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Im 32 and live in Knoxville,TN. We bought a house a couple of years ago and Ive been spending too much time in my garden and not enough time renovating my house(Its an old Victorian)! I have 4 4x4 foot and 2 8x4 feet raised beds. Its hard to find good topsoil around here and the soil on my property is awful so my vegies havent done too well this year. Its halfway through September and Im only just now starting to get ripe tomatoes! My eggplants and my peppers are very stunted and its obviously my soil has got a long way to go. Ive got a bunch of compost cooking so Im hoping next year will be the year! I also plan on putting in several more raised beds.

Im very interested in eating sustainably and were trying to eat 75% of our food this summer from local growers. We probably wont be able to keep doing that quite so much this winter but were trying to do our part. We buy about 85% of our meat and eggs from a local farm and weve been purchasing almost all of our produce from a local organic grower at the Farmers Market in Knoxville.

Since my garden didnt produce very well this summer, Im going to fill it full of compost this fall and Im trying my hand at fall and winter gardening. Ive just read a book about winter gardening by Elliot Coleman so Im going to try putting a small hoop house over several of my raised beds. Im growing various greens and root crops. Im also going to be growing at least ten different kinds of garlic this winter. Im also going to be taking time this fall and winter to get our soil ready so I can plant some blueberries, brambles and a dwarf plum tree.

Next spring, Ill be growing at least ten different kinds of eggplants, 15 different kinds of hot and sweet peppers, and 20 different kinds of tomatoes (mostly heirloom but I do have to grow my Sungolds). My Diva cucumbers have produced like crazy, even with the leaves yellowing so its a definite repeater.