Any Gardeners Here?


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Marsh

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I sure hope so. :)

What do you like to grow in your garden?

This year I have intent on doing more dehydrating of produce. Making small 'to go' packages for taking with to the outdoors. Are any of you thinking along the same lines at all?

Lets talk gardening... What are your basic must haves for seeds/plants?

Marsh.
 
My wife and I have a 20x60 garden where we plant: onions, tomatoes, beans, peas, radish, lettuce, corn, beets, parsnips, spinach,carrots, peppers, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, etc. (probably forgetting something...)

I think we will try dehydrating a lot of the produce this year. We normally have to give a lot of it away. :)
 
I have to re-think, re-invent and re-learn my gardeningskills here.
I used to have cucumbers, several sorts of lettuce, carrots, red beets, beans, peas, some peppers, cabbages of all sorts, spinach, bruxelles sprouts etc..etc...
Fruits like strawberries, some 6 sorts of berries, brambles.....
 
I've been thinking of growing a garden this coming year. I live in the Northeast so I got to wait till spring. I'm looking into at least starting a inside herb garden this winter.
 
A big time staple in our garden is swiss chard.
It's one the first harvests of spring, it doesn't bolt like spinach, and it's one of the last greens still growing in the garden in the fall.
It's prolific, easy to freeze, and tastes good enough to eat regularly all winter long.
Home grown potatoes go over big time too. There's no comparison in taste to store-bought and they're easy. Set it and forget it.
Other than that, all the regular stuff. Tomatoes, peas, cabbage, beans, a (very) few squash, peppers, collards, carrots, beets salad stuff,....you name it.
 
I love gardening. I grow potatoes, parsnips, turnips, acorn squash, pumpkin, delicata squash, zuchini, green beans, soup beans, peas, carrots, corn, broclie, cabbage, onions, garlic, spinach, chard, fennel, tomatoes, strawberries, pickling cucumbers, lettuce and other stuff. I hope to start building a real greenhouse heated with a rocket stove this spring. Canning and freezing food seems to take up alot of my time in late summer and fall.
 
Up until two summers ago I really did heavy gardening. Illness has put off the gardening and now I'm hoping to fill my garden beds up again this year. I have 22 beds for veggies, 6 of strawberries and 2 large asparagus beds. I need to move the raspberries this coming spring too.

And a dead tiller... ***sigh***

I do need to find some better tasting tomatoes that will be ripe before my frost time. Anyone have a favorite in that catagory? :) Brandywines I love..but they are always still in the green stage by frost.

Cockeyedhunter... what does the delica squash taste like? Is it a sweet meat type squash? I've looked at those in catalogs and was wondering. I do like to grow butternut squash and have an interest in learning other squash.

Marsh.
 
WesternBushcraft.. please tell me more on the 'wild edibles'. Do you go dig them up and grow them in your garden area? Am I reading this right? I have alot to learn in that area yet. Other than dandilions and nettles.... and cockleburs wich grow on the backside of my garden I dont know much about wilds.

Marsh.
 
Grandpa has a green thumb, he has a couple blueberry bushes and then plants beans, peas, tomatoes, and peppers. I'm gonna try and convince him to plant some zucchini and maybe some sort of melon this year. He does container gardening because the soil around here is really sandy. I'm also looking into either making a food dehydrator or buying one. It's something I've always wanted to do, specially cause I can make my own beef jerky and I love beef jerky as much as I love lentils...and I really love lentils...
 
I like to try and garden all year round. We put up a high tunnel 18x44. This year I'm upgrading it with a second solar heat system. So for now just strawberries. By February greens then tomatoes, cucs and berries inside and on to the main garden out side.
I'm also trying hydroponics, as I couldn't get fish for the aquaponic system...yet.
No pix for now as still have to learn how to post them.
 
tators, t'maters, n leeks have been most successfull, just now got proporty i own that i can dig up, will be planting in the ground this spring, undecided what all im going to grow
...
 
I have a black thumb and I live in the desert there is little hope for me... I killed mint... your not suppose to be able to kill mint!.... my mom was able to create the garden of eden out here and I cant manage to keep a single plant alive.... when I plant shop for plants and they see me comeing they all droop and pretend to be dead... they are like " quick play dead! shes coming! " and when I pick one up you can here it scream "noooo! I want to live" its sad really. I am a plant murderer.
 
