Reviewing the Past, Planning the Future

Today, I'm spending a few moments remembering the last growing season as I continue to plan for the next one. Here are some of my favorite images from 2014's garden along with some things I was particularly happy about last year:

The garden was "thrown to the wolves" and managed to fend for itself, making a huge leep into becoming self-regulating with little maintanance beyond "chop and drop" mulching and mowing.

 

Almost no watering was necessary. Beyond the obligatory "watering in" at planting time, our garden was completely self-watering last year. 

A year of harvests--we ate something out of the garden almost every day from mid April through the end of the year. A great number of meals came 99% from the garden (salt and oils being the exception.)

Growing money on trees: Through most of that time, we purchased almost no fruits or vegetables. 

For the next growing season, I'm looking forward to planting the last of our major woody perennials to complete the overstory of our food forests, adding even more diversity to our collection of over 200 useful plants, finding new ways to share and distribute our "yields," and increasing the number of "open garden" days when we can share the wealth of knowledge this young ecosystem is capable of teaching us. And most importantly, finding new "chores" to leave "undone" in the garden as the ecosystem takes over more work for us.