This Friday brought record breaking rain to our area. Many people got flooded basements and cars. We were lucky not to get any damage on that scale, but getting 15cm + of rain over a short period of time was hard on the garden. The ground was saturated and soft, and some of the newer areas had standing water well into the weekend. It took about a day to clean up the damage. There might be damage that I can't see yet either. A sudden downpour / inconsistencies in watering can lead to a lot of problems such as cracks and blossom end rot in tomatoes, and cracked carrots. 

My biggest concern was my tomato plants. I use cages for most of my determinate plants, and with the saturated, soft ground, many of the cages toppled over. This caused some fruit to fall and in many cases, some branches (including the main "trunk") to break. Since the ground is still waterlogged several days later, any attempt to right the cages fell short. Ideally, I would love to put a T-post in each cage, but budget wise it's not a great option. I was able to rescue 6 used T-posts from an old fence, though.

The solution we opted for (Ray's idea) was to run a T-post at both ends of each tomato row, and one in the middle (so, a T-post every 18 feet - or about 6 tomato plants in between each pair of t-posts). Then, I ran a heavy-duty rope very tightly from one post to the next, which I wrapped around the upper hoop of each tomato cage as it crossed it. Thus, the tomato cages are being held upright and centered. So far it seems like a good solution. In the future I may set up my tomato cages like that at the start of the season, to prevent any accidents.

Once that was done, I did a big round of tomato picking. I picked up any tomatoes that had fallen to the ground, even green ones, and any tomato that had started to "blush" (change colors). This falls into my regular pattern of picking up all the "blushed" tomatoes once or twice a week - I don't wait for them to turn completely red. It is a little-known fact that from a flavor perspective, it doesn't matter if you let tomatoes ripen "on the vine" or not. Picking them early protects them from pests and bruises, and in this case, lightens my plants, too. In this case, I had an additional reason to pick the tomatoes - excessive watering can make tomatoes crack or get blossom end rot. I am hoping that by picking them quickly I will have pre-empted that.

The green tomatoes that had fallen to the ground won't go to waste. We'll make some fried green tomatoes, and maybe some green tomato salsa. ​

My second point of concern was any crops that might be sitting in standing water - for example root crops (potatoes, turnips etc) and onions, because they might rot. I inspected all those crops and luckily most were in well drained soil. My potatoes in particular are on high ground and seem like they'll be fine. The only crop that looked at risk was my onions. Onions can rot if they are in wet ground, and I noticed standing water in the part of the garden that holds my onions (up to my ankles in the alley). I rooted around the onions a bit and noticed that some were in completely soaked ground - the kind of ground in which any hole you poke with your finger fills with water instantly. I pulled those onions right away. I'll trying to dry them for now, but I'll likely use them right away.

Something to watch out for after a rain storm or any time the soil in your garden is soaked, is the risk of compacting the soil. In my case that means being very careful to only step in the alleys in my garden. It can be hard to be disciplined about this especially when you are anxious about fixing things that have gone awry, but it's well worth it - I don't want to lose the soil structure I've worked so hard to build up. If my garden didn't have such healthy soil, the damage would have been much worse. I remember the first year I started my garden, the soil was very compacted and 100% clay. It was a wet spring, but nothing like we experienced this Friday - yet there was standing water everywhere. I lost almost all my tomato seedlings. I had to dig moats in between rows and plant everything on mounds. My garden has come a long way from then, and the resiliency it built up really showed on Friday.

My cooking has changed drastically since I’ve begun growing our own food – my garden gives what it wants on its own time and doesn’t follow any recipe book. It’s very rare that what’s available matches up exactly to what is needed to follow a recipe to the letter. Over time I have developed a list of go-to, very flexible dishes that are easy to adapt to whatever is in season, in whatever quantity is available. I thought I would share these while we are in the season of abundance. Here are five of my most flexible “whatever is in the garden” type dishes for the summer season. For each dish, a list of example ingredients is given – you don’t need all of these – I just pick from them depending on what is available.

