Modified Dream Plan

I have decided the first thing I am going to do to get me closer to the country life I want is plant a garden. I wanted to plant daffodil bulbs in the Fall, but I never felt like it was cool enough outside, then the holidays came and I forgot. Now I think it is too late. But it is not too late to plan a vegetable garden.

I tried to make my garden plan simple, because I am going to have a new baby in 3 months, but I got a little carried away. Those of you who know me are surprised by this, I'm sure.

I found a website that has a gardening calendar for Central Texas. The calendar says that in January I need to order seed catalogs, then decide what I want to plant and order those seeds. I ordered two catalogs this morning~Johnny's Seeds and Territorial Seeds. Those were recommended to me by Kim in Iowa.

This is what I am going to plant in my garden this year:
green bell peppers
big tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
squash
zuchinni
pumpkins
cantaloupes
watermelons
green beans
garlic
herbs in kitchen (rosemary, basil)

My calendar says I can't plant my vegetables until April 14th. That sounds awfully far away. Sure sounds fun to be outside planting vegetables when I am 2 weeks away from my due date.

Well, we'll see if this actually happens. I hope I have the energy to go ahead with the plan. Right now I have energy to spare. I have been cooking and baking bread like crazy. My house smells SO good. I need to be cooking double and freezing half, but we seem to eat it all, no matter how much I cook! And dh loves to take supper leftovers to work for lunch.

Dh and I have agreed on what kind of little farm life we want. This is what we want to do:
We want enough chickens to provide eggs for our family, and a milk cow to provide milk for us and extra to make butter, ice cream, cheese, etc. We eventually want a horse or two, just for fun. We want some fruit trees and a big garden. We want to grow Christmas trees and pumpkins. Dh wants to sell the trees and pumpkins each year, but I am not that ambitious just yet. I just want them for our family and to give away to friends and neighbors.
Oh yes, I also want honey bees and beehives. Dh is not so sure about this one. Actually, he's sure he DOES NOT want this part of the dream life. I think I have told him about my dad having 50+ bee stings on his body after harvesting the honey each year. Me and my big mouth.

So, we figured out that we will need 20 acres or more to have this little farm. The catch is that I want our children to stay in the school district they are in, and it is hard to find that much land around here in this district. We have found lots and lots of land in other, less desirable school districts, but not in this one.

This is a far away dream. Right now we are just going to plan a garden. :)