The gardens are some of the busiest and most hopeful places on our homestead. Every season begins with seeds, plans, and the belief that this might finally be the year everything grows exactly as expected. Of course, the weather, pests, soil, and plants usually have ideas of their own—but watching those first seedlings emerge never loses its magic.
I love growing food, herbs, fruit, and flowers, but I also enjoy everything the garden continues to teach me. Some lessons come from a basket overflowing with a successful harvest, while others come from plants that struggled, experiments that did not work, or unexpected problems that sent me searching for a better solution. Gardening is always a mixture of planning, patience, observation, adaptation, and trying again.
Around The Gardens, I’ll share what we grow, how we care for it, the problems we work through, and the plans we continue making for the seasons ahead. Wander through the beds, visit the herb garden and orchard, peek at what is growing in the greenhouse, and see what lessons this year’s garden has waiting for us.
The Gardens
Every garden season has something new to teach us.
Vegetable & Kitchen Garden
The Herb Garden
Fruit, Berries & Orchard
Flowers, Pollinators & Beneficial Plants
Not everything in the garden is grown for the pantry. This is where I’ll share flowers, companion plants, edible blooms, pollinator support, beneficial insects, and the plants that help make the garden more beautiful, balanced, and welcoming to the creatures we need.
Growing food for our family is one of the most practical and rewarding parts of our homestead. Here I’ll share vegetables, planting plans, crop varieties, succession planting, trellising, harvesting, and the everyday work that carries a garden from seed to table.
Fruit trees and berry plants require patience, but each season brings them a little closer to the harvests we hope for. Here I’ll share orchard and berry care, pruning, pollination, seasonal maintenance, harvests, and what we learn as our perennial plants grow with us.
Explore The Gardens
Greenhouse & Season Extension
Garden Know-How
Herbs bring flavor, fragrance, beauty, and usefulness into nearly every part of our home. Explore the varieties I grow, planting and care, hardiness, harvesting, and the lessons I learn while keeping culinary and traditionally useful herbs thriving in our climate.
No garden season passes without questions, problems, and lessons learned the hard way. Here I’ll share soil care, seed starting, irrigation, weather protection, pests, planning, troubleshooting, and the practical experiments that help me understand our garden a little better each year.
In our short growing season, a little protection can make a tremendous difference. Follow along as we build and use our greenhouse, start plants, protect crops from unpredictable weather, extend the season, and eventually explore the plant-growing side of our planned aquaponic system.
From Around The Gardens
Take a peek at the seedlings, growing beds, orchard projects, greenhouse plans, harvests, experiments, and everyday work happening around The Gardens.
Latest from The Gardens
Explore the newest planting guides, garden projects, crop updates, troubleshooting tips, seasonal lessons, and things we are growing and learning around The Gardens.
From Our Homestead to Yours
Looking for something grown, gathered, or inspired by the gardens? Explore seasonal herbs and produce when available, preserved foods, dried goods, and other small-batch homestead products from Rach’s Place.