jwstell42 - Thank you for the helpful and well thought out response. I will try to make some things clearer and see if they help my design any. I apologize for the confusion with the pictures; I've been staring at PlanGarden's site so long that I'm used to the pics they use for different plants :). And since ribsyhuggins apparently thinks I'm doing one of every plant in each sq ft, I'll provide additional detail for my spacing. If I tried to fit 16 carrot pics in each sq ft on the diagram, it would be impossible to read. A little extra detail for the boxes starting at the top left and moving clockwise: The first box is a 2x2 potato tower. Lentils will be planted every 4-5 inches at the first level and then trained up the outside of the box as they grow and as I add levels to the box. The lentils will probably be sprouted indoors so I will be able to place them sideways in the box. The next box is 12 squares of 9 bush beans each and (originally) 4 squares of 1 tomato each. I think I may be able to convince my husband to cut it down to 3 tomatoes in 4 sq ft and expand the box a little to accomodate them. We're going to be building out boxes out of concrete blocks so I'll just add another block (16 inches) on the tomato side and keep the beans where they are. Does this seem like it would help? Also, do the tomatoes need more room for the plant itself or the roots? If it's for the plant, I could actually put the tomatoes in the concrete blocks themselves which would give them a little more room as well. The third box is actually yellow squash and I am more than willing to cut it back to, say, 4 plants in the entire box. Would that be a little more doable? I think, from what I've read, that squash plants are super producers so I was afraid to try that many, too. My husband originally had both squash boxes with a plant in each square :) I'll cut those back some more to save our sanity a little. The fourth box (top right) is zucchini. I'll apply the same thinking as the yellow squash. I'll cut it down to 4 for the square and try to trellis them. If that doesn't work, I'll cut out 2-3 of the plants and chalk it up as a learning experience. The fifth box (middle row by the bush) has 8 squares of 16 carrots each. I was planning to stagger the planting of these so that I would have 2 squares ready to harvest at a time (one to eat fresh for a week or two and one to freeze). The red topped veggies in the next 4 squares are 4 turnips each and I was going to apply the same logic as the carrots (stagger for eating/freezing in smaller batches). The final 4 squares have one bell/hot pepper each. The sixth box (bottom left) has 4 squares of 1 cabbage each, the other 4 squares of turnips, another 4 squares of bush beans, and another 4 squares of tomatoes. I can apply the same expansion to this box to accomodate the tomatoes, if you think it will help. The final box (Bottom right) has 4 squares of 4 leaf lettuce plants each, 4 squares of 16 green onions each, 4 squares of 9 beets each, and 4 squares of 1 eggplant each. I will probably cut the eggplant down to 2 in the 4 squares; I really like eggplant and want to make sure I get some :). We've also added another 2x2 (not in the picture) of peanuts for experimental purposes. Does this help it make a little more sense, at least as far as what the pictures mean? I know I'm going to have a lot of beans and carrots, but I'm planning on freezing a lot and want enough to last through the winter. With that in mind, am I still planting too much (or not enough)? I'm hoping the potato tower works so I'll have some of those to freeze as well, but I've read mixed results on those. Thanks again for looking over my plan and helping me out. I'm hoping to get to the point where I can plant enough veggies for the whole year but I at least want to get enough this year to see if that's possible. If you have any other comments or concerns, I would love to hear them!

Okay, I'm beginning to organize my thoughts. I've been working on this reply for three days now, but keep having to leave. This is what I've gleaned as categories for a care package: 1. A family sized bottle of B12 supplements. :) Thanks, Grainlady! For the info as well as the recipes. I will also do one of your chia ones for them for the Omega-3. 2. Seeds and nuts that they can throw into any dish they put together, or just snack on. A friend recommended hemp hearts, but also chia and flaxseed, some pre-cut nuts, etc. 3. Some kind of grab and go bars/logs/balls. I'm still checking recipes for these. I've found a couple of good ones that have cocoa but aren't overly sugary. A lot of the bars are no-bakes that require dates to make them stick together, and that's too sugary for this purpose. It's fine for an energy bar, but the girls get plenty of carbs. If the only nuts I use are a nut-butter for stickiness it wouldn't be too bad, I think, though I was trying to expand them from over-reliance on nuts. 4. Easy prep/grab foods like lentil pasta (high protein), packaged tempeh or tempeh sausage, saitan burgers, organic soy protein, etc. 5. Easy to prep/grab vegetables like TJ's Cruciferous Crunch and Power to the Greens, which look like salad but are more nutritious than lettuce. Also, green beans and/or sugar snap peas, which can be eaten raw or cooked, little tomatoes, which can be eaten like candy, and anything pre-prepped. 