule your fall garden right away.

And if you’re interested in more resources from the site, they do have a paid option starting at just $10 a month with lots of webinars, courses, classes, and a store! You can purchase all your seeds right from the site too.

Check it out! Happy gardening!

The links in this post contain affiliate links. By clicking on the links in this post you are helping support our family in a small way.