Anyone into gardening? (for food)

[mizzou]

grow what you eat

then grow enough to keep you from buying it at the grocery store



for me that was:
1. Kale
2. Tomatoes (small and big)
3. Peppers

I unsuccesfully grew onions and cucumbers, mainly because I had a bed filled a little too late...brand new garden

I noticed towards the end of the season I had these wormy things eating my kale leaves...It seems like some manual labor can take care of alot of them but next year I'm going to try some approaches to neutralize them, hopefully naturally.

 

[Ancalagon44]

I grow lots of peppers, and one variety of tomatoes (Roma tomatoes). I want to grow more veggies this year.

I did try indoor growing - even built a special indoor plant stand with built in lighting - but I find the pests too bothersome to deal with. Outside, pests dont really trouble my plants. but inside, all sorts of insects are attracted to them.

As for tomatoes and their flavour, the other thing to remember is that the commercial farming industry has been developing vegetables that grow and ripen as fast as possible. The less time it takes to get your product to market, the more money you can make, put simply. Some say that this focus on speed reduces flavour and available nutrients.

 

[Jeeebus]

We haven't had a lot of success with veggies (they get decimated by whitefly), but we get several hundred pounds of fruit per year from our trees.

 

[NetWareHead]

They have 25+ year food storage systems ready to purchase off-the-shelf, but my body is not compatible with a lot of the ingredients or preservatives, so I'm forced to take more of a DIY route.

The beauty of canning is that it preserves the food/veggies with things that should be compatible with your allergies. For the most part, this type of food preservation does not use chemical preservatives.

canning jars: heat + physical glass barrier. I referenced acidic vs non acidic before. I usually use lemon juice or citric acid to bring the PH to a level that will retard botulism and other nasties. if you have a citrus allergy, then get a pressure canner and you dont need to lower the PH at all. or I suppose you could use vinegar but I havent tested that.

Pickling uses vinegar or brine to preserve.

Drying/salting/smoking/candying also remove much of the water via salt or sugar. Wood smoke also contains food preservatives.

I don't know if you are sensitive to nitrates and nitrites but these are the salts added to meat during sausage making. We make a type of air dried sausage using these type of salts and once it properly dries, it will never spoil. You don't need refrigeration. When you want to start a new sausage, simply go downstairs to the basement and grab one hanging from the ceiling joists.

 

[NetWareHead]

Interesting, I didn't realize soil affected flavor so much.

It absolutely does. For instance Kona coffee which is grown in Hawaii is defintely a product of the volcanic soil found there. Certain grapes used for wine production as well only grow in certain climates and soils and will not thrive anywhere else. The list is practically endless

 

[nageov3t]

I've got a small indoor herb garden in my home office, and yeah... the grow lights and all that were purchased through pot farming websites

 

[akugami]

I've got a small indoor herb garden in my home office, and yeah... the grow lights and all that were purchased through pot farming websites

Where's your office and can we borrow some "herbs" when they're ready?

 

[Cappuccino]

My grandma use to grow Pak Choi and Melons. She use to sprinkle her own urine on the planting ground to increase the growth process. It's a true story I'm not lying!

 

[NetWareHead]

My grandma use to grow Pak Choi and Melons. She use to sprinkle her own urine on the planting ground to increase the growth process. It's a true story I'm not lying!

I piss in my compost pile when possible. When planting my veggies, a shovel of that same compost goes under each plant's roots. I had over 6 foot tall tomato plants one year as a result. True story!

 

[Cappuccino]

I piss in my compost pile when possible. When planting my veggies, a shovel of that same compost goes under each plant's roots. I had over 6 foot tall tomato plants one year as a result. True story!

You think I'm lying about the urine? :ninja:

 

[NetWareHead]

You think I'm lying about the urine? :ninja:

And I'm not either!

 

[twinrider1]

My grandma use to grow Pak Choi and Melons. She use to sprinkle her own urine on the planting ground to increase the growth process. It's a true story I'm not lying!

Pics of grandma's melons.

(and that's when I knew I'd been in ATOT too long).

 

[Howard]

No and no.

 

[MaxDepth]

Depending on the frost line for your area, in a couple of weeks I will be planting tomato seeds in starter pods (cardboard egg crates). Then a couple of weeks, planting pepper plants.

In NC we have luxury of having one of the foremost experts on tomatoes and one heck of a very nice guy. Here is the YouTube profile

As for many garden and outdoor related activities, low tech has definitely been the best way for us. I built my own smoker using large flower pots. (If anyone knows where I can pick up unpainted hollow terracotta dragons, please let me know!) We've extended the garden area permanently in the back yard by building raised beds. With the right lumber and design, it has lasted us the past six years and going on our seventh.

