Self Sufficiency on Small 1/2 Acreage - My Vegetable Garden Layout

Welcome to my garden where I grow the largest portion of our food that keeps us from relying on the grocery store and being more self-sufficient. It's wintertime and this is the best time to see the bare bones of my garden. I'll walk you through my layout, what I do to get the most out of my garden space, what I would do different if I had it to do all over again. This is the most asked for video and I hope you enjoy it. I've been gardening in this space for well over 25 years now and when I first started it was full of bindweed, thistle, crabgrass, and ragweed. The clay soil had no life to it and it was hard as a rock. I used the old traditional water down the rows method then a few years later I adapted to the raised wide row gardening and then I also used the drip tape irrigation system which is still used today. I loved those raised rows so I decided to make them more permanent with some eight by eight inch old timbers that I got for a really good price. Now I'm replacing those timbers with some block because all of those timbers are starting to rot as all wood will do. I do my best to use no-till gardening in my garden. I really love that concept but one thing that gardening has taught me over the years is not one size fits all. We all have different climates, soil, and water. Our water here is really hard and we have little rainfall and that all contributes to our soil. Every once in a while I find that my beds get a and compacted even though I load up with lots of organic matter and it is good soil. I never walk on it but every once in a while I have to use a digging fork to loosen that soil up. My main garden space is 50 by 60 with 13 large garden beds and a 12 by 16 foot greenhouse nestled in a corner. Most beds are three foot wide and I love the width of this bed. I can easily reach the center making it easy for planting, weeding, and feeding. The length of the beds range from 22 feet to 35 feet and mine are staggered just for the aesthetics of it. My space between the rows is only 18 inches and this is very close. I can get more food in a small space this way but the big downside is my wheelbarrow doesn't fit easily between the rows making it where I have to haul compost in and spent plant matter out by buckets and by the end of summer everything has exploded and it feels like a jungle. If I had more space between these beds it would be more efficient and it would be easier to handle the workload but hindsight and we all have it. The perimeter of my garden has multiple blackberries and some fruit trees. Behind the greenhouse is a small space and a little cooler microclimate so I planted raspberries there. Raspberries need that in a hot environment. This space would otherwise be wasted. The fruit trees offer a little dappled shade on the south side of the garden which is perfect for growing more golden raspberries and black raspberries plus some strawberries. Our summers are really hot here in southern Utah. Our zone is 8a. They can get to be about 115 degrees on the hottest part of the summer with little rainfall if any at all. Having the trees next to the garden actually makes the garden just a little bit cooler and it offers some dappled shade but the downside is those beds right next to those trees get some of those tree roots because those tree roots really love that rich garden soil. So if I had it to do all over again I'd actually take those trees and move them a little bit more south. On the ends of almost all of my vegetable beds I have perennial vegetables, herbs, and pollinator friendly flowers. In fact one bed that runs north and south that borders the orchard and garden is almost fully dedicated to herbs and pollinator friendly flowers with a few veggies tucked here and there. My garden is full of bees, hoverflies, butterflies, happy pollinators that all keep it in harmony with nature and without those pollinators our gardens can't be near as productive. All around the outskirts of my garden is my duck run. This is a great defense against pests. Not that I don't have pests but they do a great job of helping keeping them down. They love slugs and snails. Now ducks aren't for everybody. They can be noisy and they can be messy. They have their run and the full range of the orchard and I can herd them easily wherever I want them to be. Ducks can trample a garden and eat your new seedlings so they're best not to be right in the garden but rather around the perimeter of the garden and in my orchard makes it perfect harmony. They don't harm the blackberries but they do find refuge under them and the fruit grows high enough that they can't get it but of course anything that's low they'll eat. They also keep weeds down poop which fertilizes the trees and the berries. Ducks have been a part of our little homestead for a good many years. The ducks I have now are Indian runners which are one of the best for pest management plus I love the way they run straight up. Soil health is a huge part of a highly productive garden. Every time I plant and I do mean every time I add compost, something goes out, compost goes in. You would think with all of these years that I've been adding compost and adding compost that I would have this huge heaping pile of dirt but it breaks down over time and it's never been a problem and I've never had to remove anything from my garden beds. If I didn't feed continually the soil would become depleted and production and health of the plants would decline. If there's one thing to learn here is to always feed your soil good organic matter and compost is one of the best options at the very least yearly but as often as you can is better. I do a lot of highly intensive planting. This does a couple things for me. I get a lot of food in a small amount of space. There's less exposed soil which means less water evaporation so that saves on water plus there's a lot less weeds doing it this way. If I lived in a climate that had higher humidity and more rainfall then I'd have to plant my plants further apart because they've got to have that airflow otherwise they end up with funguses and diseases. We live in a really dry hot environment so it really is to our benefit to plant them close together. I also do a lot of inner planting. I'll plant lettuces underneath my tomato plants and by the time that the lettuce has gone to seed the tomatoes have taken over and they'll shade that area that soil to keep that moisture in. Another one that's really good to put together is cucumbers and beets. The cucumbers will grow up a trellis and the beets will occupy that space below so you have no wasted space. Trellising is another way that I get more yield out of the garden. Our high winds here can make it challenging so I have to use the beds that's next to the greenhouse to protect those vertical crops. This year we'll have a new solid fence on the north side which should help with that just a little bit. This bed right here is right up against the greenhouse so it's really protected during the winter time. It's south facing and it's protected from those north prevailing winds that are really cold here so I can grow a lot of my greens right in this bed with no protection all winter long. We have a pretty long growing season with frost free days from April 15th to November 1st give or take a few and when we get snow it's really minimal and it only lasts for a day or two. By using hoop houses or frost blankets that can extend our growing season several weeks and that gives us a lot more growing power. With that being said I can grow year-round in my climate. I can have a spring, summer, fall, and winter garden which gives me more of a food bank. Winter months I can grow garlic, leeks, brussel sprouts, and leave crops in the ground like carrots and turnips which store them and also sweetens them. All summer bottling, fermenting, freeze drying, and freezing have to be done to keep the food store full for the winter months. Not always an easy task when life is so busy already but that's all a part of being self-sufficient and that's where winters are nice because you get a little break. I never leave a space bare or at least for very long if I do like winter time. I'll cover my beds with leaves or even goat manure so it can break down and improve the soil for spring planting. When cool season crops are spent out they go to the chickens, goats, or compost heap and in goes more compost and another crop. Gardening has its ups and downs. Some years one crop may produce outstanding and the next it may be a total failure for one reason or another so I always plant a few more plants than needed. Hard work, observing the garden, a few prayers, and by the grace of God the garden will produce. Thanks for joining me!