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a homeschooling mom of four who used to blog about food, has a book about sourdough, and who is now walking through the grief of losing my dad.
Hi, I'm Kels!

The Best Sourdough Glazed Donuts

I started square foot gardening last summer. To ease into it (and because I was pregnant and not feeling well) we built 3, 4’x4′ boxes. I planted beets, peas, carrots, spinach, and kale. Because of our high altitude, I did a lot of reading and finally settled on buying my seeds from Seeds Trust. They specialize in high altitude gardening and carry a lot of different varieties of seeds that have been tried and tested in the mountains of Idaho! Perfect! They sell heirloom, open-pollinated, vegetable, herb (culinary and medicinal), native wildflower and native grass seeds. They promote seed saving and I love what they stand for. All of their seeds are certified naturally grown (basically organic, but without the red tape of being USDA organic certified) and aren’t treated at all. I am trying to learn more about seed saving so that I can continually keep seeds and replant them the next year. I think this is something everyone should learn about. It’s really important to me to learn all I can about growing food to feed my family.

Cucumbers
Peas
The view from my garden isn’t too bad!

This year I got ambitious and wanted to try and grow EVERYTHING. I held myself back a bit, but we did grow the size of the garden and I’m excited to see things coming up everywhere. This year my husband added 4 – 4’x8′ boxes, and 6 – 1’x4′ boxes, plus the three boxes we had last year. I planted: peas (shelling and sugar snap), beets (2 varieties), carrots (2 varieties), cucumbers (slicing and pickling), onions, swiss chard, romaine lettuce, spinach, basil, parsley, dill, and 5 different flowers/insect repelling plants. I planted the insect repelling flowers in the 1’x4′ boxes which are placed around the perimeter of the garden, to try and ward off bugs. I did a lot of reading about  companion planting and hope to see some good results by planting vegetables together that are compatible. I really wanted to try growing tomatoes out here this year but just didn’t get to it early enough. I have five varieties of tomatoes brought here from Siberia to try. I figure that if they can grow tomatoes in Siberia, I can grow them here! Our farm is at roughly 5,600 ft elevation so the growing season is quite short, but that is why I took so much time and effort to find seeds that are suited for my environment.

I took these pictures before our 10 day trip to Canada and things look really good right now. Almost everything is up now, except for the flowers, which I got planted late. I hope they catch up so that they can do their job and keep those bugs away as well as draw in the bugs that are good for the garden!

I plan on preserving a lot of food this summer/fall. I made four batches of strawberry jam after I picked berries a couple of weeks ago, and it turned out great. Other things I want to preserve:

  • blueberries – frozen
  • blackberries – picked fresh and frozen (from the same farm I got my strawberries, they don’t use herbicides or pesticides)
  • saskatoon berries – our farm is COVERED in these bushes and I grew up munching on these berries. I plan to freeze as many as I can pick for my smoothies this winter!
  • chokecherry syrup – we also have a lot of chokecherries out here
  • peaches – bottled
  • pears – bottled and pear butter
  • applesauce – bottled
  • peas – frozen
  • beets – frozen
  • onions – minced and frozen for easy use this winter

And whatever else I can find! I feel the urge to get a lot of food ready right now, when it’s in season and available so that I can save money this winter and still feed my family good, healthy food.

Comments +

  1. AKutarna says:

    I am seriously so jealous of your garden! I planted so much this year too, and the gofers that invaded my neighbors yard ate most of my garden already : (

  2. Amber says:

    beautiful garden

  3. Kinsey says:

    I came across this post from your recent gardening posts – I feel like I must be nesting but I want to grow everything! I have big plans for my little yard! My husband does not like the idea of more garden boxes so I am trying to get creative with landscaping ideas for berries and potatoes. 😉 Baby comes in about 5 weeks so we’ll see how much I can accomplish this year!

    • Kelsey says:

      You are my hero. haha. But I completely understand — I always get the same way around that time with my babies, ESPECIALLY if it’s spring time! Good luck with it all! If you get it planted, then it really isn’t too bad with a new baby. I had my last baby in June 2 years ago and was still able to keep up with it. The nice thing about raised beds is that they hardly get any weeds, which really cuts back on the time you have to spend out there!

  4. Emily says:

    Where in Idaho did you purchase your berries? Thanks!

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about me

Hey, I'm Kels!

a homeschooling mom of four who used to blog about food, has a book about sourdough, and who is now walking through the grief of losing my dad.

I have lots of recipes and resources, but now it's just about me being real, walking through the messy and beautiful parts of life.

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