Sustainability in the garden

[Bird_Lover_17]

Hi! I want to be 100% self-sufficient in my garden. Does anyone have any tips?
Like not going out food shopping unless it's stuff like things I can't grow (bananas, coconuts)? I want to save $, and be able to stay home more.
(Idk if this should be in self sufficiency or gardening forums)

 

[UnShelled]

Hi!
Self-sufficiency is my (long term) goal too! I’d love to trade tips and tricks! I’m west of the Cascades in the rainy PNW. What climate do you live in?

 

[Bird_Lover_17]

Hi!
Self-sufficiency is my (long term) goal too! I’d love to trade tips and tricks! I’m west of the Cascades in the rainy PNW. What climate do you live in?

Cool! I am in planting zone 5 and 4 (right where they meet).

 

[Sally PB]

Hello from West Michigan (zone 5)! Self sufficiency is our goal too, and the chickens are helping with that. I've gardened for many years; not enough to not have to go to the store, but enough to give us some fresh/canned food year round. This has been a very good year in my garden.

Here is some of what I have learned.

WRITE STUFF DOWN! Next spring when you get all those beautiful catalogs, it is easy to fall into the starry-eyed trap of buying too much. Write down what worked and especially what DIDN'T work. Let's face it, those catalog pictures are flat out garden porn, and I am easily seduced.

Grow what grows well in your space/climate. Sounds like, um, duh! But some things just don't do well for me, or well enough to warrant the space. This takes experience in your own garden, which just takes time.

I am organic in my methods, and I have found companion planting to be helpful. Two examples from this summer:

Marigolds deter soldier bugs from tomatoes. Or else there weren't any soldier bugs this year, but I doubt it. I will definitely plant marigolds again next year. I started them the same time as I started my tomato seeds.

Onions planted in between potatoes deterred potato beetles. Definitely doing that next year too.

Since I want to can tomatoes, I am going to grow determinant varieties next year. I saved seed from one of my tomato varieties this year, but bought seeds for other types for next year. Research online helped me choose varieties for my particular needs, and I found five, four of which I had never heard of.

Chickens, ah, bless their little poopy hearts! Chicken poop has revolutionized my compost. I'm on my fourth batch this season. Three to four weeks to turn kitchen/garden waste into garden black gold. Here's the catch: it's a lot of physical labor. Google "berkeley hot composting method" for lots of info. Basically, it's build your pile, wait four days. Turn it every other day after that for about three-four weeks. (But look it up; there's more to it.)

Compost, compost, compost... how do I love thee? Let me count the ways... I have sandy soil and clay soil, and it helps with both. It smells good. (Ok, I'm weird.) It returns nutrients to the soil, feeding plants which in turn feed me. It has given me some impressive arm muscles from all that turning, but I am easily impressed. Ah, compost!

Ok, I've rambled on. Get me talking about gardens or chickens, and I don't shut up.

 

[NatJ]

If you think you want to save your own seeds: it's much easier with some plants than with others.

For example, if you just let the lettuce bolt to seed in hot weather, the flowers will mostly pollinate themselves (so you'll get more of the same kind of lettuce), then it will make seeds, and you can collect them and store in an envelope.

But if you want seeds from carrots, you have to store the roots all winter and let them grow again in the spring, and insects will spread pollen among carrots and the wild Queen Anne's Lace (and the crosses do not make good carrots.) But you can't just cover the carrots with an insect-proof barrier, because then the flowers do not get pollinated at all, and no seeds are produced.

Easiest seeds to save are probably peas, beans, lettuce, tomatos, peppers.
Squashes and melons with a few conditions.
Corn is easy because the seed is the part we eat, but hard because it cross-pollinates so easily. Every corn kernel will grow into a corn plant that makes edible ears, but they may not taste the way you want them to taste

Potatoes grow from other potatoes, not from seeds at all, so it's easy to save some potatoes to plant next year.

 

[Bird_Lover_17]

Hello from West Michigan (zone 5)! Self sufficiency is our goal too, and the chickens are helping with that. I've gardened for many years; not enough to not have to go to the store, but enough to give us some fresh/canned food year round. This has been a very good year in my garden.

Here is some of what I have learned.

WRITE STUFF DOWN! Next spring when you get all those beautiful catalogs, it is easy to fall into the starry-eyed trap of buying too much. Write down what worked and especially what DIDN'T work. Let's face it, those catalog pictures are flat out garden porn, and I am easily seduced.

Grow what grows well in your space/climate. Sounds like, um, duh! But some things just don't do well for me, or well enough to warrant the space. This takes experience in your own garden, which just takes time.

I am organic in my methods, and I have found companion planting to be helpful. Two examples from this summer:

Marigolds deter soldier bugs from tomatoes. Or else there weren't any soldier bugs this year, but I doubt it. I will definitely plant marigolds again next year. I started them the same time as I started my tomato seeds.

Onions planted in between potatoes deterred potato beetles. Definitely doing that next year too.