I'm pretty envious of DrPizza and his apples. They were hit or miss with our weekly produce box. (CSA - Community Supported Agriculture - pay to pick a box of fruit/vegetables from local farmers) I used to have a source of tart cherries until we taught her how to make cherry bounce. We haven't been invited back to place to pick cherries since.

Now I'm planning fruit trees for our yard but we won't see real fruit for the next four years. But please don't let that discourage anyone from growing. It is always nice to come home from work and go straight to the garden.

This year:
- tomatoes (big beef steak types, sungolds (cherry tomato type) and Mexican midgets (tiny tomatoes with big taste)
- cuccumbers
- onions, garlic, herbs (perennial and annual)
- blueberries and raspberries (had to cut back the raspberries because they have been invasive around the blueberry)

 

[Jeeebus]

Difficult to recall offhand and away from home, but I believe these are the trees we currently have:

8x mango (various varieties)
3x starfruit
2x japanese plum
2x lychee
1x sapodilla
1x avocado (which keeps the f'in squirrels fat and happy)
1x pink lemon
1x miracle fruit
1x jaboticaba
1x june plum
1x jujube
1x peach
1x malay apple
3x mulberry
4x blueberry (these are actually on order, being delivered in a week or so)

I'm probably leaving something out, but that's what I can remember.

 

[GabrielW]

My grandma use to grow Pak Choi and Melons. She use to sprinkle her own urine on the planting ground to increase the growth process. It's a true story I'm not lying!

My grandma used to do that too! And the poop from chickens was her favorite fertilizer. I always thought she was trying to save money, but now I know they are much better than those commercially bought ones..

Having said that, aquaponics is an option to explore, since we get both fish and plants. I currently grow kale and basil with blue gill and they grow pretty well.

Gabriel

 

[Red Squirrel]

Funny, I've been thinking about this myself recently. Would be cool to start a small "grow op" in my crawlspace. I recently got a juicer and realized how expensive it will be to buy organic vegetables. I have plenty of room:

x2 (other side is about as big, though the hvac duct makes part of the ceiling lower)

I'd basically build a long grow box that would be fully sealed and have it's own internal hvac system with grow lights, sensors etc... and it would be more or less automated. I'd just have to go in to harvest. Big risk if not done right though, would not want any water leaks or moisture leaks for that matter.

Debating on hydroponics, or just standard. Standard would be easier and more versatile. I think you get more nutrients that way too. I could also use the pulp waste as compost. Juicing produces lot of waste that I always feel bad throwing out. I could probably get away with doing an outdoor compost in summer and collecting it in fall in blocks and just leaving it outside to freeze then go grab a block when I need some.

Growing stuff outside is just not worth it here. You get maybe 2 months if lucky, but the weather here is so sporadic, you can end up with a frost in middle of July or a torrential downpour or wind storm or heat wave and it will kill everything. Best to do it in a controlled environment.


I am now on a DEA watch list. There's another crawlspace under my garage, I wont mention what's going on in there. I need to open a car wash.

 

[KillerCharlie]

Home grown tomatoes are a different story!

Tomatoes are the only thing I grow. No other produce tastes so drastically different than what you get from the store.

As you said, though, they are hard to grow, especially in my climate.

 

[Kaido]

My grandma used to do that too! And the poop from chickens was her favorite fertilizer. I always thought she was trying to save money, but now I know they are much better than those commercially bought ones..

Having said that, aquaponics is an option to explore, since we get both fish and plants. I currently grow kale and basil with blue gill and they grow pretty well.

Gabriel

Do you know how much fish can be mixed? I've heard of tilapia & trout being used; it'd be nice to have a mix of fish available. I've seen a couple videos on Youtube where they've converted an old enclosed pool into an aquaponics system with chickens running around, so you get fish, eggs, and plants:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMkmgolAj6o

 

[Kaido]

Tomatoes are the only thing I grow. No other produce tastes so drastically different than what you get from the store.

As you said, though, they are hard to grow, especially in my climate.

Seriously, that's why I got started in this - the extra homegrown tomatoes that a couple people brought into work were absolutely incredible. Even the tomatoes from Whole Foods taste like water instead of tomatoes these days. I haven't started my tomatoes yet (has been super cold here in CT), but I did start my strawberry seeds & they've sprouted already. I also discovered an awesome self-watering seed starter system from Orta: (originally a Kickstarter project)

http://www.ortakitchengarden.com/products.html

Not cheap, but pretty ingenious. I'm using those peat-pot bricks right now that you can break off & transfer into self-water planters. Those are handy because I only have a small strip of dirt on my rental's patio, so the planters will let me grow and also not have to worry about moles & stuff. I've been watching a lot of John's "Grow your Greens" videos on Youtube as well, lots of great info there:

https://www.youtube.com/user/growingyourgreens