Welcome

I started gardening back in 1972 when my mother gave me a section of her garden. That was in the early days of Ruth Stout's popularity! 

I've gardened every year since, and in the spirit of Ruth Stout, I've always been looking for the easiest way to do it, the no-work way, and still getting the biggest harvest possible!

My mother and I spent hours together in the garden, and it was there that I developed my love for gardening. I used to love to go out in the garden with her and pick all the string beans and tomatoes!

I remember once when it was just about getting too dark to see, going out to the garden with her, and digging our hands deep down into the dark soil, having so much fun searching for all the potatoes hidden there! It is such a fond memory!

So, this site really is a tribute to the memory of her and all the things she taught me... especially my love and respect for her and what she taught me about gardening with purpose!

Back in those days, while we sure enjoyed the produce from our garden, we weren't really depending on it to survive, so much of what we grew went to waste. It seemed a shame to cut out a lettuce plant and leave a hole there in the row where the plant once was!

But, while we weren't depending on our harvest as if it were a matter of life and death, I learned about organic growing principles when no one else was doing it! And I learned that you have to FEED your soil if you want it to produce.

Fast forward... 

The soil on which we now garden was previously some of the poorest I have ever seen! It was heavy clay with almost no organic matter and filled with lots of stones, some of them weighing over 1,000 pounds. 

I worked literally for years removing them, with the help of our nine children and a lot of pulleys, ropes, and levers. When a stone was too big, I would spend a week or more hitting it with a sledgehammer to break it up into small enough pieces that I could remove them! 

If it was still too big I would dig a hole about six feet deep and lever it into the hole and cover it with dirt! So I have a lot of sweat equity in our garden! Maybe I'm crazy... but probably not, but I'm still putting new garden beds onto our property every year!

There are very serious threats facing our food supplies, as well as exorbitant prices at the supermarket. It's why this isn't your everyday gardening site. We want to show people how to live on what they grow so that if they had to they could survive on only what they harvest from their gardens!

Even if you DON'T have to... you'll know HOW to!

If you've never gardened before, start with one small 4x8 garden bed, learn the principles of mini-farming, and move up from there!

What you'll learn on this site to live on what you grow is:

  ✔ How to improve your soil

  ✔ Different methods of seed starting and propagating

  ✔ How to lengthen your growing and harvesting season

  ✔ How to store your food to last through the winter

Everything is for the purpose of living on what you grow!