Raking the leaves

My porch vines lost most of their leaves. So I rake them. But instead of putting them to the curve, I've mixed them in my squarefoot gardens. It'll mulch and compost on it's own making my dirt rich with organic materials. I wanted to get the leaves form strangers on trash day. But I worried about introducing new bugs around my house. So I'm only going to use the leaves from my lot and my neighbors. So besides work and going to the vet, this is what I did today ;) Have a great week everyone!

Surprising surprises of surprise

This afternoon I went for a stroll in my garden. Got a few cherry tomatoes that were ripe....looked at the zucchinis....and looked for radishes ready to come out. Instead of my small radishes I found a huge one! After coming out of my amazement I washed it and ate it. I got 5 bites out of it! Which brings me to my point. I love these little surprises in the garden. Like the one I had....or like finding a mature cucumber unoticed before, a "mutant" carrot with 5 legs.

It's as if the earth is giving you a special gift for helping her out (so corny! I know!)

The 10 year plan...

Now here comes my devious plan!
Basically, I'm giving myself 10 years (more or less) to become self sufficient. Ten years to be able to grow and raise my own food. I've told my family and a few friends and most of them think of me as crazy for trying this. But it must be doable!
Over the years I intend on transforming my backyard into cultivated 4x4 gardens (squarefoot gardening). I've gesstimated how much food I could grow with just the 10 spaces I have plowed for next year and it should be a large amount. This year was just a tryout. But next year will be more serious. I'll start a few weeks earlier planting seeds indoor and use all the great advice I got from my research online. My hope for this year was to see how good I'd do at gardening a real garden. And I was sucessful...some crop were harvested earlier than most people's. Next year I intend to have enough produce to last me for a part of the winter. Either by storing them in a cold room, freezing or canning. And every year I'll increase the amount of land cultivated. Probably try to work less at my day job and sell some of my excess but still getting my biggest monthly revenues from my 2 basement appartements that I rent. Once the house loan is paid I should be able to have enough money with my rents, and produce sales. Of course combined with all that will be a reducing of the money I spent in unecessaries (cell phones, takeouts, store bought food and such) recycling, and reusing materials. Now you tell me does this sound doable or am I just crazy!!! =)