Gardening

[GreenGuy]

I wanted to start this thread mainly because I regard gardening as one of THE most important and crucial skills people need to develop as we move into a time when we will have to provide much more for ourselves than we've been used to. Mods are welcome to move it if they feel there's a more appropriate place.

I'd like to post links, connect with other gardeners, learn what grows in your area and share what does well in mine, share techniques and tips, but most of all I'd like it to become a theme in more of our lives. The reasons I lay such stress on gardening are, of course food (=money); medicines (=money); pleasure; beauty and harmony; the acquisition of wisdom (priceless). We all need more of these, and gardening is an easily-accessible doorway for nearly anyone.

I live in a mobile-home park and have a tiny lawn and a few small areas for planting. I use every square inch. My main focus is food, both for the better quality I can grow, and the significant effect on my meager budget. It also gives me the opportunity for barter: last fall I had nearly 80 lbs of lemons, as well as herbs, squash, beans and tomatoes to give away. This year, I've planted turnips, beets, broccoli, kale, fava beans, radishes, cilantro, gourds, several kinds of peppers, cantaloupes, lettuce, onions, garlic and numerous herbs: nigella, white sage, chamomile, mint, calendula. It's amazing what you can fit into a small space.

(I do a lot of companion planting, such as cantaloupes beneath the gardenias, and garlic among the peppers, cilantro among the gourds).

Medicine is also one of my prime reasons for being a gardener. I'm not a certified herbalist, but I have around 50 years' experience with natural remedies. Never or seldom needing a doctor is also a form of money.

It's not just hard, it's damaging to live without pleasure. There is actually a microorganism in the soil that we absorb through our skin as we touch the soil, that heads for the brain where it causes the release of serotonin and pleasure chemicals. Seeing the things you've planted sprout and grow, and the accumulation of experience and knowledge, are pleasurable. The creation of beauty and harmony is a wonderful side effect. So besides vegetables and herbs (many of which are beautiful all by themselves), I cultivate columbine, stocks, geraniums, snapdragons, gardenias, camellias, hydrangeas, hollyhocks, four o'clocks, nasturtiums, gauras, scheffleras, and other decorative plants.

My trailer doesn't look like much from the street. It's not bad, just not a head-turner. I love it when peoples' jaws drop when they see my backyard. People just like to hang out there - harmony is a wonderful thing that people crave. I want everyone to know they can create their own!

Wisdom comes almost imperceptibly as we work a garden throughout the year. We pick up, almost subliminally, knowledge and habits that are in harmony with the earth and the life it produces. This bleeds over into many areas of life.

Gardening teaches patience, persistence, self-reliance. We all need these virtues - we are entering a time of new challenges and insecurities. Gardening is something we can do alone or with others - it teaches teamwork. You can garden anywhere, even an apartment patio can produce food, medicine, beauty. You can be a guerrilla gardener, scattering seeds in wasted easements and vacant lots. You can start a food forest.

One last point about gardening (for now): it has absolutely no negatives.

[LivioRazlo]

After watching a video yesterday about chemtrails, the speaker talked about the soil not being fertile any longer due to the chemicals being sprayed. This is one of the concerns I had with planting a garden this year. Any advice?

[Joseph McAree]

Hi Greenguy,

My Father's family come from a farming background and my fathers parents had 12 children well he moved to Scotland from Ireland as the farm cant support everyone, but in a very rough area called Easterhouse in Glasgow he cleared an area in the back of the properties to culultivate a large garden. He could grow anything he just had it ! just like you, he could cultivate the land and would grow everything a family would need to survive, your ability sounds so similar he is 88years old now and still talks about his gardens, he lives on the 8th floor of a multi story building now, so his gardening days are over. I appreciate you encouraging people to do this.

kindest regards
Joe

[ginnyk]

Wonderful thread, GreenGuy. The ground is still "sleeping" here but the daffodil shoots are starting to poke through. They usually are blooming by the end of Feb. It is amazing all the things you grow in such a limited space. You certainly are an inspiration. I am sure you have a lot of valuable information to share. Growing things has always been a part of my life no matter where I have lived. When I was a child, gardening was not a hobby, but the supplier of food for the entire next year. I can't imagine not doing it and this time of year, I can't wait to get started! I can already anticipate those big tomato sandwiches.

LivioRazlo, I have not noticed any lack of fertility due to chemtrails here in N.W. Arkansas and I certainly would not let that deter me from trying. My advice is dig out those seed catalogs, dream big and start planting as soon as the soil warms up. Don't let anything or anyone tell you not to grow your own food. Please let us know how your garden grows this summer.

