This past year was my 3rd year of my gardening, homesteading, and sustainability journey. I started back in 2020 during the height of the pandemic, and 3 years later in going strong. This year will be my 4th year, and I’m loving every single minute of it!
In 2022, I set a goal of not buying any vegetables from the grocery store and only using what was grown in the garden.
To be honest, this was a lofty goal, and I did not meet this goal.
During the spring we ate a lot of vegetables that I had frozen from 2021 and lots of lettuces. We didn’t get the spring crops planted until mid Marxh of 2022, so many of out crops didn’t come in till April or they bolted when the temperatures started the heat up. I’m looking at you broccoli! 🥦🥦 We ate as much from the yard as we could, but I still had to buy a lot from the grocery store.
We did a great job during the summer (May- August) of eating from the garden. All our vegetables and fruits were picked right from your backyard. We mostly ate fresh and did some canning. I didn’t have a pressure canner, so I just did water bath canning and mainly with tomatoes and salsas.
Come fall, I had just started a new and very demanding job which led me to neglect my fall crops. We got very little from the fall garden, which meant I was back at the grocery store to purchase vegetables.
In winter, we were pretty much only buying vegetables from the grocery store.
This is not what I had hoped when I set this goal. I really thought I could do better. I take pride in the fact that for a few months in the summer, we were only eating from the garden.
For 2023, I am going to try and do more canning and food preserving to make it even longer without purchasing vegetables and fruits from the grocery store. That, however, is my secondary goal for 2023. My primary goal for this year is to save seeds from at least 75% of the plant I grow this year. We’ll see how that goes. Be on the lookout in January 2024 for my update and reflection on this 2023 goal! 🌱
What are your goals for this year? Share in the comments!
My Urban Homestead by Sarah 