As is becoming apparent in the cooking thread, a number of us grow our own herbs and veggies at home. (and some lucky ones even have the space to raise their own 4 legged protein) Focus: What do you grow/raise and what have you learned along the way? ALT FOCUS: Offer your observations, tips, tricks, and links to help out others who may have never given it a second thought.
About five times a week I go to a community garden called "Uerck" where I grow these small flat rectangular vegetables called "dallahs." I then barter these down at the supermarket for anything else I need. I trust others are more adventurous.
I usually have a decent sized garden. 5 kinds of peppers, okra, peas, butter beans, squash, cucumbers, radishes and cabbage. I've learned from the Mennonites, in the neighborhood, to take my grass clippings and spread them around the plants. Helps hold in moisture and chokes back the weeds. What they failed to mention was that I'd need to fertilize the hell out of it the next year because of the grass clippings. My garden was a miserable failure last year, except for the cucumbers and okra. I had five cucumber plants that put out more cucumbers than we could put up. After I filled the neighbor's freezers with them, I had to pull them out of the ground to make them quit producing. Same thing with the okra except I had to use my 4 wheeler to snatch them out of the ground. Damn things were 6' tall and had 4" bases.
We have a 2' x 6' teak table garden that we use to grow herbs. It's large enough to hold a wide variety, so we grow basil, oregano, parsley, cilantro, peppermint, spearmint, & thyme and we have a rosemary "shrub" in a separate planter next to it. That's about as "Mr. Greenjeans" as I'm willing to get.
I tried my hand at growing the Bhut Jolokia, the hottest pepper in the world. Bought the seeds from New Mexico State University, the place where the strain was perfected. Out of thirty seeds only four made it to the ground and only one produced pods in time during the season. Not the most successful first season. I think my first mistake was using an electric blanket to get the seeds to the optimal sprouting temperature, I set it too high for a while and think it cooked half of the seeds. Should have just put it on the top of the fridge or water heater like most suggest. Half of them eventually sprouted and I put them in Jiffy pots, bio degradable eggshell carton. I didn't know but they dry out real fast and 8 or 9 of the sprouts died off because the cardboard like material drew all of the moister out of the soil. I left for China a few weeks after they made it outside. Ive not been able to taste any of the chilis yet. Ive actually found some really tasty chilis they use in Schezhaun food. Im thinking of sneaking some seeds back as I hear they are very rare in the states. Anyone know a good way to sneak them past customs that doesnt require placing them in my anus? With the Christmas Thread I wouldnt be surprised to hear the best light patterns to extract the most THC from Marijuana plants. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.thehotpepper.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.thehotpepper.com/</a>
Growing takes too much time. I usually just shoot or catch what I want to eat. I do grow some tomaters and peppers on my deck. Space is limited in a townhome. I have started making my own wine, though. First batch turned out pretty good. 2nd batch should be even better. When the SHTF, I'm going to be the guy who eats meat and gets drunk, though I may have to barter some of my hooch for ammo eventually.
I said wine, not white lightnin'. On a side note, the picture on the label is the same as my avatar. I'm now the proud chief vintner at DumBass Vinyards.
Just drop a bunch in a Ziploc full of sunflower or pumpkin seeds that you carry on as a snack. Most of the people will never look close enough to give a shit. Just be careful you don't eat them by mistake. I'm busy this morning but I will post my growings later. And lhprop1, perhaps we can work out a hooch trade, my dirty hippy biker uncle makes a pomegranate wine that borders on hallucinogenic.
I'm going to start this soon, already doing beer, which is awesome, seems like the next logical step, then hopefully cheese. We're also going to start a garden on the farm this spring which should be good. Definitely not "growing" but we make our own butter (extremely easy to do) by whipping the heavy cream from the cows on the property, I don't know if I'll ever be able to use Land 'o Lakes again.