Gin

[mpod001]

This year I am following what my heart has been telling me go do for a while, and that is plant as much fruit and vegetables in my local area for everyone to enjoy. I believe food should be made available to all free, and we can do this by just accessing our hedgerows and having a fresh opinion to some plants e.g. dandelions...these are a fantastic food...the root can be made into a coffee, the leaves eaten in salad and the flowers can also be used to make a jam believe it or not! Theyre not weeds...theyre food! Use them!

Take cuttings of your productive fruit trees and bushes and plant them out in the wild for everyone to benefit from! In a few years they will be enormous and producing so much free food for all!

This is a mission that I believe has been put in my heart by mother earth...please everyone get involved and plant and plant and plant...lets make our home a beautiful eden once again xx

[Gardener]

Nice to see some gardening chat its a cool way to spend time, gardening is healthy in so many ways and you get to enjoy it several times over.

My patch is a challenge for a few reasons; it is often water logged when it rains plus there is an underground stream flow (the frogs like it and frogs eat lots of slugs) so raised beds were the only way to go, plus lots of compost and sand to help the drainage. Being in the pennine hills it is 600 ft above sea level meaning a shorter season and its colder. And lastly there is a lot of shade on the south side (neighbours trees and hedges) which I don't have a lot of control over so ripening is not as easy as it could be. Rhubarb does well in shade so does brocolli and some of the chards and spinach.

I garden organic wherever possible and have a good rotating compost sytem of three bays at various stages. All the raw kitchen waste, peelings, tea bags, goes on there too, and some paper. So there is always plenty of potting material and the rest goes back on the beds.

One of the beds is given over to comfrey which provides a good all round feed, plus the bees like the flowers, mostly I can get 2-3 croppings in a season from the plants. And one bed is given over to herbs and horseradish.

Its not perfect with our northern weather but it does give us onions for a year, green beans for a year, potatoes for 4-5 months, Jam for a year, strawberry, and Rhubarb with ginger; picalilly (mustard pickle) for a year, cougette for a year, turnip and leek for the winter, plus always some to pass around, so I guess its doing ok. Definitly worth the effort though it gets harder as the years pass.

I have posted this link before but it belongs here too, I get my seeds here, they are ethical growers though not exactly organic, they are heritage and seeds can be saved. They have lots of advice on their site too.
http://www.realseeds.co.uk

[Latti]

Gardening is one of my favorite hobbies. Several generations of my family have been subsistence farmers. Growing up, we had a 1/2 acre orchard and 1/2 acre garden(4000 sq. m.). I hated to hoe the garden to remove the grass and weeds; so, now, I use a broadfork to till the soil, add compost, plant the square foot method and add leaf mulch to control grass and weeds. As the plants grow, I'll add up to 12 inches (30 cm.) of mulch and that works well. Most of the potatoes actually grow in the mulch; so, there is very little digging at harvest time.

2013 was my best year ever for the garden. I grow two crops. Early vegetables are followed by late summer and fall vegetables. In addition to vegetables, I have apples, peaches, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and elderberries. I also use as many permaculture methods as practicable.

As far as chemtrails depleting the soil, I haven't noticed a difference. Two weeks ago the sky here was full of chemtrails. So, we have them, but I don't know how we compare to Indiana.

Latti

[GreenGuy]

Posted by LivioRazlo (here)
After watching a video yesterday about chemtrails, the speaker talked about the soil not being fertile any longer due to the chemicals being sprayed. This is one of the concerns I had with planting a garden this year. Any advice?

Without any question our soils are less productive than say, 75 years ago. There are many reasons, I'm not sure that chemtrails are a significant part of it. I didn't say it in the OP, but my focus is organic gardening. I do not use fertilizers or pesticides. I'm a certified Master Composter (my only advanced degree lol), and I'd be happy to post about composting. Start a compost pile, use natural mulch. I don't do a lot of digging and turning once the bed has been dug. Start a worm compost if you don't have room for a compost pile. I do both. Vermicomposting is quicker than outdoor composting. If you have dogs, you can buy a mini-septic tank that uses enzymes to turn the poop into odorless black potting soil. It may take a year or more to really ameliorate poor soil, but there are many ways to improve it, and many things you can grow in the meantime. Trust me, the earth responds to love.

Thank you all for welcoming this thread! Great posts!