Pizza is an easy one. I usually keep a few cheese pizzas from Costco in the freezer, or some uncooked pizza dough (Pillsbury for example). We just throw whatever is available on top of it and cook it on the barbecue.
Examples of toppings:

• Cherry tomatoes or larger tomatoes
• Green onions or onions
• Kale (crisps up great and gives nice texture!)
• Sweet or hot pepper
• Eggplant slices
• Spinach

Spring rolls are another go-to for early summer, when greens are in abundance and other items start coming in gradually. I keep rice wrappers, vermicelli (optional) on hand, and either pre-made dipping sauce or make some with a peanut butter base. The wrappers get dipped in a saucer of lukewarm water to soften them and then you wrap the ingredients burrito-style. I usually do two layers of wrappers. This is a great dish on a hot day since you don’t need the oven.
Example ingredients:

• Greens – salad, arugula, spinach, swiss chard, salad greens
• Radishes
• Cucumber
• Carrot
• Daikon
• Sweet pepper
• Green onions

I keep pad thai sauce and rice noodles to make pad thai inspired noodles. For a little extra protein my go-tos are tofu, smoked tofu, breaded fish or vegetarian breaded “fish” or “chicken”, which I cook in the pad thai sauce. I also often add some peanuts or sesame on top. I cook the protein, noodles and toppings separately then combine everything before serving.
Example ingredients:

• Pepper
• Green beans
• Soy beans
• Eggplant
• Cherry tomatos
• Celery

These bowls are made on a base of greens, couscous or rice (or a mix of these). I cook the various ingredients separately and put them in little clumps on top of the base. Sometimes I add a hard boiled egg or tofu cubes. Super easy and can be made in various versions
Example ingredients:

• Swiss chard and/or kale sautéed in garlic butter
• Kale “chips”
• Green beans sautéed in garlic butter
• Cherry tomatoes
• Pickled or fermented veggies from last year (sunchokes etc)
• Roasted beet cubes (I use my air fryer to avoid heating the house)
• Soy beans
• Radish
• Cucumber
• Eggplant slices
• Marinated onions (red onions slices in lime juice, garlic and olive oil)
• Celery cubes

A great desert that can be adapted to whatever berries or fruits are in season. I use it with honeyberries, cherries, apples, pears, and mixed of all these. Recipe here. 

A no-till approach means drawing inspiration from the forest's nurturing and passive approach as much as possible. To avoid disrupting the layered ecosystem of micro-organisms in the soil, you never turn over the soil (bye-bye, rototiller). You also keep layering organic matter onto the soil, keeping it completely covered at almost all times. This organic matter, or mulch, serves several purposes:

• Suppressing weeds
• Providing shelter to the micro-organisms that colonize the soil, and,
• Continuously enriching the soil by decomposing into light, fluffy humus. 

It makes so much sense. And I always hated fighting with my rototiller so I was easily convinced.

Going back to the time when I was reading all these revelations, I had already been using mulch in my garden in the form of landscape fabric. It had saved me hours of weeding, and I still don't hate it - I think it's a decent option for some scenarios. However, I was getting frustrated about a few aspects of it. First of all, it locks you into a certain planting pattern (wherever the holes are), so it was limiting my ability to do proper crop rotations. Secondly, it doesn't last forever and I hated the expense and waste it created. Thirdly, it's not very conducive to planting very tightly planted crops - you can't realistically make a hole every 5 centimeters. And finally, I now realized that it hadn't been doing anything to improve soil health. ​

The first year after reading this book, I decided to convert part of my garden to a no-till approach. Fabric mulch had never worked well for corn, because of how tightly spaced the seeds are. So, I decided to use lawn clippings to mulch my corn patch. The second year, I stopped replacing any sections of landscape fabric - whenever a section was too torn or degraded to use, I put down natural mulch instead. I used dried weeds, lawn clippings, and dried leaves. Even the occasional cowpot. Whenever I harvested vegetables, I removed any "extra parts" such as corn husks, carrot leaves, and the external leaves of cabbages, and dumped them right there and then as mulch - I started to see anything that was removed from the garden as a loss of nutrients, and it made sense to limit that loss. In the fall I left all plant matter, such as tomato stalks, to decompose into the soil. ​

Last fall, when I "closed up" my garden for the season, I took out all remaining landscape fabric. I dumped bags of leaves on each row - I just packed as many bags as I could every time I took a drive through a residential neighborhood. On top of the leaves, I put whatever I could find, such as weeds, branches, corn stalks, etc - keep the leaves from blowing away. I also used lawn clippings.

