Good grief. Is anyone else ready for Spring and warm weather and no more sickness? I sure am. I have more posts coming up soon and I am really excited to get back to blogging.

Our seedlings are growing and I can't wait to plant our raised beds and grow our own produce. So far we have a couple different kinds each of lettuce and spinach, a few varieties of tomatoes and some peppers. We are also going to do Amish Pie Pumpkins, potatoes, carrots, green beans, onions and garlic.

Why raised beds?  With raised beds you don't have to till the ground, there are less weeds and you have more control over where everything goes. You can plant things all over your yard instead of one big patch. Plus, we got some railroad ties from HH's brother and we don't have a tiller.

I'm also thinking of using the front flower bed as an herb garden.

And I want to plant lots of these:

Peppermint Stick Zinnias

credit

We get our seeds from Baker Creek- all heirloom, non-GMO.

We have virtually no idea what we are doing so this will be an interesting experiment. Our plan is to grow as much as we can, preserve what we don't eat fresh, and use some to barter for honey across the road, fresh eggs from friends, and who knows what else. The sky's the limit!
Have you ever bartered? Its not such a big thing here but a lot of cultures do it. I would like to do it- I think its a really interesting concept. Plus it would help save some money on groceries.

Speaking of which, I canned up some really great spaghetti sauce yesterday and I will post the recipe this weekend. See you then!