Growing your own food: April 2012

[Nicole01]

We have 10 asparagus plants(come back each year), tomatoes, pea pods, green beans, strawberries, cucumbers, corn, carrots, pumpkins, rhubarb, spinach, and peppers.

Blueberries and raspberries on the outside of the garden.

Our garden is over crowded every year, but we get plenty of what we need.

 

[Tonya]

I love seeing some of the different things people have some ive never even heard of we have tomatoes(all kinds) peppers (all kinds) squash yellow-acorn okra (lettuce but it didnt work came up but then got to tall to fast fell over my first time trying maybe better luck next time) blueberries muscadines and garlic i have all raised beds because of the chicks everything has to be fenced in but its worth it and a rescue horse that keeps walking all over the garlic i would love to do more than i am already but i need some topsoil brought in so its a little at a time we just put a green house in this weekend so maybe some winter crops later on that will last longer and start things faster next year

 

[acemario]

This year, the family we are staying with has built a greenhouse in their backyard. It is very impressive! Here is what we are growing:

Tomatoes (every variety known to mankind)
Peppers
Cucumbers (The Lemon variety is my favorite)
Spinach
Cabbage
Lettuce
Peas
Green Beans
Green Onions
Potatoes (About 10 varieties! First year growing potatoes... so we figured we'd try them all!)
Corn
Pumpkins
Squash
Zucchini
Strawberries (3 varieties)
Blue Berries
Raspberries
Onions
Beets
Thyme
Tarragon
Mint (2 varieties)
Oregano (3 varieties)
Chives (already harvesting...thanks to the greenhouse!)
Cilantro
Parsley
Dill
...

It should be a good year!

 

[bj taylor]

i've got two raised beds built last fall. they're 4 x 25'. i need to do a better job of space planning. one bed is packed & the other is spare. i'm wondering what can companion plant w/onions.
i want to add another raised bed this fall. this is what i've grown or am currently growing so far.
onions
cucumbers
sugar snap
bush beans
tomatoes
peppers
eggplant
calabaza squash
yellow squash
lettuce
arugula
cilantro
parsley
okra
i really want to learn how to can. one of my obsticles is my ceramic top stove won't heat enough to do the canner and the eyes are not big enough. i've got to figure another heating system. i'm thinking about setting up a canvass lean-to w/ a turkey fryer in it. that will keep the heat out of my house anyway. who wants heat in the house in Texas?

 

[jbschickens]

Geez! I haven't even tilled yet lol! Last year was my very first garden and it failed spectacularly! I took a grassy area, tilled it under, bought flats of plants.... too many and planted all of them about 10 inches apart lol! Weeds took over and I got cucumbers the size of golf balls and tomatoes even smaller.

Last fall, I put 2 hogs in the garden. They spent til February tilling weeding and fertilizing my space. Planning to til in the next week or so. This year I plan to space at least 24 inches and go with the mantra that less is more. Debating the use of plastic although the hogs rooted very well and the area is barren. I also added many scoops of composted horse manure.

Anyhow, the reason I am posting is I have a little different take on "What type of food do you plan to grow this year?"

I am growing meat chickens, processing roosters, will have feeder pigs as well as breeder stock, and plan to get a few ducks and turkeys. We don't have the space for beef but a neighbor does, so our intent is to grow our own meat this year.

I bought a canner earlier this year and plan to grow potatoes, beans, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, onions, etc...

Wish me luck, I will need it.

I would like to grow grapes and strawberries, but honestly haven't researched it. I would love to can those so off to the farm market when the season comes.

Sounds like an amazing adventure in agriculture! I hope I have the space to do that much some day. Good luck, I hope everything turns out well!

 

[Illia]

Started up our big 'ol greenhouse for the new year with hundreds of Peppers, Tomatillos, Ground Cherries, Litchi Tomatoes, Beans, Squash, Melons, Kiwanos, Watermelons, and of course, the introduction of my new Kaffir Lime tree and the sight of my Fig leafing out for the new year. Already has about 8+ figs on it.

Come May I'll be planting plenty of corn outside. Got some green corn, red corn, and multi-colored flour corn.

Outside the greenhouse I've started a bunch of potatoes, but the main news is in the fact that like each year I expand with more perrenial types and we bought some Heartnut trees, a Korean Stone Pine (for nuts) some more Medlar trees, a whole mini-vineyard of many different Grapevines, a few Blue Elderberries, a few more different Plum trees, a fruiting Quince tree, several Sea Buckthorns, an Aronia, a handful of Nanking Cherry bushes, another Pear tree, and some more Raspberries. Down the road we'll give the Stone Pine and the Quince some pollinating buddies.