6. Something home cooked, such as bean and lentil loaf muffins or vegan chili and beans. Islay Corbel: Your cheese and nut ball sounds good. I'll see if I can find a vegan soft cheese. I haven't seen any artisanal vegan cheeses like on your link, but I may not have looked closely enough, since, when I do look, I'm usually looking for one with a kosher hecksher. One of the girls is Middle Eastern, so I'm not going to bother with a hummus. There are also a plethora of made up ones available at the stores close to them--because hummus is such a good food for vegans and there are many among the young. I just wish they'd mind their nutrition better. Cornflakes and cupcakes is not a nutritious diet! Your links are very promising, and I'm still going through them. DCarch, good idea about the Chinese store. The textured soy proteins are also available in more mainstream stores, here. Localeater, Thanks for the recipe. I've only eaten Muhammara a couple of times and didn't really know what was in it. I don't think they'd bother making it. I wonder if I could substitute seeds or beans for a portion of the nuts? Bean salads are a great idea, too. Very grab and snack. Sleevendog, I keep coming back to your patties. Any recipe or guidelines? I make beef meatballs with a lot of veggies in them (more than half). Maybe I should do the same kind of thing with tempeh or something in place of the meat, and egg replacer for the sticky? Would it be sticky enough? I also have chia and flaxseeds. I just don't have enough experience and understanding of which to use when. What makes a meatless ball stick together in lieu of eggs? To make: Kale Chips and Texas Caviar (though the former don't have enough oomph to carry the latter). I can definitely make the Texas Caviar from fresh/dried, rather than canned. I've never seen a can of Rotel tomatoes, so I looked it up. Mine might not taste exactly the same, but I think I can make it taste good. :) Writersblook, I don't have a dehydrator, and while my oven will do the right temperature, it holds too much moisture. I've looked at Rawmazing, thanks for the reference, and didn't see anything that jumped out at me as tempting the young away from nuts and cornflakes. Is there something there that you particularly like? Ruthanna, your salad sounds really good and different. I will definitely be making this, just in general, besides for the girls. Colleen, I appreciate all of your comments, and agree about the cheeses. Vegen rennet is derived from fungus, but milk is milk in any form. Some rabbis rule that beef rennet and cassein are chemicals that are so far from their original source that they may be considered non-meat and non-dairy for Jewish purposes, but that doesn't count for a vegan who wishes to consume no products that started with an animal. I hope to get to the store tomorrow for some ingredients, and get right onto the vegan health snack experiment.

Jennifer, The first time I saw a BP truck at our Wal-mart, which was just last week, it was only delivering wooden shipping crates of BP onions, but then it was back this week delivering a few cool-season herbs and veggies. I'm thinking of those poor little plants right now because our OK Mesonet station is showing a current temperature of 20 degrees and that's pretty much borderline too cold for some of the plants I saw yesterday, especially given how small they are and the fact they are in small containers and not in the ground where soil temperatures could help insulate them from some of the effects of the cold. I hope the garden center employees covered up those plants last night or moved them indoors. While the very early transplant arrivals often do not freeze or have damage at 20 degrees, sometimes they do....and sometimes the damage is invisible and can result in later problems like early bolting or buttonheading of brassicas....and no one links that bolting or buttonheading in March or April to the fact that the plants were exposed to excessively cold temperatures while on the garden center shelves in late January or early February. I'm sorry your mom has the flu and wish her a speedy recovery. I hope whatever you're fighting is not the flu and that you can successfully repel those germs. I carry hand sanitizer in my purse, not that I am obsessive about it, but I hate touching anything in a grocery store at this time of the year for fear that flu and cold germs are lingering everywhere. I wash my hands constantly, and I do not understand how/why people would use a public restroom facility and not wash their hands. I just don't get it. Rebecca, Well, spinach is really cold hardy. Perhaps dew and/or frost have left enough moisture behind to induce germination. We're in severe drought, are awfully dry and have tons of tiny little green things sprouting everywhere now. In fact, the OK Mesonet's Relative Greenness for our county went from 11% last week to 21% this week, which surprised me, but then when I looked at the ground closely, I could see all the tiny green sprouts popping up in fields, and clearly the program (satellite? radar?) that calculates Relative Greenness for each county is 'seeing' that greenup as well. Are any of y'all allergic to cedar (which actually is juniper, but I cannot win that battle on getting people to correctly label it)? Because it is pollinating down here already and everyone who is allergic to it is having allergy symptoms already, including Tim and I. Just yesterday I was looking at cedars in our neighborhood and commenting to Tim how heavily they're covered in pollen, and Fran and I noticed the same thing while out at wildfires in northern Love County a few days ago. A lot of folks who recovered from the flu now thing they are having a relapse or have caught a cold or whatever, and I just wonder if what's actually happening is they are allergic to the cedar pollen. Nancy, We all are so proud of Amber. She's just an awesome person and her students are so lucky to have a teacher who loves them and works so hard to teach them. Everything she does is always for them and about them, so when she was named Teacher of the Year, she was totally surprised because she doesn't think about stuff like that---her focus is completely on her kids. The riding mower is dead.....or dying. It is around 16 or 17 years old and gets used a lot since we mow about 2 acres regularly. I think it really needed to be retired 3-5 years ago, but Tim is a cheapskate who doesn't want to spend the money to buy another one, so he keeps fixing it and keeps it limping along and just barely working. I just kinda wish he'd go ahead and buy a new one and have something reliable. Weekends are too short as it is and he doesn't get much mowing done if half the weekend is spent chasing down parts and fixing the mower. Jen, I bet it was a nice day to go to the dog park. Our dogs