When spring came around, I was greeted by a vibrant soil that had been protected throughout the winter. Very few weeds pierced through the mulch, and the ones that did were easy to remove. I was able to weed my entire garden (30 x 60 feet) in about twenty minutes, and I only had to do it once. Normally, even with the fabric mulch, I had to spend a significant amount of time on several rounds of weeding in the spring. I also noticed that the soil hadn't compacted over the winter and during spring rains. It stayed fluffy and aerated, with lots of worms. ​

I've now planted my hardiest seedlings, for example onions, potatoes, parsley, and greens. It's been a pleasure to plant them in the natural mulch, compared to fabric mulch. Just spread the mulch with my hori-hori knife, making a little nest for the seedling or seed. No more cutting out the landscape mulch with an x-acto or scissors for every seeds (savvier gardeners burn those holes through, but still). ​

​I am still a little nervous about keeping up with that amount of mulching. The yardsweeper makes it relatively easy to gather up lawn clippings and that should be enough throughout the summer. We shall see! 

Some considerations for going no-till

• Do you have the means to procure natural mulch in the quantity needed? In my case, I predominantly use bags of leaves, and lawn clippings. We have a very lawn though and I can adjust how much of it I mow to make sure I produce enough lawn clippings.
• Can you handle to labor of mulching? It is most certainly going to be less than the labour you'd spend tilling and weeding, but it's not insignificant. A yardsweeper or lawnmower bag will come in very handy.

What can you use for natural mulch?
Scientifically speaking, it's useful to know that some mulches add carbon to the soil (mostly dried/brown stuff - for example  bark, cardboard, and sawdust) and some mulches add nitrogen (mostly green stuff such as lawn clippings, aged compost, weeds and hay). Leaves and branches occupy a bit of a middle ground. Ideally speaking, you could choose your mulch based on a soil test to determine if your soil needs more nitrogen or more carbon. In practice, in our area, nitrogen is typically what is most needed so I learn towards "green" mulches. 

A few other factors to take into consideration:

• What can you get for free? I get leaves from neighbors, lawn clippings from my lawn, I use weeds and extra veggie parts, and once in a while I go to the furniture store and take all their large appliance cardboard boxes (which they are very happy to give away - it saves them labor).
• If you are getting your mulch from somewhere else, do you know what herbicides or pesticides have been applied to it?
• Does your mulch contain weed seeds? For example, hay typically contains seeds (but straw doesn't). I did have a bad experience using hay - as it decomposed it sprouted into very strongly rooted grass. 
• Will it blow away? Leaves are susceptible to blowing away in strong winds, so I cover them with something else.

I also want  to mention that although sawdust is fine, walnut sawdust or shavings should be avoided (it suppresses growth). And, finally,, to bust a myth - it is not true that pine needles make soil acid, so you shouldn't fear them for that reason. The real reason things don't grow around pines in that pine needles make a very dense mulch, and, pine trees have very shallow roots. I actually really like pine needles as mulch - they provide great coverage and they don't blow away in the wind.

A word about the broadfork
Finally, as you transition to a no-till approach, you may need to fluff your soil occasionally. For that I would recommend a broadfork. A broadfork fluffs the soil without turning it over. It leaves the microbiome of the soil intact. Eventually, as the soil becomes fluffier and fluffier, you won't need to broadfork it anymore, but, it is a good transition tool.
​

Setting up a new no-till garden bed
Most of my beds were converted from tilled beds to no-till. That means that originally, I dug up the sod and tilled it. However, it's also possible to create new no-till beds in your lawn, without tilling it even once. I am trying that for the first time and I will write a separate blog post about my experience once I am a little further along with it.

