hello from East Tennessee

I am from Kentucky (far in the east, near WV and Virginia line)   Grew up gardening in rows, like all them folk up there did.  

Been in Tennessee, just NE of Chattanooga, in the Hills.   I started SFG 2 years ago, and did great both years, but with only 1 box, and only traditional crops (Green peppers, squash, Butternut squash, tomatoes, cucumbers) were about 95% of what we grew.   This year, we have expanded our operation a lot, for a lot of different reasons.

We now have 4 new beds.   We own meat rabbits, so our supply of rabbit manure is infinite    I can fill two 5 gallon buckets a day if I want (except in summer, since we don't breed during the summer)   All our beds are 8x4, and a smaller 6th bed that is only 4x4. 

We have strawberries in some upside down pallets we grow, and another 15 single holes, that we like to grow BN squash, squash, cucumbers in. 

SO this year, we want to do some very early crops, and add some variety to our menu.   We got our new canner, dehydrator, and vacuum sealer, SO WE INTEND TO get rather serious.

Part of our motivation is food prices, some is the quality of our food, and the other part is ACA has driven my 'extra money' into oblivion, so I am going back to my roots (no pun intended) and getting serious about gardening.

So, I have done some research on some early year crops, late year crops and other things.

Snap peas, carrots, onions, spinach and maybe some lettuce and garlic for early year, but I can not seem to pin down a date fro that.  Some places have Feb 15th, others march 1.   I can put plastic covered hoops over my beds.

As far as soil, I use some of our local stuff (its actually not clay where I am), We have Organic Mushroom compost, rabbit manure and we have a compost pile with other things in it, as well as some worm castings.  

This combo has served us well in the past, although we are adding the mushroom compost for the first time this year, because is have some deep beds (about 20-30 inches, and I dont have enough of the other items to fill the beds.  I can get 4500 pounds for $40 here

So, hello, hope to hear from y'all a lot, and looking for some feedback.

Also, if someone is from my area, wants some free rabbit manure let me know, I can hook them up

Hi And welcome!

The chart's dates are approximates as to when your soil is warm enough for those crops.

Here is my old timey way~ 
Ground thawed and signs of greening, plant peas, spinach. 
Feral orach coming up, plant lettuce other hardy greens. 
Wild mustard coming up seed radishes, turnips, carrots, transplant out cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, kale but keep them lightly covered for a couple weeks.
Sunflowers from the bird feeders coming up where ever the birds planted them, time to plant potatoes and corn. 
Wait a week to be sure frost is past and plant beans and squash.

You will need to adjust this to your own surroundings and observations.  

Here is a chart from Gardener supply that put this in soil temperature

Welcome to the forum.  I am very jealous of your rabbit manure (that seems very odd to write).  The mom of my daughter's best friend collects their rabbits' manure for me and they always marvel about my happiness to receive it.

TNG - I said welcome in another post, but will add on here.

I teach canning & dehydrating as well as SFGing.  So let me know if you have questions along that line.  Many others here also can & dehydrate.  They're great sources of info & ideas.  Not to mention, motivation.

Make sure to look thru the archives.  There's LOTS of great, practical advice there!

I'm in your area at least a couple of times a year.  Would love to stop by & meet you & see what you're up to.

Welcome again!

Well thank you.

Trying to find a cheap place to get some canning supplies (jars and such) but thrift stores is NOT the right place.

Try ULINE.  They've got the best prices in my area.  At least for jars...

http://www.uline.com/BL_8192/Canning-Jars?keywords=Canning Jars

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