spent a lot more time outdoors today in their dog yard than they usually do in the winter, and they were so thrilled that it was mild, sunny and warm. They were exhausted by the end of the day which I always think is a good thing as it does cut down on how energetic they are in the evening. I think Tigger is the perfect name for a dog! I assume the planters you're planting are your winter sowing? Have fun finishing it up. Nancy, That bermuda grass is such a nuisance, and it creeps into the east end of my garden every year in late summer once it is too snaky for me to hand-weed it out. Johnson grass does the same, and it essentially is bermuda grass on steriods. Since I don't use chemical herbicides and since the presence of the rattlesnakes and copperheads makes weeding too risky after a certain point, that sort of invasion just cannot be avoided. It drives me mad. Even if I could hand-remove it, I'm willing to bet that at some point the summer weather would get too hot and I'd decide I wasn't going to spend all that time out in the heat removing it. I'll be removing all of it this week (I hope) that I can as long as the wind stays down and I am able to spend more time at home in the garden instead of being away at fires. I think on Mon and Tues, the wind will be low enough that I'll be home in the garden. I'm not so sure about Wed and Thurs because the stronger winds are expected to return then. I have been watching for snakes this week on the warmer days because last January they came out here in southern OK on the warm winter days. A little girl in the Austin, TX area was bitten by a rattlesnake at Longhorn Caverns State Park a few days ago on a warm, sunny day when the family was excited to get outdoors and have fun after being cooped up by cold weather, and that certainly caught my attention. Undoubtedly it generally is warmer in Austin than it is up here at this time of the year, but not necessarily that much warmer, so I took her mom's warning about snakes being out to be a serious one. I think your soil will be fine whether the stuff is broken down enough or not. We have gazillions of things that sprout and grow just fine in some pretty awful dense, red clay.....although I'd never expect my precious garden plants to survive and perform well in that stuff. It is merely that as the soil gets better via amending, the plant performance improves year after year. I've always been in it for the long haul---not expecting to totally turn around the soil in 3, 5 or even 10 years, but just dedicated to continually improving it slowly over time. There's places in my garden that probably never get as much compost as I'd like, but the plants grow well there anyway. I do look at the improved soil now and have trouble remembering how truly awful it was in the beginning---but all I have to do is dig down maybe a foot to get beneath the area of improved soil and there's my reminder of the awful red clay we started out with. We only eat out about once a week, something made easier by the fact that it is pretty much too long of a drive to go anywhere that we'd really like to eat, and eating out usually is restricted to the weekend anyway since Tim's long commute makes his day incredibly long as it is. By the time he walks in the door at night, he's been gone 13 or 14 hours and going out to eat is not on his list of things he wants to do....and I don't blame him. I am hoping for a better week this week than last week when we had fires virtually every day. Having said that, we're off to a bad start, with the fire pagers going off for a vehicle in the roadway on fire about a mile from our house around 4 a.m. this morning. I am sure there's tons and tons I do not understand about motor vehicles, but I just do not understand how you're driving up the road at 4 a.m. and all of a sudden your car or truck bursts into flames. That must be a terrifying moment when you realize you're in a vehicle that is on fire. So, now that I am up and wide awake, there's no way I can fall back asleep. Tim, by contrast, can crawl back into bed after something like that and be asleep and snoring in 5 minutes. I wish I could fall back asleep like that, but it just doesn't happen---once I'm awake, I'm awake to stay. This is useful in summer because I just go outdoors at the break of day to get into the garden early and beat the heat, but not so useful in winter when it is cold outdoors. Dawn

I know your question was intended to Inquire about things we don’t normally purchase to eat, but I’ll expand it to include things we normally buy but not in huge quantities. By that, I mean, I never thought I’d see the day when I would buy 25lbs of flour, but um, not only have I, but we’ve already almost used it all up! At the very beginning of this, Dh decided to make a sourdough starter. I could not find it anywhere locally in the store so I ordered it from Sams Club, but it was only sold in 12lb bags. It was so cheap, I bought two. Not only has Dh made multiple loaves of bread already, we’ve also used the sourdough discard to make pancakes a few times and last week Dh used it to make sourdough soft pretzels. Regarding tubes of garlic, etc., I’ve had a difficult time finding fresh ginger. I usually get a large piece and store whatever remains of the root in the freezer. I was at Trader Joe’s last week and couldn’t find any fresh, but as I was passing through the frozen section, I noticed a package of frozen ginger. It’s packed in a tray like an ice cube tray and each cube is a tsp of ginger. While I’ve bought the refrigerated tube of minced ginger, once open, it doesn’t have a long shelf life in the fridge. No more wrestling with trying to peel a knobby root of ginger! As for canned chicken, when my kids were younger, they loved tuna fish sandwiches to the point where they wanted to take them every day to school. I wasn’t keen on them eating tuna (Mercury) that often. On a whim I bought canned chicken at Trader Joe’s one day and prepared it the same way as their tuna. They never seemed to notice but they were young enough not to question it. I haven’t bought it in years.