What, if anything, are you doing differently (garden or prep-wise) due to Covid?

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Comments

  • danielle.meitiv
    danielle.meitiv Posts: 30 ✭✭✭

    I'm doing a lot more in my garden and thinking more critically and seriously about the kinds of food I'm planting, for maximum benefit and yield. It's not that I seriously fear that we will run out or supply lines will get disrupted, but I've become so much more aware of the links between food, soil, and personal, familial, and community health.

    What that has meant in more practical terms:

    • more succession planting - following one crop with another (adding nutrients/compost to make sure the soils don't get depleted),
    • extending harvests - ex- finding shady spots to grow lettuce as the weather gets warmer
    • trying new crops or at different times - I usually plant peas early (and got a lousy crop this year) so i'm going tot ry to grow them over the summer in a somewhat shaded spot. And I've never tried cucamelon but I will this year!
    • being much more diligent about garden care (ex - watering) to ensure success.
    • becoming part of a local gardening community to swap plants, seeds, advice, and support!
    • making space for wildflowers and other pretty ornamentals to encourage more beauty in my garden
    • making a point of cultivating and enjoying more herbs for flavor and health benefits
    • purchasing seeds and plants from more varied sources - to support other businesses and discover new producers, methods, and seeds (Etsy is a great source for seeds, plants and other gardening needs!)

    There's no doubt that focusing more on my garden has helped me feel more centered and yes, grounded, during this time.

    Danielle

  • Melissa Swartz
    Melissa Swartz Posts: 270 ✭✭✭

    We've expanded the gardening area this year. We had a large tree that totally shaded our yard, and was diseased. We had that removed, so now we actually have sun and can grow in a lot of areas that were too shady before. We have a large ornamental bed next to a fence. Now that it gets sun, I have devoted the back 2 feet of the bed, along the fence, to vegetables. They are growing behind the ornamentals, so the change isn't obvious, but there is actually a lot of room back there.

  • mcarryon
    mcarryon Posts: 32 ✭✭✭

    I have doubled up this year. Since I am home more, I have planted several varieties of squash, cucumbers, carrots and radishes. Hope to can lots!


  • marion.lemari
    marion.lemari Posts: 15 ✭✭✭

    When this Corona mess started, I bought four bags of seed potatoes, got free mulch from a place nearby, and put those seed potatoes straight into the ground. I covered everything with the mulch and called it a garden bed. My husband thought I sound like a crazy person when I told him I am planting lots of potatoes and other things because of the corona virus. I had to explain to him that I worried about food chain interruptions. I told him that potatoes were my first choice because they can keep a person fed for a long period of time.

    Now, I always wanted to grow more food for my family at home, and I had already created a Hügelkultur bed last year. The virus just accelerated my gardening efforts by introducing this sense of panic and it also got me thinking more about food security, sustainability, and overall disaster preparedness. I ordered native fruit trees that are better adapted to drought conditions online, really put some thought into irrigation and rain water harvesting (which I have yet to get started), and also made an effort to learn more about the native plants we have around us. I feel much better when I have some control over food and water in case things do get worse. I also noticed that my gardening efforts have lead to fewer grocery store trips. I just use the stuff I have in the freezer and fresh vegetables from the garden to cook meals. I am not sure how much that will save me but I often have days where I have about 2 pounds of fresh stuff from the garden plus the eggs from the hens we got last fall. To me this is a great output already, and I know I can increase it more this year. There is not much else to do but work from home and garden. We might as well use the time to establish our independent food supply.

  • Torey
    Torey Posts: 5,679 admin

    Welcome @DanielleM, @mcarryon and @marion.lemari! You will find lots of like minded people here.

  • Grounded
    Grounded Posts: 153 ✭✭✭

    We also live in suburbia abutting a park with several hundred trees that leaves us with too much shade to grow vegetables. I rent a community garden plot, but that was closed for several weeks due to COVID-19. Even though we got a late start, I now have just about everything planted that I wanted, it just won't be coming up as soon as I had hoped.

    One thing that I did notice was that bagged dirt, mulch, compost was completely gone at the big box hardwares, along with other odd things like hose splitters, plants and seedlings. The seed company I have been using posted that they were suspending new orders for several weeks until they could catch up and I had to settle for replacement seed packets on several of my selections.