Homestead Gardening in Tennessee Naturally

We have used gardening  as a source of feeding our family and income for years.  When we moved to Tennessee we hoped to do the same but we knew it would take some work.  We started by fencing in the acre we wanted to plant our first year and running our pigs in it.  The pigs are great for rooting up the ground, which means they were able to eat and root up the ground so we could collect rocks.  We left them all winter and moved them to a large pasture in the woods in April to begin the garden.

Well April came and so did the showers, which was ok because there was a drought here last  year so bring on the rain.  Well the rain lasted weeks and by the end of April it was time.  We picked up rocks for what seemed like forever and we were ready to work ground, we thought.  All was going well my father in law plowed the ground, we picked up more rocks. Next, we should have used the tiller, but a part was broke and it was going to take a week to get, change of plans.  The ground was so nice we decided to use the disc to see what would happen. Well much to our surprise it worked great, the ground crumbled up so fine, it was perfect.  To understand my excitement we could have never done this back home in Ohio, our ground was so hard and filled with clay it took forever for it to crumble and it was never as fine and workable as it is here.

We were surprised that it only took two days and we were ready to plant.  We layed our plastic to prevent weeds from overtaking, but my father in law couldn't wait and planted somethings without plastic, not a big deal the weeds do not come up too quick here, but he did plant the rows too close, so now the cucumbers are a massive mess and its gonna be fun to pick.  We have been picking some peppers, herbs, a couple tomatoes, not too bad for planting late.  Here are some pictures of our garden, we grow with no chemicals at all!