Last week the sun was pouring across the backyard and into the kitchen.  I love these days. It’s like a little glimpse of spring (Charlie Dog thinks so too).

My yard in the winter is an ice-skating rink.  Literally, my kids go out and skate on the ice that overtakes the backyard.  I can’t even move some of the fence gates because there is an inch of ice keeping them frozen in place.  Going out to the chickens is a comedic adventure as I walk like a penguin hoping to stay upright.  My poor dog is depressed that he can’t run freely, so he mopes around and is gaining weight each day. When the “big thaw” begins, there is a river about 6 inches deep that begins to drain around our house.

As I write this post the sun is shining and Papa Nice and I just finished planning the garden for spring and I’m thinking warm thoughts.  We are more than doubling our raised beds and I’m so excited to see how much food we can grow for our family.

We are pretty picky about our seeds and we like to order from Heirloom seed catalogs. Most of our seeds are organic, but for those that are NOT organic – at least we know they are non GMO.  For the last several years we have ordered from Seed Savers and this year we are going to order from Johnny’s Selected Seeds also.

We use raised beds in our garden and this year we are going to try hay mulching.  Here is our garden layout and seed planning list.

2015 Nice Family Homestead Garden Layout

2015 Nice Family Homestead Seed Planning Guide

I hope the ideas and comments are helpful as you plan your 2015 garden!

🙂 Mama Nice

Tagged: garden planning, hay mulching, heirloom seeds, homestead, homesteading, organic gardening, organic seeds, planning, raised beds, seed buying, seed planning, seed purchase, seeds, spring planning, spring planting