If you have a homesteader complex in the least, this is the woman you want to be friends with! Kathi is here today with Melissa Norris, author of The Family Garden Plan, and they are talking about how to grow a whole year’s worth of food for your family. Listen in as they talk about how much space, time, energy, and money are really required. Find out why this really isn’t just a fool’s dream and how you can learn:
- How to have a plan for growing and preserving food for your family
- How to figure out your climate and what crops will do best there
- How much should I plant for my individual family’s needs
- Why gardening zones and planting times are not the same
Ready For Anything
Bad stuff happens all the time, but this doesn’t mean we have to live in constant fear.
Ready for Anything: Preparing Your Heart and Home for Any Crisis Big or Small gives finite simple steps for being proactive rather than reactive—helping you prepare your mind, heart, and home for any unfortunate circumstance. Full of stories and humor along with facts, tips, and lists, Kathi’s book offers a down-to-earth guide that will show you how to face the unexpected with confidence, relying on God’s strength and plan rather than giving into fear and anxiety.
Her step-by-step plan is easy to implement and will help anyone become a better steward of their resources as well as be the neighbor who can help in a crisis rather than needing help. Kathi’s goal is to equip readers to be the frontline of helpers in any crisis, from a natural disaster to a friend’s job loss.
Order your copy of Ready For Anything today.
Links
The Family Garden Plan: Grow a Year’s Worth of Sustainable and Healthy Food
Learn more about the book and get your free downloadable worksheets here.
Giveaway: For a chance to win a copy of Melissa’s book The Family Garden Plan answer this question in the comments below: If you were to grow a year’s worth of anything, what would it be?
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Meet Our Guest

Melissa K. Norris
Melissa K. Norris is a 5th generation homesteader who helps hundreds of thousands of people live a homegrown and homemade life. You can connect with her on her website or Instagram.
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I live in an apt. where no veggies are allowed in the ground. But I am allowed to grow veggies in pots on my porch. I am going to try KALE. I have been having trouble finding it in the grocery store,
I’m going to grow spinach! I eat spinach daily, more than once a day, and it’s very expensive to buy fresh. I could grow several plants in the summer and possibly even continue to grow indoors during the winter but I could freeze and dehydrate spinach for recipes.
I got Melissa’s Family Garden Plan book last spring and I love it! I have learned so much from that book. She makes it easy!
I think tomatoes too! We use so many in so many things!
I’m debating between onions and potatoes. Gardening is part of my daughter’s 3rd grade homeschool curriculum so I’m very excited to hear about your book!
Tomatoes for sure! We eat several pints of the grape tomatoes plain every week, plus a box of Camparis, plus whatever tomato products go into meals, such as tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, petite diced tomatoes for soups and chilis…I don’t want to imagine life without tomatoes.
We experimented with growing a garden this summer, and we learned a lot through trial and error. Now it’s time to get more serious and grow more food! I’d like to grow enough tomatoes for pizza sauce (I just learned how to make homemade pizza dough, so now it’s time to learn how to make the sauce!) and blueberries! We go through so many frozen blueberries for muffins, pancakes, etc. and they are so expensive that they have to be relegated to “treat” status now. Oh, and cucumbers to make pickles. (They’ve now become a “treat” too on our very tight food budget.)
Hi Shelley,
Congratulations, you are a winner! To claim your prize, please fill out this form and we will get it to you asap: https://form.jotform.com/kathilipp/winner
Thanks! Samantha, KL Giveaway Team
If I could grow a year’s worth of anything…it would be COFFEE!!! 😉
But pizza might be a good second choice! (Please tell us about your pizza garden, Kathi!)
Also…for those of us who live in apartments, what are some good starter-garden ideas?
Fun topic!
Listening to this (in New Zealand, so not eligible for the giveaway) just after having a discussion with my husband about whether or not to increase our chicken flock from four to six while I planted the first lettuces of the season.
I already grow most of my own veggies (maybe about 80% of vegetables but only 5% of my fruit) but I’d like to grow more of my own peas.
One thing to be aware of, fellow gardeners, is that you can sometimes get seasons of terrible weather – happened here last summer when we got next to no sunshine over summer, so I got hardly any pole beans, chillis or zucchini, and some of my winter veggies took their time establishing and are only starting to hit their stride now in springtime. Fingers crossed for a better summer this year!
If you want an easy veggie to start with, try chard. It’s frost-hardy. Also beetroots.
I loved the podcast today so much! Thank you Kathi for having such a great guest on. I’m not too fancy…. for my family I would grow tomatoes for I think my husband could live off of them. He loves them so much. I would have to grow a mix of ones that are juicy and others that would work for sauces. Thanks again! Blessings!!!