Rural Gardening: Fall, a time to reflect, 4 by MaypopLaurel

MaypopLaurel wrote:
It was necessary for us to have careers and live in the city. Our current city house is on two acres but it's all wooded. Nice for city living though not for vegetable gardening. So, I found an affordable, abandoned foreclosure on a great property in the country and we spent years DIYing. The nomadic nature of the whole thing has a rhythm but with challenges. We raised our kids, have always had animals and still moved back and forth.

I garden on steps with about a half acre under cultivation and sixteen plus other acres in pond, creeks and woods. The garden started as a gravel road that went up to and past the cottage. I built a sifter to remove the gravel and year by year, foot by foot, the space expanded. Twenty five years later there's about 1/3 acre in vegetables, grown in three separate sections, and the rest in herbs, flowers and fruit. The fruit is on two levels below the main vegetable garden. I grow blueberries, muscadines, pears, figs, and peaches. We planted apples two years ago. We harvest many pounds of chanterelles from our woods in spring and fall