Over the years I have worked to establish more perennial food plants on our property. They typically cost a little more upfront but having low-maintenance, recurring sources of food is great. In the process of writing this post, I realized we have over forty different perennial foods growing on our property - a mix of naturally occurring and purposefully introduced. 

I have integrated these perennials plants in various places on the property, creating a bit of an edible landscape; but I also have a few dedicated perennial beds in a section of our property. I keep these beds separate from my main garden so that they don't interfere with crop rotation. Before I switched to a no-till approach, it was a also a concern that they would get in the way of rototilling. 

I'll provide a summary of the perennial foods we grow, in hopes that it will give you ideas if you live in a similar zone. Even though we live in zone 5, I tend to favor perennials that are rustic to zone 3, to ensure they are very rustic and survive our winters. 

Trees:

• Apple trees - I planted a few specific apple trees (honeycrisp, empire, and a sweet yellow variety); we also have a variety of wild apple and crabapple trees planted by animals in the forest. (two or more compatible apple trees are needed for cross-pollination)
• Pear tree - I planted four pear trees, which should be two cross-pollinating pairs. They haven't produced yet but I think they will this year.
• Plum tree - I only have one plum tree, they are self-fertile so they don't need a companion. It's new and hasn't produced yet.
• Hazelnut trees (bush) - I have eight hazelnut trees, I planted them this year. I got them from Meadowlark Rise Farms, local to us. They plant a variety of nut trees, but it seems like hazelnuts are doing the best in our area.'
• Sour cherries (bush) - This one spreads! It is beautiful when it flowers, and I use the cherries to make ice cream, Turkish cherry jam, and chocolate cherry jam / ice cream topping

Berries and other small fruits:

• Honeyberries (Haskap) - these do amazing here, but they need to be covered by a net or the birds get them all. They are a great early crop. 
• Gooseberries - new this year
• Strawberries - I chose everbearing plants which means that they produce throughout the season, instead of one big batch. They are great for snacking whenever we pass in front of the patch, conveniently located between the house and the workshop.
• Saskatoon berries - new this year
• Concord grapes - for eating fresh and for juice
• Artic kiwi - new this year

Edible flowers:

• Daylilies - the flowers are edible. They are a nice snack or a nice garnish on salads. Be sure not to eat lilies though.
• Hostas - the shoots can be cooked and eaten
• Lilac -  good for garnish or for making flavoured simple syrup , I can it and use it to make lilac lemonade or seltzer water
• Sunchokes -  the tubers are delicious. We especially like them fermented (which also takes away the gassiness that some people experience with sunchokes)
• Sunflowers - for seeds

Herbs:

• Rosemary - doesn't always come back, depending on winter conditions
• Lavender - doesn't always come back, depending on winter conditions
• Sage - doesn't always come back, depending on winter conditions
• Mint - invasive, be careful where you plant it
• Oregano - invasive, be careful where you plant it
• Thyme
• Chamomile
• Chives

Others:

• Rhubarb
• Horseradish - harvested for the root. Can spread.
• Asparagus
• Amaranth - not really a perennial, but it reseeds itself generously 

Naturally occurring perennials (foraging - more details here)

• Raspberries
• Fiddleheads
• Daylilies
• Sumac
• Sugar maple
• Cedar
• Stinging Nettle
• Mushrooms - for example shaggy mane. Still learning about these
• Wild grapes
• Crabapples
• Wild chamomile

Failures - things I might try again:

• Sea buckthorn - got swallowed up by weeds, will need to try again
• Blueberries - I've tried these several times but they never survived, I'm not sure why

This year I am growing onions from seed for the first time, after many years of using onion sets. Part of my motivation is cost, but I also read in Le Jardin Vivrier that onions from seed tend to store better. Here is the approach I am taking based on the principles of no-dig, intense planting.

