The Garden Died. We Didn't.

It's been a while since I've posted an update — for that I apologize, but if you run a homestead, have a real job, and life keeps happening, I think you already know why. We've had a lot of loss in the last 8 months: an uncle and both grandmas passed. I finally had the cardiac ablation I've needed for a while, and things have been slow as I recover. The summer heat was no joke and killed the garden. I've genuinely contemplated a 1,000-mile move to build a better homestead, but what we learned is the grass may be greener — it just comes with ticks, chiggers, and mineral rights that create a different mess, one I'm not sure I want to contend with for the next 20 years. Maybe the rains come back. Maybe I learn to garden differently. Which brings me to our mid-summer post.

The 2026 garden failed, and in the most epic way. So we're learning, living, resting, and starting over.

Sun-scorched pumpkins on the ground, Arizona summer 2026.

Tarping our garden isn't giving up - it's just resetting.

Join our hearth

Arizona heat didn't help. What started as a great year definitely turned to disaster. Our water situation is changing, and the drip lines in the in-ground garden are officially a lesson learned — they're becoming history. We're going back to flood irrigation to see if that changes things for next year. I'm also debating misters, like we did for the bees, to help combat that low humidity.

We're selling our mountain property, because even the Arizona high country is changing under us. That sale is pushing us to reevaluate our whole life, not just the land. Do we stay and contend with the subdivision creep closing in, or look toward a different horizon — still Arizona, still closer to what we know, but at a different elevation, somewhere between the desert floor around 2,800 feet and the 8,000 feet we're used to up in the mountains?

Join us at the Hearth as we reset our large garden. Here's what's ahead:

• Tarping the garden to kill the grass from the horse manure I used instead of cow manure

• Planting our fall cover crops, then tilling the cover crop mix in

• Planting fall veggies once Arizona finally cools off