Entry #1: Gardening

One hobby that I’ve found myself delving into lately has been gardening. My interest in gardening was first piqued when learning about tiny homes, homesteading and an off grid lifestyle. Despite a completely off grid lifestyle not being feasible any time soon, I knew that I could at least begin growing my own plants. 

Most people living in a city, such as myself, don't have acres upon acres of land. Therefore, a full harvest and a wide array of crops would be out of the question. Instead, I had to make do with indoor space. I started off with a typical tomato plant from Lowe's. After keeping it alive for a week, I then branched out to a basil and pepper plant. All of these were indoor of course, otherwise the heat would have scorched them. 

I continued to experiment with growing cilantro, strawberries, rosemary, and berry bushes. It was much easier than I thought! As long as you know the needs of each plant (such as soil acidity level, sunlight requirements, and nutrient requirements) and then follow those guidelines to a T, you will most likely be successful in your gardening endeavors.

One of the more interesting plants I ended up growing were black beans. Black beans are a great staple food packed with nutrients, and would be perfect to grow on any self sustaining homestead. Surprisingly, they were actually the easiest to grow and keep alive. 

I started by simply using dried black beans from Sprouts. I filled some biodegradable seed starters with soil and pushed the dried beans about one inch deep into the soil. After watering them every day for a week, I began noticing tiny sprouts.

Before I knew it, these tiny sprouts shot up to become fully developed bean plants.

I think that gardening and growing your own plants is something that everyone should know a little bit about. After all, it is super easy! All you need is some soil, seed starters and seeds to start your very own indoor garden.