I started my onion seeds in a tray. I planted them very densely in rows. I didn't thin them.  I trimmed them a couple of times to keep them around 6-10cm long. The trimmed ends are very fragrant and I used them in my cooking.

Once it was transplanting time, I trimmed them once more to around 6cm, and loosened the soil in the tray. It was easy to pull out the tiny onion seedlings and untangle them. 

I grabbed 3-4 onion seedlings at a time

My garden surface was already loose soil (if it had not been loose I would have used the broadfork to loosen it). I had recently replenished the mulch covering it, with a layer of leaves and a layer of grass clippings. I used my hori hori knife to spread the mulch apart and make a small hole. I placed the 4 seedlings in the hole, making sure not to cover them above the split in their leaves. I packed the soil around them a bit. 

The reason I put 4 onions per hole is that they will naturally push each other apart as they grow. In many cases I will harvest one per hole as a "green onion" early in the season, and maybe even another one to cook as a young onion, but they'd be fine left together to maturity, too. 

I used a distance of 8 inches between each 4-pack of onions. Even this densely packed, since onions have such skinny leaves, they won't shade the soil and weeds, so it will be important to keep a thick layer of mulch in between the onions, all summer long. I planted my onion sets the same way. In total, I have about 300 onions planted. They are one of those things that we never seem to have enough of! One of my favorite uses is French onion soup, which I pressure can. 

Woodworking skills and tools come in handy in the day to day. My latest project was making a gardening bench, which is mostly used while kneeling but also for sitting. It makes it more comfortable to kneel, saves my pants from the worse of the dirt and scuffs, and makes the repetitive up and down motions easier when it comes to long days of working along rows. The design I decided on has a few bonus features as well - it makes it easier to move all my tools as I go down a row, and if I flip it upside down it's a nice stool from which I can complete the "admiration phase" of my work or take a little break. My design was inspired by commercial products such as this one. 

Materials needed:

• Foam (I purchased a kneeling pad from Rona)
• Wood: 2 by 12, about 6-8 feet long (1 board) OR 2 by 6, about 6-8 feet long (two boards). I used pine for budget reasons. I'm sure it will get marks on it as I use it, but I really don't mind that for this project.
• White carpenter's glue
• Contact cement to glue the foam to the wood
• Polyurethane finish

To create my design, I experimented a bit with stacks of books to see what was a comfortable height for kneeling, how high I wanted the handles to be (to assist with getting up repeatedly), and how wide I wanted the kneeler (I wanted a bit of extra space on each side to put down a tool if needed). I also experimented a bit to see what dimensions would work to fold my gardening bag over the top edge. I decided to use mortice and tenon joinery for strength.

I could get 2 by 12 boards so I started by jointing and laminating pairs of 2 x 6 boards cut to size. I planed and jointed them. Then I used my router to carve out a mortice and handle in each vertical piece. I made the handle and mortice symmetrical, which made for an appealing design and simple router set up. 

Next, I used my router table to carve out a notch at either end of the vertical board. This creates short little legs that make the bench more stable on uneven ground. As a bonus, once I started using the bench, I realized that they are great for hanging my hat or any tool with a loop. 

I While I was at the router table, I started to work on the tenons, at either end of the horizontal piece. I routed out material on both faces of the board, adjusting until it was the correct thickness to slip just right into the mortice. I used a handsaw on the two edges to complete the tenon, and chisels to round off the tenon and adjust the fit. I made the tenon a bit longer than needed, so it would stick out a bit, just as an aesthetic choice.

Then, I used a palm router and rasp to round the edges. I glued the mortice and tenon, and applied polyurethane finish. In the picture below, the bench is drying upside down, on some painters' pyramids that I 3D printed a while back. All that was left was gluing the foam on with contact cement.