[Molly]

I'm not sure if its pollution from the traffic off the nearby highway or chemtrails or both, but we do sometimes get a black film on the plants in our garden, our cars, picnic tables, anything sitting outside.. you run your finger across it & it shows up on your finger like black dirt, its gross. Everything seems to grow as it should, though.. I just make sure to wash everything real good before I eat it.

There's this one particular road in the town where I live, all alongside it are wild blackberries every summer.. unfortunately, you will also sometimes see someone in hazmat looking gear & what appears to be a gas mask, spraying them. That being said, I won't go anywhere near those.
Luckily, there's still a good bit of wild, un-tainted blackberries on my actual road. The property is owned by one of our neighbors & they let me pick all I want as long as I bring them some blackberry cobbler

We grow a lot of stuff around here in the spring, summer, & fall.. tomatoes, peas, beans, cucumbers, peppers, squash, pumpkins, various greens, carrots, etc.. In the ground & in containers. I do believe gardening is very therapeutic. I tend to be very depressed in the winter, especially if its too cold to do anything outside. My body aches & all I can think about is it hurrying up & being gardening time again. All I have indoors now for the winter is some succulents & a little lemon tree in a container sitting in the kitchen window..still no lemons yet but the flowers smell really good.

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Oh & greenguy, your post made me think of one of my aunts & uncles. They live in a tiny little camper trailer by the beach & nearly their entire land space has food & flowers growing all in it most of the time They give a lot of it away, since they can't eat it all. They are really sweet people.

[Becky]

We have a back garden and have grown fruit and veggies all my life but not enough to feed the whole family, it's just complimentary to our diet. The biggest problem we've had in the past few years in the uk is too much rain water logging the ground and not enough sun to ripen crops nicely. But still we persevere as home grown fruit, veg and salad is the best.

[Corncrake]

This is a very uplifting thread to read while waiting for spring - even though the land outside is at best waterlogged and at worst flooded. I live in a flat with a sunny south facing balcony that last year looked like a miniature jungle I had so many cucumbers, courgettes, tomatoes, lettuces and herbs growing on it. Although we have had so much rain the weather has been relatively mild and I still have pots of lettuce and spinach growing. We have had barely any frost at all and the balcony is quite well protected anyway. For the first time I also had a small allotment in the back garden and this year am going to take on another one. I enjoyed myself so much sewing seeds, weeding and finally harvesting and this year I am definitely going to experiment more. I also enjoy collecting wild foods such as ramsons (wild garlic) which grow in abundance under the trees in the back garden - they make delicious salads, stir fry, soup and pestos. The local common supports wild plum and apple trees, blackberries and raspberries and I have pots of jams and chutneys in my cupboards as proof of my foraging! I am now going to check out http://www.realseeds.co.uk - thank you.

[GreenGuy]

Posted by Corncrake (here)
I also enjoy collecting wild foods such as ramsons (wild garlic) which grow in abundance under the trees in the back garden - they make delicious salads, stir fry, soup and pestos.

When you harvest wild garlic do you pull up the bulbs and use those, or just the greens? When I lived in Texas, wild garlic was a common "weed" in lawns and parks. I had a garden back then, but wasn't as much into foraging, so I never tried it. I do eat a lot of garlic, so just about every time I use some, I poke a clove or two into the soil outside. It's a good companion plant which helps to hold down aphids and other pests. Last year I didn't have enough to eliminate buying it. I hope to have that changed by late spring when I can begin harvesting the bulbs I've planted through the fall and winter.

It's difficult for me to realize that many of you are still frozen! Some of the seeds I've planted since the first of the year haven't sprouted yet. Even though there's been no freezing weather, It may simply be too early, or they may be slow to germinate. Still, it's great to see tiny plants breaking ground, knowing that beautiful salads and veggies are on the way.

[Gardener]

Our connection to the earth is a powerful thing, and I am reminded of a well known little rhyme.

The kiss of the sun for pardon
The song of the birds for mirth
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on Earth.

Just thought I would put this in here, with all things garden.

[Gardener]

I start all mine indoors for that reason, I often wonder if they have a built in timer but in the big picture the ground temerature has a lot to do with it plus in UK particularly in the north there is little point planting out until the risk of frosts have passed (late May) otherwise its a loss on the more tender leaved like green beans. On the other hand most Leeks and turnips stand well all winter and provide a good base for broth.

Even though there's been no freezing weather, It may simply be too early, or they may be slow to germinate.