Beside all that I of course and excitedly taking care of and watching last (and before) year's purchases of a huge assortment of Gooseberries, Currants, Crabapples, Akebias, Apples, Cherries, Plums, Medlars, Peaches, Pears, Raspberries, Blueberries, Strawberries, Figs, and others I can't currently think of.

Hopefully this fall perhaps, I'll get two Persimmon trees in the Greenhouse. It is too temperate/cool of a climate here for good Persimmons but I've got a BIG greenhouse that I let do its thing in the winter, so, it's perfect for them. Tried Bananas last year and it just got too cold in the winter, even with supplementary heating. Never actually tried Persimmons before honestly but I'm getting two delicious (sounding) varieties and even if I won't like 'em too much, the chickens will, and they'll be spectacular looking in the fall/winter, hanging orange lanterns and all.


What I do love about our, ahem, lame and mild climate, is that it hosts an enormous bounty of wild berries, so those are also of course included in the "Garden harvest" - Such includes Salmonberries, Elderberries, Thimbleberries, Blackberries, Huckleberries, Blueberries, and Salal Berries.




Gonna be canning and jamming a LOT this year

Hopefully next year I'll add more trees and shrubs. Always got room for such. I also try new melon, pepper, and tomato varieties each year too. We do heirlooms (no hybrids here) and always love sampling new ones each year, usually growing about 30 varieties of tomatoes per year, 12 varieties of peppers per year, and 13 varieties of melons/watermelons per year.


If it weren't for my greenhouse, all I'd be growing are assorted greens, potatoes, and if the year is good, some squash and maybe green corn.

 

[jprs]

In past years I've grown as much of our food as I could, but we are currently in the process of moving to a new place, where there are no garden beds set up. Unfortunately, by the time we are fully moved in and able to set up beds, it will be getting late in the season to be planting stuff. I did plant a few potatoes a week ago and noticed that some kind of squash/melon is coming up in the front flower bed, so since we will have little else this year, I'm going to let that go ahead and do its thing. I also set up a pallet compost system so I'll have some excellent compost with which to get started NEXT year. I'm really gonna miss the growing season this year though.

Hey HEChicken, You could try the "no dig garden". Takes about a morning to set up and plant. Just google no dig garden if your not sure what I'm talking about.

 

[HEChicken]

Hey HEChicken, You could try the "no dig garden". Takes about a morning to set up and plant. Just google no dig garden if your not sure what I'm talking about.

Will do some reading on that - thanks for the idea!

 

[HEChicken]

Hmmm....well, having just read a wiki and another article, it doesn't sound any different than the way I've always done it. Come to think of it, I have never "dug" a garden anyway. I've always found it easier to set up a raised bed and garden that way, which sounds pretty much what they are suggesting. I always start with a layer of cardboard or multi layers of newspapers or paper feed sacks to try to block weeds growing through, then fill the bed with any organic matter I can find. However, I find this a very time-consuming method. Just setting up the raised beds can take hours, by the time you gather your border material of choice (I've used lumber I found for free in the past but it still has to be set in the ground in such a way it will hold up the weight of the material added to the bed. This time around I was considering using cinder blocks and have gathered a few but need to go buy a bunch more), haul it to your location of choice, and set it up. Then, gathering the organic material can also take a LONG time - weeks! In the past I used aged manure (but be careful with that - if it hasn't aged long enough you'll get seeds coming up through it), compost (but I just set up my compost system and started the pile so won't have any of that for a year), shredded leaves, straw and any free fill I can find. But gathering, hauling and layering it takes a LONG time.

The wiki suggested a layer 2-3" deep. Honestly, I just don't believe that will work. My first bed was probably about that shallow but my experience was that the roots couldn't penetrate the hard-packed ground below the "no dig" layer and the plants were not healthy as a result. So I firmly believe your organic material has to be deep enough to allow the roots to penetrate and take hold - and that means at least 12" deep. Gathering the amount of material required to make a 12" deep layer in a decent sized bed is either expensive if you go out and buy it, or time-consuming if you have to gather it from different sources.

The time factor really is the big one. We don't move to the new place until the end of May and that is late in this region to be planting. But given the amount of time it would take to set up the beds (and all the other things we will be doing at the same time we are moving), it will really be just too late to get it established this year.

 

[onebigglo1]

In my garden which is about 30x80 feet wide, I have 55 tomatoes of different kinds, some 3 feet tall already with fruit hanging on, one row each of zucchini squash, yellow squash, cucumbers and 1 1/2 rows of pole beans. I also have peppers, oregano, garlic, basil, dill, parsley and spearmint growing in flower beds. My boyfriend has the other things planted that I don't have room for in his garden. I also have fresh free range eggs.