I had a chance to try out my kneeling bench yesterday while planting onions, and I love it. It is comfortable, less tiring, less muddy, and makes it easy to move all my tools along a row as I progress. The upside-down side definitely came in handy too. I love hooking my gardening bag on one end, and my hat on the other when I take it off to cool down a bit. Overall I am very happy with my design! It took about two half days to make, plus drying time. It was a lovely project to spend some time in one of my happy places, my workshop, listening to the rain falling on the tin roof.

Fiddleheads are a great food to forage. They are very easy to identify around here, and come pretty early (early/mid-May this year where we live, in Eastern Ontario), right as nature wakes up and before I can get fresh greens from the garden. It might be easier to spot a nearby ostrich fern patch in the summer, and go back to harvest in the spring. We have lots in our forest.​

Fiddleheads are the early form of the Ostrich fern - one of two abundant ferns in our area, which also has a lot of Cinnamon fern. It's key to be able to distinguish between these two ferns, and luckily it's pretty easy.  The first key characteristic of the ostrich fern is that is it covered with light brown / tan paper - as opposed to the white fuzz that covers the cinnamon fern. The second key characteristic is that its stem has a groove in it (a cross section would be U shaped like a tiny celery), as opposed to the cinnamon fern which doesn't. In the picture below, the ostrich fern is at the top and the cinnamon fern at the bottom. 

I cut a couple of fiddleheads from each fern and leave the rest, to ensure a sustainable harvest. I cut them near the ground as the stem is quite good. Once at home, I sort through the fiddleheads to confirm identification, remove as much of the papery husk as I can (but it's fine if some stays), trim off the ends and wash them. I boil or steam them, then pan fry them in olive oil with garlic, salt, pepper. I add a little bit of lime juice. Delicious!

When we first moved here, I planted a few apples trees. They have become quite productive and on a good year yield the apple harvest is plentiful.

Unfortunately, the pruning process has always been intimidating to me, so for the first 12 years or so, I didn't prune any of my trees. I could tell they were getting a little bit out of control, but I just didn't know where to start with it. I looked for information in books and online, but never felt confident. I mentioned this to many people in hopes someone could point me in the right direction... and finally it paid off as my friend Peggy from Good Food Garden, who similarly wanted to learn to prune her apple trees, got a small group together to learn this art from a local expert, Jeff Turner. After participating in this workshop, I can safely say that the best way to learn pruning is to learn in-person, from someone who knows what they are doing! After covering a little bit of theory, we headed outside and pruned Peggy's three apple trees, that were in a comparable state to mine. As the pruning process progressed, the pieces started to fall in place for me and I started to be able to make educated guesses about which branches needed to go. The next day, I pruned my apple and pear trees - I thought I better do it before I lost my nerve! 

Reflecting on the specific advice that Jeff gave, I realized some guiding principles:

1. Any branch that is doomed to break off, or that isn't productive (watersprouts), corresponds to wasted energy. 
2. Aim for a tree with an even distribution of branches in three dimensional space, emanating from the center but not crossing each other. Branches that cross are in competition and also run the risk of rubbing against each other, opening up a wound.
3. Think about the practicality of the harvest - are low branches going to be in the way? Do you need some kind of open space to lean your ladder against?
4. When deciding between two branches, always imagine what things will look in the future if you leave branch A, vs branch B, and how these scenarios will support or contradict the first three principles.

Here are a few of the specific guidelines I used to prune my trees in support of the principles, thanks to Jeff's advice.

• Prune off any "watersprouts" - thin vertical shoots that won't produce (principle 1, waste of energy)
• Avoid having any Y-split of 15-20 degrees or less, in  vertical Ys - these are likely to get bark trapped in the center of "Y" as the two branches develop and thicken, weakening the joint and leading to the "leaning" branch breaking off. (principle 1, potential waste of energy when a whole section breaks off)
• Prune off any branches that cross other branches when seen from above. When deciding which branch goes, imagine future development and which branch will fill out the tree without crowding an area. (principles 2 and 3, even branch density with no crossings)
• Never prune back more than one third of the tree

In terms of the process of pruning, we learned:

• Always prune just after the collar. Cutting into the collar is not great for healing, and leaving too much of the branch sticking out might be an opportunity for rot to set in.
• Any cut that is more than an inch in diameter should be covered with pruning sealer. I used a woodworking glue spreader to apply it. 
• The best tools to use are a pullsaw (I used my woodworking Dozuki saw...) and sharp pruning shears
• An alternative to pruning is using spreaders or ropes and weights to redirect the branches for a season, to set them in a new direction. I haven't tried this technique yet.

