Simper Living
By Fiona Wagner • Bankrate Canada

One of the reasons my family and I moved to our farm is because we wanted to grow more of our own food. Many people do that in city gardens and appropriately-called urban homesteads. In fact, the Dervaes family of Pasedena, Calif., grows more than 6,000 pounds of food each year on a city plot measuring just one-tenth of an acre.

Our home in the suburbs, however, didn't offer us such ideal growing conditions. Our previous garden was an oasis of shade, perfect for growing bleeding hearts and petunias, but the meager rays of dappled sunlight weren't enough to nurture vegetables.

Here on the farm, we have all the sunshine we could want, and our possibilities are limited only by frost dates and weather. The former owners seemed to do okay, they had a vegetable garden measuring approximately 7,600 square feet -- bigger than the entire backyard at our old place.

When we moved here last July, it was too late to start planting. Besides, our inherited vegetable garden was already in full production -- with five-foot-tall pigweed.

I spent a lot of the late summer and fall preparing for this spring. I pulled weeds, turned soil and started a few compost piles. I still have a lot of work to do to get the garden ready for this year's planting, but for now, my garden tools consist of pencil and paper.

Planning ahead
It began just after Christmas with the arrival of my first seed catalogue. I've never been a big shopper, but little seed packets are my weakness.

When it's cold and dark out, and the garden is buried under four feet of snow, it's hard not to be seduced by the glossy pictures of perfect specimens of plump peas, purple cauliflower and gorgeous red tomatoes with names like Celebrity, Sicilian Saucer and Viva Italia.