Still planning...

The NC Cooperative Extension is a fabulous resource for help with gardening. They have publications related to vegetable gardening, composting/recycling, and a bunch of other neato things. They even have a free master beekeeper program. The Master Gardener program, though it must be beneficial to SOMEONE, seems a little creepy and certainly unprofessional. My evidence? Why, first, they publish an inane "You know you're a Master Gardener when..." webpage. Secondly, they also make fun of people's questions. Often they're making fun of someone's mispronunciation, which is ironic, given their inability to use the past tense in the title of their rant.

Overall, though, it's a good service. Check this out: it's a graph of a garden that in theory provides enough veg for a family of two for a year, provided you're also canning and freezing. The way it's going to be good for me is that it gives me an idea of when to plant things. Obviously my garden isn't 25'x42', so I'll need to scale this down. But how cool that they've given home veg gardeners an actual example garden layout??



From here. NB: this is for the lower Piedmont and Upper Coastal Plain areas of NC.