My learnings, let me show you to them.

I feel almost manic after another COG class.  I'm bursting with ideas.

I think I'm going to say RIP to "Square Foot Gardening".  It isn't a bad system.  It makes sense, but I've been a bit overwhelmed my first year with it because I also do think about things like not planting the same family in the same space over and over.  Trying to plan 100 squares feels daunting to me.  I'm not sure why.  I probably have it in my head that each square needs something different.

Anyway, I learned all about fertility and family crop rotation.  It makes a whole lot more senese to me now.  Still a bit of a pain to figure out, but I tihnk I'm going to divide up my plots a little larger and just do the leaf, root, flower, fruit rotation.  I have all winter to figure out how to compose it as how much sun I get throughout the year may be a factor.

The other nice idea about just going with a fertility rotation is that I can do more interplanting.  Just say: "OK! This area is all roots!" and then throw in all sorts of different root vegetables, not just one kind.  Or, at least I can try it and see what happens. I've seen it in the Tilth garden plots and have been totally blown away with HOW MUCH FOOD I've harvested from 1 3'x6' bed, how close things were planted together, and how enormous it got.

One more thing, I really need to do a map of garden and map out the sun/shade each season.  I know the south side unfortunately gets shade from the neighbors house, a mangly tree they have, and a fence.  Fine for leaf plants, but I might have to rethink how I do what I do.  I'll do the first one around October 15.  I'm really curious to see how much might be a lost cause in winter gardening.  The sun just stays so low in Seattle.

Still in the middle of new books.  I'm kind of getting a bit overwhelmed with information. I really just need a few good resource books because its' all getting muddled in my head.  I mean, obviously I'm going to be trying out more of the "Tilth" way of doing things for a bit because I've worked their gardens, I've seen what they can do, it is all specific to where I live--and frankly, it is envy-envoking.  I just need to focus on one thing instead of the "more! More! More!" headspace.