​Le jardinier-maraîcher: Manuel d’agriculture biologique sur petite surface, Jean-Martin Fortier

The market gardener : A  successful grower’s handbook for small-scale organic farming, Jean-Marc Fortier
 
This very practical handbook is based on the experience of Jean-Martin Fortier and Maude-Hélène Desroches in establishing a successful small scale organic farm serving customers mostly through a CSA basket program, in the Eastern Townships of Québec. Their approach is centered on organic methods, intense planting,  and efficiency of work, enabling them to minimize how much they invest in equipment and people power. Given these goals, a lot (but not all) of their conclusions are very applicable to a homesteading garden, where minimizing work and investment are typically very important. Where the applicability breaks down is where they make decisions based on building their customer base, and also, because minimal attention is paid to planning a garden with the goal of preserving food over winter, as their business revolves around selling fresh produce.

I really enjoyed the way the book is organized – it is a true handbook, with chapters on every phase of setting up and operating a large garden. The first few chapters would be useful for someone who is still dreaming about homesteading. They cover how to chose the ideal property and how to set up your site. If you already have a property, you will probably only skim them. The rest of the chapters are dedicated to one topic each, including fertilizing, indoor seedlings, direct sowing, weeding, pests, prolonging the growing season, harvesting and planning your production.

Personally, I also enjoyed how throughout the book, the author shares the philosophy behind their approach. The themes of sustainability, anti-consumerism and seeking a balanced life resonated strongly with me. These themes don’t take over the book, but they do incite reflection and give an intention to the work.

There are many reference charts and appendices covering things such as rotation charts, crop spacing, planting calendars, solutions to common problems, etc.

There is also considerable attention given to the business side of things, which I found interesting but not very applicable to my situation, where my goal is feeding myself and my family, as opposed to growing a business.
​
After my first reading of the book, I have a few take-aways that I am immediately putting into practice:

1. Crop rotation: in the past, I have had a general sense and goal of avoiding planting the same thing in the same place two years in a row, but this book gave a much clearer and systematic understanding of crop rotation. I now have a stronger understanding of the need to rotate between vegetable families, instead of between specific vegetables. For example, I should wait 3-4 years before planting a nightshade where another nightshade has been grown (the nightshade family includes tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, eggplants, tobacco, and ground cherries). There is a very useful summary of a few other key rules to respect when planning crop rotation. Over the weekend, I reworked my garden overhead plan to fully incorporate crop rotation by family. For me, this means dividing up garden into 4 sections of 3 rows each and rotating rows within these sections. It was a bit of a logic puzzle to plan out, as there are many other constraints in my garden (row size, some rows being irrigated and others not, spacing available around the row etc).
2. Pairing up spring or fall crops with summer crops: for example, to double the use of a row, you can plant an early crop of spinach and once it is harvested and the warmer weather arrives, plant turnip in its place. Some other pairs I intend to use are: fall garlic and greens, green beans and fall garlic, sugar peas and lettuce, spinach and carrots.
3. Dense planting (less space between plants): I had already stumbled on my own into the principle of dense planting. From the start, I have always wanted to plant as many things as possible within the space that I have available, so I often disregarded the row spacing suggested on seed packets. Most of the time I didn’t notice any ill effects. For example, I often planted two onion bulbs one next to the other and harvested one early as a green onion and left the other to grow. The other advantage of dense planting is that it leaves less space for weeds. In this book, dense planting is strongly encouraged. The rule of thumb that is given is that plants should touch each other when they are three-quarters of their full size. This will give good coverage of the soil, minimizing weeds, mulching and keeping the ground cool and moist. Specific spacing for specific crops is outlined. This makes me more confident in continuing down the path of dense planting. This year, my onions will be going down in groups of four!
4. Better early planting calendar: I have never made good use of the time before the last frost. Typically I didn’t plant anything before end of May or beginning of June. Some of that is a habit that I formed before I transitioned to no-till gardening – at the time, I always had to wait for the garden to be dry before I tilled it. However, as I’ve landed on the proper configuration for my garden, with permanent beds and walking paths, and, as I’ve transitioned to a no-till approach, the spring brings a lot of possibility. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a good idea of what to plant when. Luckily a planting calendar in the book answered all my questions.
5. Transitioning more crops from direct sowing to seedlings: My past rule of thumb has been that if something can be direct sown, I direct sow it. This helped me minimize the number of shelves, lighting, and other seed starting equipment I needed and transplanting time. However, with time, I have been able to acquire more seed starting space (which I use for Kratky in the winter). The book drove home that an early start means that you’ll not only get your crop earlier, but you’ll also and then have space for a crop of something else afterwards; this idea is appealing and gives me motivation for starting more seedlings this year.