30 X 30 Garden
Tomato 6 kinds
Brrussel sprouts
Beets
Swiss Chard
Asparagas
Peppers
Parsley
Bail
Eggplant
Zuchini
Other Squash types...
 
This year I had approx 150 tomato plants cherry, Roma, and some generic kind from dollar general seed.

I never counted my peppers but around 175 of jalapeno, cayenne (two kinds), mild banana peppers and a few habanero.

Yellow squash
Zucchini
beans
okra
mustard greens
Kale (didn't make it)
Swiss Chard
Beets
Radishes
lettuce
Broccoli
Bell peppers


As a added bonus I have lambs quarter, field garlic, field penny cress and Purslane that comes up at different times in the garden. Then there is all the goodies in my yard.

I saved some penny cress seeds and going to see how they do in the spring.
They have a peppery flavor and are known as poor mans pepper.

I dehydrated some of my summer squash, cherry and Roma tomatoes and my cayenne peppers. Dehydrated cherry tomatoes taste like candy. hmmmn hmmm good.

Since I live on a farm I have access to about a dozen persimmon trees, black berries, black raspberry, black walnut red and white mulberry, sassafras, I roast maple seeds and well you get the picture. I don't starve. :4:
 
I try to keep something growing year round.
In the fall: onions, garlic, Swiss chard & beets.
Spring planting: Tomatoes, squash, beans, egg plant, lettuce,
okra, peppers & beets again (love them pickled beets)

My garden is what keeps me somewhat sane.
 
I would say my garden is 15ft x 15ft, we extended it this year and I plan to setup certain sections of the garden for certain things. I dont have any raised beds, may invest in that and a dedicated watering system, lots of ideas for this coming season.

This past year we had all sorts of stuff from potatoes, tomatoes, many peppers, fresh lettuce, herbs, and assorted beans and other stuff to dehydrate and save. I do admit that I had messed up my potatoes so I plan to build some bins I have seen in use on here, they should be a definite help in my potato output.

Last year was more like an experimenting season, tried a few things but some did not work so now I know what I am growing this year. I will be sticking to certain things to grow, things that I know will produce enough to try and save some.

-Brandon
 
Wow.. we have some serious gardeners here. Good to see. :) Peacelovinggirl you had me laughing .... We need to figure out how to green that thumb of yours up. :)

What catalogs do you folks get during the winter?

And Creekwalker.. WHAT do you do with all those mators and peppers? wow... Now that you've tried so many ..whats your fave of both tomato and pepper?

Marsh.
 
Marsh said:
Up until two summers ago I really did heavy gardening. Illness has put off the gardening and now I'm hoping to fill my garden beds up again this year. I have 22 beds for veggies, 6 of strawberries and 2 large asparagus beds. I need to move the raspberries this coming spring too.

And a dead tiller... ***sigh***

I do need to find some better tasting tomatoes that will be ripe before my frost time. Anyone have a favorite in that catagory? :) Brandywines I love..but they are always still in the green stage by frost.

Cockeyedhunter... what does the delica squash taste like? Is it a sweet meat type squash? I've looked at those in catalogs and was wondering. I do like to grow butternut squash and have an interest in learning other squash.

Marsh.
Click to expand...

Delicata squash has a sweet flavor, very good. Does'nt even need any butter.
 
I have 30 self watering container gardens. carrots,cucumbers,tomatoes,broccoli,cauliflower, 1 asparagus bed and 1 small in ground garden.
 
Marsh said:
Wow.. we have some serious gardeners here. Good to see. :) Peacelovinggirl you had me laughing .... We need to figure out how to green that thumb of yours up. :)

What catalogs do you folks get during the winter?

And Creekwalker.. WHAT do you do with all those mators and peppers? wow... Now that you've tried so many ..whats your fave of both tomato and pepper?

Marsh.
Click to expand...

This year the tomatoes didn't do so well too much rain. But I made a lot of hot sauce with the tomatoes and cayenne peppers. As far as canning Roma is my favorite just for the ease of peeling them and less water content.

Jalapeno's get used for salsa along with tomatoes and what they call end of garden pickles. Usually what ever I have and this year it was jalapeno, mild yellow peppers and green tomato pickles. Also I can jalapeno's with carrot slices and onion or just can them by themselves.

