About Bloom & Peck
Growing Good Food, On Purpose, In Rural Kentucky
I’m Erin — the hands and heart behind Bloom & Peck, a learn-with-me homestead in Columbia, Kentucky (Zone 7a). It’s two of us here, growing what we can in clay soil, keeping a few backyard hens, baking sourdough, and putting food up a little at a time. Not a big operation. Just a real one.
How we got here
This blog started while I was healing from three major surgeries. But the real turning point came when my husband was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
Suddenly we were reading every label. Learning what low iodine actually means in a grocery store. Figuring out how to cook real food from scratch when almost everything processed was off the table. My husband used to joke that GMOs taste great. Cancer has a way of changing your priorities.
What started as necessity became intention. We started growing our own food. Baking our own bread. Learning where things come from and what goes into them — not in a preachy way, just in a quiet, this-matters-to-us way. One raised bed, one tomato, one sourdough loaf at a time.
What you’ll find here
Everything I learn along the way — the garden wins, the kitchen disasters, and the chicken chaos. It’s all sorted three ways, the same way we live it:
Grow — Kentucky Zone 6 & 7 gardening for real life: raised beds, seed starting, companion planting (nothing woo-woo), and small-space growing that fits limited time and limited room. Beginner-friendly and learn-with-me, backed by UK Extension research and tested in my own dirt.
Eat — Garden-to-table meals, tried-and-true family sourdough, and easy preserving scaled for two — no avalanche of fifty quarts in one weekend. I’m not teaching gourmet. I’m sharing what actually works in a messy kitchen with real spills.
Live — The intentional, community-minded part: raising a small flock, donating extra produce locally, and building a more deliberate life in rural Kentucky. Growing food is powerful. Giving the extra away is even better.
This space isn’t polished
It’s more bless-your-heart, shoo-the-rooster-out-of-the-house, and hug-the-dog. Real Kentucky soil, beginner oopsies, and honest lessons from someone figuring it out right alongside you. I’m not writing from expert status — I’m learning in real time and passing it straight to you.
You’ll always get warm, honest storytelling, practical tips without the hype, real-life visuals over perfection, and encouragement grounded in actually having lived it.
I’m glad you’re here. 🌿
— Erin
New here? Start with these
If you’re just getting started or starting over, pick one and follow it. You don’t have to do all of it at once.
🌱 Grow: The Free Kentucky Vegetable Planting Calendar — what to plant, when, for your exact Kentucky zone. The best place to begin if you garden here.
🌱 Grow more: The Kentucky Zone 6 & 7 Gardening Hub — month-by-month planning and everything growing in our beds right now.
🍳 Eat: Sourdough Discard Pancakes for Two — a good first taste of how we cook around here. More recipes in the kitchen.
🐔 Live: Best Chicken Breeds for Kentucky Beginners — what I actually keep, and what I’d choose starting over.
🌱 Want to grow along with us? Subscribe and I’ll send the free planting calendar plus occasional real-talk homestead tips — no woo-woo, just what works.