 
Those are my immediately actionable items. The book also gave me some longer-term ideas. I would like to look into simple-ish ways to extend the growing season, such as floating covers, row tunnels, and maybe a small greenhouse. I am also curious to do some more scientific soil tests and to look into a more test-based approach to fertilizing my soil.
 
There were also some aspects to the book which were not really applicable to my situation, and I feel that they may not appeal to most homesteaders. The approach explained in the book is not a no-till approach – some light hand-operated machinery is used. It makes sense from a business perspective but on the kitchen garden scale, I prefer the simplicity, and lower investment, of a no till method. Some of the equipment, although much more affordable than typical farming machinery, is still a bit pricy if you aren’t planning to recoup your investment through sales. Similarly, the farm relies on manmade mulches, and some options are interesting, such as a cornstarch based biodegradable membrane that is incorporated in the soil in the fall. However, in my case I will stick to natural mulches such as leaves and grass cuttings, which I can get for free and which contribute to improving the quality of my clay-based soil.
 
In conclusion, I would highly recommend this book to anyone with a large garden, especially if they are based in zones 3-5. I would rank it as my second favorite book, after “Le Jardin Vivrier” by Marie Thévard – the reason I prefer the latter is because the scenario described in the latter is more similar to my own – a self-sufficiency goal, rather than a small business goal. Together, these two books make a powerful duo for people in a homesteading situation.

There is something to be said for finding free snacks wherever you go. In addition to growing my own food, I also enjoy foraging. The following quote from "Landmade - Eating the wild things" also speaks to me: "In a society that encourages - even insists on - constant consumption and consumerism, foraging your own food for free can be an act of rebellion". 

I think that most of us have had experiences with foraging, be it as simple as eating a few wild raspberries or strawberries in the summertime. I remember my grandmother showing me where to pick raspberries behind my grandparents' cottage when I was a child. I brought a tiny bucket back and had them over vanilla ice cream with a bit of maple syrup. So sweet! I also remember visiting our current property with the previous owner, just before moving in. He gave us a tour or the forest, the marsh, the fields and pointed out the raspberry bushes and the sugar maple in the forest, and I felt so lucky to become the custodian of this land. 

I have found it challenging to learn foraging from books or website, however, spending a couple hours with a local forager keen to share their knowledge was an incredible learning experience. In our case, we leveled up our knowledge with a foraging walk with the kind people of Landmade, at a location about half an hour from our property. I would not hesitate to recommend their walks and workshops. After our walk with Jess, our guide, we started to notice wild foods everywhere we went - on the side of the highway, in parks, and on our property. Our eyes were opened!

Here is a little gallery of some of the foods we forage on our property. These image are just meant to encourage you to get to know the land around you, and to pique your interest - please make sure you are certain of your identification before eating anything you forage.