Yes I'm a pepper head. :o
 
Peacelovingirl said:
I have a black thumb and I live in the desert there is little hope for me... I killed mint... your not suppose to be able to kill mint!.... my mom was able to create the garden of eden out here and I cant manage to keep a single plant alive.... when I plant shop for plants and they see me comeing they all droop and pretend to be dead... they are like " quick play dead! shes coming! " and when I pick one up you can here it scream "noooo! I want to live" its sad really. I am a plant murderer.
Click to expand...

You have a very lively way of making your point. It's either that or I have a very vivid imagination!!:18:
I can clearly see this little scene in a Looney Tunes kind of way...

As for the gardening; I am looking for tips on growing veggies that will hold out in the Swedish climate and which I can keep through the winter, either by freezing, drying or storing them.
 
Love my gardens.:1: I always put in at least two kinds of tomatoes, onions, many many potatoes, they grow well here and I always get a few hundred pounds of good spuds, Yukon Golds and Kennebecs. Lets see,,,zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, peas, beans, carrots, at least 3 kinds of peppers, lettuce, and sweet corn.
We get late frosts here and I put early stuff in about May 25th and the rest about June 1st. I plant by the moon because thats how I was taught.

Oh yeah, I have my asparagus patch as well.
 
I am leaning more and more towards native, naturally pest resistant food for my garden. Heck, I don't even think I can call it a garden anymore. We have a native garlic and egyptian walking onions which do really well here and reproduce on their own. No need for new plantings each year and no need to till or treat soil.

I'm looking more into native greens as well. While my lettuce and spinach is being completely destroyed by insects, the lambs quarter and japanese honeysuckle are quietly growing on the edges of the field, undisturbed by insects and disease. It's starting to look like the lambs quarter and japanese honeysuckle are the better bet so that's the way I'm going.

Probably a lot could said there but that's the basics of my current efforts where the garden is concerned. I think maybe when we think about what we'll plant, we see and look at what we don't have. I would like to be able to see what we do have and bring that out so it can benefit us to a greater degree.
 
If anyone is interested I experimented with what they call lasagna gardening last fall and what it is layering a raised bed with different compostable material.

All I had to work with was grass from the yard, newspaper and dirt but I really liked the results. This year I'll build them the same but with leaves and straw.

Here is a radish from the experimental plot and the average size was slightly larger than a tennis ball. Since it was fall they didn't get woody or pithy like spring planted radishes will get and they are still in the ground along with the beets as I'm going to see if they are still viable in the spring after overwintering in the garden.

That is a SAK next to it. :4:
 

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We grow corn, tomato, squash (all hit with white mildew....), various herbs, kale, lettuce, eggplants, pea, soy, radish.
I typically order through seed savers. I got some real intersting seed varieties this season and am going to try some new stuff....
 
Creekwalker.. if your radishes are pithy this spring from staying in all winter.. Leave them. They will seed out and be rather pretty flowers to boot. :) I learned that a few summers ago when a batch didnt get picked and was the last bed to be worked down. I left them once I seen the flower and saved the pods off them for seeds. I found out carrots will do the same for me up here. I'll get the seeds the next spring.

I like the lasagna method.. IF I can keep up with it. It seems I'm always short on a layer by the heat of the summer. :S When the grass slows down and no leaves to rake up yet. But then again.. the plants are pretty much grown and ready to produce. Well.. most of them anyway.

Any of you guys got pix of your gardens to share?

Marsh.
 
Marsh said:
Creekwalker.. if your radishes are pithy this spring from staying in all winter.. Leave them. They will seed out and be rather pretty flowers to boot. :) I learned that a few summers ago when a batch didnt get picked and was the last bed to be worked down. I left them once I seen the flower and saved the pods off them for seeds. I found out carrots will do the same for me up here. I'll get the seeds the next spring.

I like the lasagna method.. IF I can keep up with it. It seems I'm always short on a layer by the heat of the summer. :S When the grass slows down and no leaves to rake up yet. But then again.. the plants are pretty much grown and ready to produce. Well.. most of them anyway.

Any of you guys got pix of your gardens to share?

Marsh.
Click to expand...

Radish flowers are also edible and can be added to salads and guess what they taste like? Of course radishes. :4:
 
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