The 2026 illustrated field journal · Boonville, Missouri
From bare soil
to a season of evidence.
One 14 × 9 foot Zone 6 garden, documented from the first row plan through harvest, succession planting, preservation, and every useful correction in between.
Seven connected parts
Read the homestead from beginning to end
The journal now moves from origin story to living map, crop records, tested methods, the wider homestead, and an automatically counted season summary.
Before the garden existed
Why the plot was built, how 14 × 9 feet became working rows, and what the first weather checks revealed.
Begin with bare soil →IIThe living garden map
Move the illustrated plot from its spring plan through midsummer and into the August fall transition.
Open the evolving map →IIIA continuous field journal
Read the nearly daily observations as one unfolding season of weather, work, harvest, problems, trials, and results.
Read the full story →IVEvery crop has a story
Open individual records for planting, growth, fertility, irrigation, pests, harvest, organic practice, yield, and next year.
Choose a crop →VWhat actually worked
Tested ideas explain both the method and the observed outcome—including mixed results worth keeping.
Read the evidence →VIHomestead encyclopedia
Compost, berries, herbs, seed saving, preservation, recipes, cut flowers, rose recovery, magnolia, and meadow sage.
Browse the references →VIIThe season in numbers
A living statistical summary that distinguishes recorded events from quantities the garden never weighed.
See the 2026 totals →The season in one sentence
Prepare the soil. Read the weather. Record the result. Begin the next crop before this one is finished.
- LATE WINTER
Map the 14 × 9 plot, build the seed calendar, and begin the slowest indoor crops first.
- SPRING
Harden seedlings, transplant carefully, let cool-season crops lead, and preserve seed from spinach.
- EARLY SUMMER
Target water with drip tape, build daily scouting into harvest, and correct only what the garden shows.
- MIDSUMMER
Pick beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, squash, okra, herbs, berries, roots, and brassica side shoots.
- FALL AHEAD
Transplant broccoli, direct-sow lettuce and spinach, and keep the productive summer beds moving.
Welcome to the field journal
A homestead measured in seasons, not acres.
This is Jordan’s working record of a family garden in Boonville, Missouri—real observations, useful harvests, failed fruit, successful corrections, and skills learned one season at a time.