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Hello everyone!

My name is Valerie, my husband and I have four children. We homeschool but one just flew the nest and joined the Army. Ack! I have a studio built where I carve eggshells in the back yard. It looks like a miniature cottage. But I seem to spend more time gardening! We are putting up a greenhouse, building a giant tree fort in some red cedars on the hill, and trying to get our pool in - all this month. Not enough hours in the day. But we love it!

I'm very excited about finding this wonderful site. It's big and has so much info in it. I can't wait to get our greenouse finished and we can begin propagating all of our plants for trading.

We're making our own little garden of Eden on just under 6 acres. It is beautiful here, rolling green hills and woods all around with creeks. A far cry from CA where I came from. Every square foot will be used organically, somehow, eventually. So far we have about an acre of small fruits, plus some per. vegis. We have a horse and goats.

We want to plant as many varieties of edibles as we possibly can, and also raise as much food (animal and plant) as possible. I want little nooks and private spots here and there with gardens. I'd really like to have people to talk with who are already doing this. There is so much to learn and so much I'm doing wrong, and so much we have to tackle creatively because of clash flow.

So far we have: 6 figs, a huge asparagus bed, a 3rd attempt right now at a row of artichokes 40' long, 5 highbush cranberries, 1 regular cranberry, 5 gooseberries, 3 currants, 10 jostaberries, 6 rhubarb, 1000+ strawberries, 40 blueberries (3rd year - still barely alive), 100 raspberries, 1 tayberry, 10 doyle thornless blackberries, 112 grapevines of 35 different varieties, a kiwi arbor (4 females struggling, the male - dead), 3 varieties of bush cherries = 9, a standard Red D apple, and two manchurian apricots that are waiting to be planted.

This place is a dream come true for me, my hubby is just now getting into it, it used to be an annoyance. Our next big projects are a fruit orchard and a nut grove, hopefully this fall or next spring. We still need a tack room, a barn, a chicken house..... oh yeah, a house would be nice too. We hope to build one soon, just as soon as the property is planted. Until then, it is a mobile home. Life is very exciting.

I'm having so many problems we just can't find answers for and I'm hoping to make friends with some very knowledgable people here, :D and to pass on anything we may know to others. I also have no idea how to choose the way to put in our orchard and nut grove.