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Grow What You Love

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever stop learning this garden lesson– Grow what you love to eat. Not what looks pretty in the harvest basket, not what sounds intriguing in the catalog description, not what other groovy gardeners always gush about, not what I think I should love to eat.

All of those things make a variety worth trying, maybe even a couple of times. But I seem to be stuck on an endless re-loop of French breakfast radishes and chicory, neither of which I have ever liked!

You may genuinely love radishes and chicory (if you do, they are easy crops to grow, I speak from experience). My point is not to disparage those beautiful vegetables, but rather to remind us all to make our planting decisions based on sound historical evidence. Gardening is a lot of work, grow the things that you know you will harvest and enjoy.

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Meet Calamity Jane

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a mother, gardener, and educator. I live with my family in Eugene, Oregon, where our ¼ acre homestead is an abundant tangle of vegetables, fruit trees, flowers and herbs. I am a Master Gardener and Certified Permaculture Designer, but I don’t believe that these titles mean half as much as my 25 years experience of making mistakes in the garden.

I am also the homemaker of our home. I started baking my own bread when I was 14 and it sparked a lifelong love of cooking from scratch. My kitchen is a jungle of jars, with every kind of food inside. Perhaps most importantly, I spent 7 years as a full-time mama, and understand the unique challenges of trying to maintain a productive home and homestead, while also wiping up spills and breaking up fights for 12 hours a day. 

I love the beauty of a handmade life, and still get a thrill of pleasure when I bring in a basket of eggs or a bunch of freshly pulled carrots. But I value authenticity even more, and I don’t like to hide the dirt under my nails. Years ago someone jokingly dubbed me Calamity Jane, not because I’m a cowgirl but because I’m a rule-breaker. Join me as I topple the edifice of Pinterest Perfection and get right into the nitty gritty details of real life homesteading!  

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