[Heartsong]

For those who can't grow their own food, please support the local growers who are putting such effort and investment into bringing their wares to market.

I buy vegetables and fruits from local growers who sell their produce at local roadside stands and street markets. Many of the growers are hobby gardeners or members of cooperatives who are looking to supplement their day jobs.

The money you spend goes into the pockets of good people whose skill is priceless.

[GreenGuy]

Posted by Heartsong (here)
For those who can't grow their own food, please support the local growers who are putting such effort and investment into bringing their wares to market.

I buy vegetables and fruits from local growers who sell their produce at local roadside stands and street markets. Many of the growers are hobby gardeners or members of cooperatives who are looking to supplement their day jobs.

The money you spend goes into the pockets of good people whose skill is priceless.

Totally agree! Few of us can grow enough to actually sustain ourselves without visits to the Farmers Market or grocery store. I try to support these local growers as much as I can. I buy honey from a fellow down the road who keeps hives in his backyard.

One item I've so far been unable to find is goat milk. Many farmers hereabout keep large or small herds, but the main purveyor of goat milk in the US, Meyenberg, is just down the road in Turlock CA. They have the market sewn up, and any farmer who sells or even drinks a drop of milk from his own goats will lose his contract. I drink very little milk, but goat milk is better than cow milk, and it makes dreamy soap.

[genevieve]

Re lack of nutrients in the soil: Try azomite, which is rock dust.
It's also thought to adsorb nasty chemicals (and possibly radiation)
in the soil and make them unavailable to the plants.

Cheapest source I found: PDZ at a feed supply store ($18 for
20 pounds).


Just a word about tomatoes: If anyone gets a chance, I highly
recommend Cherokee--WOWWOWWOW what great flavor. It's
a heritage strain that I grew in my house on a window sill and it's
just what any tomato lover could ever hope for.


Molly--You description of aches and pains makes me wonder if
your body's pH is too acidic. You might want to check it out.


Peace Love Joy & Harmony,
genevieve

[Corncrake]

When you harvest wild garlic do you pull up the bulbs and use those, or just the greens?

No I just use the greens and sometimes the white flowers sprinkled onto a salad. I am keen to try companion planting this year and will certainly add garlic (allium sativum) to my carrots.

I have just returned from a walk on the common and noticed the wild plum trees already starting to flower - this usually happens in April. I do hope we don't get a cold snap because that will be the end of our wild fruit crop.

[HaulinBananas]

Posted by GreenGuy (here)
One item I've so far been unable to find is goat milk. Many farmers hereabout keep large or small herds, but the main purveyor of goat milk in the US, Meyenberg, is just down the road in Turlock CA. They have the market sewn up, and any farmer who sells or even drinks a drop of milk from his own goats will lose his contract. I drink very little milk, but goat milk is better than cow milk, and it makes dreamy soap.

There are various Yahoo goat groups, but in California you might ask for a supplier of "Pet" goat milk. If Meyerberg is the company that sells goatmilk in purple cartons, my opinion is that their goat milk tastes like it came from a billy goat. It is not appetizing to me. I have LaMancha dairy goats and find the milk to be slightly creamy and slightly sweet, a person would think they were drinking creamy cows milk. I enjoy the milk I get from my own goats. Prior to having my own goats I was paying $10 a gallon for "pet" goat milk.

My almond trees are covered with blossoms now and other trees have visible buds or the tips of leaves poking out. But, I wonder if it is too early and if there will be freezes still to come.

Thank you for some of the composting information, and further information woujl be appreciated too. But, I felt uneasy about using dog poop composted into black soil with enzymes. Just for non fruit trees right? For some reason I don't want any dog or cat poop near vegetable or fruit tree soil.

I have bought worms and "rock dust" to blend with horse manure into desert sand, and the soil seems to be improving and the garden and orchard thriving. I have chicken and goat poop available too, but haven't transferred much of it to the orchard and garden area yet.

[GreenGuy]

Pet goat milk...great idea. I'll check that out, maybe put a "wanted" ad on Craigslist. I agree about the taste of Meyenberg's GM, but it's all that's available in the stores. It does make great soap, though.

The only goat I've owned was a French Alpine, many years ago. She was a great pet, but she ate my laundry off the line.

We bred large dogs when I was growing up, and had a row of Doggie Dooleys along the fence. So I can attest that they work well, but we never used the soil for growing veggies. I don't think I'd be too afraid of it. Herbivore manure like horse, goat, chicken etc., makes great compost.