I grew up around a family who took pride in their gardens. We have always grown tomatoes, and alternated the extra space with a different vegetable from time to time. We usually also have beans (in front of the tomatoes), and on the side we've had bell peppers, squash, eggplant, and pumpkins. I planted several types of herbs for the garden under the window, like basil, oregano, thyme, dill, and parsley (a word to the wise, don't plant spearmint directly into the ground because it will spread like wildfire). By the way, all of these plants were rooted from seeds that we grew in a window of the house, either in pods created from paper egg trays or from under damp paper towels. We have lush gardens all around, too. I learned from an early age how to care for plants properly, and what they need to succeed. To some people, it is some weird science that they do not understand the formula to. To me, its a challenge to see if I can do it, like, "If I take a cutting from this plant, is it going to grow? Can I splice this plant onto this other one?" It's really kind of cool, and has inspired me to be a biology major. When I was younger, it was an opportunity to get out of the house, away from my parents. It's peaceful. My aunt has extensive hibiscus gardens around her house and every year we have a green house building project the day after Thanksgiving. We have beams and supports that we attach to her latticed side garden and her outdoor carport and cover the whole thing with Visqueen. Most of her plants are in pots because hibiscus cannot survive winter weather at ALL, even winter in southern Alabama.
My dad made a lot of hard liquor when I growing up. I remember the kitchen being full of copper tubing. For him, it was really just a chemistry experiment. We've done wine on occasion, if there is a good crop of blackberries. It's usually very sweet and tasty.
If you want fresh herbs, don't want to buy them from the store, live in a climate that is anti-herbs and like growing shit, get yourself an Aerogarden. My parents bought me one for Christmas once and it works fairly well. You don't have too do much, just plant the herb containers, put some water in the bucket and throw in a fertilizer thing once every two weeks. Make sure you trim the Basil though, mine took over most of the garden and was slowly taking over the shelf that the garden was sitting on.
So do I, but I have to trim that shit. So my penis looks bigger. Its all about perception folks. That's why I wear condoms with horizontal strips. Then for fun, I put it on with a twisting motion so when I stick my dick inside The Fiance it looks like an optical illusion and she's actually getting screwed. Just picture a woman inserting a marvy barber pole into her pussy. I know. Hot.
I usually do basil and rosemary in our full-sun spot in the front yard and then cherry tomatoes and bell peppers in the back yard. My parents live about 5 miles away and do a ton of bigger tomatoes, so I'll trade with them until I'm pretty much set on salad fixin's for the summer. I used to grow mint as well, but I learned the hard way not to plant that stuff in the ground. It took me two or three years to finally get it killed off. Mint is tasty, but keep it in a pot.
Some parts of the US are very poor ideas for starting a garden where you actually eat the vegetables. For example, parts of the Bay Area, which are described as "more polluted than Chernobyl". In certain retirement complexes here, they give residents a small garden area, and those that decide to use it for more than decorative plants often find themselves getting pretty sick.
I’m by no means a green thumb but have a fair garden going. I have an apple tree (100 years oldish) 2 peach trees, a raspberry patch, a hop patch (for the homebrew) lime tree, lemon tree, silver beet patch and a chilli patch. Also have all the essential herbs running rampant. I don’t use any magic tricks, just aerate the soil before planting and mix in some slow release, mulch well and then water in some seaweed fertiliser (Seasol) once a month. Really looking forward to my hop plant flowering, fresh hop flowers in beer are fucking amazing.
Focus: If you have an issue like KIMaster mentioned, you can always go the SFG Method. Basically it's a giant 4ftx4ft area raised above ground and you end up "creating" the perfect soil because you control everything which goes into it such as humus, chicken poop, worm castings, and vermiculite. This way you don't worry about any of the toxins and the extra work that goes into perfecting the regular earth soil because it's already done for you. I'm moving into an apartment in another month so I had to take out the garden that I had. I intend on replacing it with smaller versions of the SFG. I grew tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, okra (this is so tasty fresh from the plant), lettuce, oregano, basil and tomatoes. If you're concerned about man made fertilizers or all of the other crap that goes into the food, you can always start your own compost with nothing but stuff you end up throwing away such as coffee grinds, left over vegetables, grass clippings, etc.