Since I want to can tomatoes, I am going to grow determinant varieties next year. I saved seed from one of my tomato varieties this year, but bought seeds for other types for next year. Research online helped me choose varieties for my particular needs, and I found five, four of which I had never heard of.

Chickens, ah, bless their little poopy hearts! Chicken poop has revolutionized my compost. I'm on my fourth batch this season. Three to four weeks to turn kitchen/garden waste into garden black gold. Here's the catch: it's a lot of physical labor. Google "berkeley hot composting method" for lots of info. Basically, it's build your pile, wait four days. Turn it every other day after that for about three-four weeks. (But look it up; there's more to it.)

Compost, compost, compost... how do I love thee? Let me count the ways... I have sandy soil and clay soil, and it helps with both. It smells good. (Ok, I'm weird.) It returns nutrients to the soil, feeding plants which in turn feed me. It has given me some impressive arm muscles from all that turning, but I am easily impressed. Ah, compost!

Ok, I've rambled on. Get me talking about gardens or chickens, and I don't shut up.

Lot's of info! I have never really looked into chicken poop compost but I will now! that's interesting that planting certain plants near others detered pests! I will start marking down what did/ didn't work for me! Thanks!

 

[Bird_Lover_17]

If you think you want to save your own seeds: it's much easier with some plants than with others.

For example, if you just let the lettuce bolt to seed in hot weather, the flowers will mostly pollinate themselves (so you'll get more of the same kind of lettuce), then it will make seeds, and you can collect them and store in an envelope.

But if you want seeds from carrots, you have to store the roots all winter and let them grow again in the spring, and insects will spread pollen among carrots and the wild Queen Anne's Lace (and the crosses do not make good carrots.) But you can't just cover the carrots with an insect-proof barrier, because then the flowers do not get pollinated at all, and no seeds are produced.

Easiest seeds to save are probably peas, beans, lettuce, tomatos, peppers.
Squashes and melons with a few conditions.
Corn is easy because the seed is the part we eat, but hard because it cross-pollinates so easily. Every corn kernel will grow into a corn plant that makes edible ears, but they may not taste the way you want them to taste

Potatoes grow from other potatoes, not from seeds at all, so it's easy to save some potatoes to plant next year.

Thanks! I do want to save seeds and your info helps! Speaking of carrots, I have had a terrible carrot year. Literally got 1 - 1 carrot!

 

[NatJ]

that's interesting that planting certain plants near others detered pests!

Onions can help protect broccoli from moose.

Moose love broccoli. They will come from miles away to eat broccoli. They also munch a few other things while they're there, and they step on everything else with their big hooves.

But if you plant lots of onions in with the broccoli, not so many moose come. (Probably because the onion smell overpowers the broccoli smell.) "Lots of onions" being something like two rows of onions on each side of the row of broccoli, in a long garden bed that's 3 feet wide.

 

[UnShelled]

I agree whole heartedly about the magic of compost! I use a lot of straw bedding, and am a lazy composter. Each year I make a pile and then in two years it is ready to go. Been doing it for ten years, so I have a new pile every year. I have the garden right next to the chicken run, and a small enclosed chicken tunnel that wraps around the inside of the garden fence. It connects to the chicken yard, so they spend a lot of time catching bugs and slugs and generally making a pest barrier around the garden. It has greatly reduced the slugs and aphids!
Chickens are also really good at weeding! If you have a grassy area or an overgrown garden you can put up a temporary run and leave the chickens to do their thing. If you put them on a patch in late winter and leave them there until late spring it will be weed free and ready to plant starts in. Just be sure to wash anything you harvest there because of uncomposted droppings.

 

[NatJ]

Thanks! I do want to save seeds and your info helps!

There are books and websites specifically about saving seeds.
A book I frequently see recommended is called "Seed to Seed," by Suzanne Ashworth.
If your library has it, you can decide whether it's useful before deciding whether to buy it

I think seed saving information can mostly be sorted into three categories:
a) recognizing what the seed is, and how to collect/save it
b) knowing whether this kind of plant usually cross-pollinates with other plants
c) whether you even should care if this one is cross-pollinated

Tomato seeds are fairly simple: the seed is in the ripe fruit, the flower usually self-pollinates, and even if a rare insect cross-pollinates it with a different tomato variety, you will still get seeds that grow edible tomatoes.

Peppers are similar to tomatoes, including that they usuall self-pollinate. But if your bell peppers do get pollinated with hot-pepper pollen, you might find yourself growing bell-shaped hot peppers the next year!

Many squashes are pollinated by insects, who visit every squash blossom in the area. So you might have a pumkini (pumpkin/zucchini) grow from your saved seeds. (Does it taste like a zucchini? Can you carve it like a pumpkin? I don't know.) But some ornamental gourds can also cross-pollinate with squashes, and a few are bitter/poisonous (the poison is bitter, so it's safe to eat odd-looking squashes if they taste fine.)