Gardens vegetable, flower or other?

[Sunny]

I've tried cayenne pepper on the leaves of tasty plants to deter the critters. Must reapply after the rain though.

That's a good one. It's very powerful stuff and they don't like it. We used it in a whole to keep our dog from digging in it. We saw some sparrows fly in to get some sunflower seeds someone dropped on the ground there, and they popped right back out because of the pepper.

That reminds me - we also grew sunflowers one year. They were great fun to grow, and the seed heads are huge.

 

[Paisley]

Caution!

With any spray, if you haven't tried it on a particular plant, try spraying it on just a few leaves first and waiting a day. Some plants are sensitive to even mild fertilizers and pesticides. And wear gloves!

 

[Story]

Craigslist is your friend

Since we're updating Depression & WWII era thrift to the 21st century, Craigslist's FREE section should be one of your Favorites.

I've found brick, Belgian blocks, slate and field stone for free (well, less fuel and sweat to haul it back home).

I'd imagine the Barter section could also come in useful, for cross leveling your plants & seedlings with folks who have what you need.

You guys see these?
http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/cows-grazing-in-the-rumpus-room/?ref=opinion

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/FEATURES04/803140425/1029

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...garden_0229li.ART.State.Edition1.2b1cf74.html

Here are 10 tips for starting a backyard garden in the spirit of the World War II era. The advice was assembled by Blair Randall, the director of a San Francisco project to revive victory gardens.


1. Get to know your soil. What is the history of your soil? For soils near freeways or alongside buildings older than 1978, when lead was banned in paint, consider having your soil tested for lead before growing food crops.


2. Know your climate. This will determine what plants you should purchase or seeds you can sow. North Texas is USDA Zone 7 north of LBJ Freeway or 8 south of it.


3. Add compost, add compost, add compost! Compost will greatly improve the nutrient profile of your soil and allow your soil to accept and release water. Compost is easy to make at home with either a backyard compost bin or a worm compost bin.


4. Give up part of your lawn. If you have a yard, consider turning part of it into a vegetable garden. If space is limited, use the sunniest part.


5. Plant a fruit tree. To eat a plum today from your garden, you need to have planted that tree three or four years ago. A large number of fruit trees can be purchased on semi-dwarf root stock, keeping them to a manageable size.


6. Share with your neighbors. You will grow too many tomatoes, and they will grow too much zucchini. Invite them over for a picnic, and make a salad with your extra produce.


7. Plan in the winter for your spring plantings. Order seed catalogs, and allow the excitement for the coming spring and summer to carry you through winter.


8. Eat locally. A frequently cited 2003 study found conventional produce traveled an average of almost 1,500 miles from farm to markets in Chicago and St. Louis, consuming a great deal of fuel in the journey. You can reduce those "food miles" by growing some part of your meal at home.


9. Get out into your yard by tending a garden. The flowers you plant will attract wildlife such as birds and beneficial insects to your yard, but it will also attract you to your yard.


10. Donate extra produce to your local food bank. It is common to have too much of, say, okra. Local food pantries will appreciate your homegrown produce.

 

[Jack Armstrong]

My wife and I have a small vegetable garden. We mostly grow tomatoes and green peppers, which I stew and can in the fall. A few of the tomatoes go into our vegetable dehydrator, for use in recipes that call for dried tomatoes.

 

[Miss Crisplock]

It's going to be a gardening year at our house!

I have 5 heirloom tomatoes that I pick up next weekend; they are going in upside down hangers. We will be planting raised beds with veggies, including a bed (4x4) just for asparagas. Yum

Will probably add two trees this year as well.

 

[Folly]

We put a raised vegetable patch in our garden last year and being the novice that I/we am/are, we weren't sure what would make it and subsequently ended up with six plants each of sweetcorn, courgette/zucchini, runner beans, tomatoes, sweet peppers and many more Six seemed a good round number and made allowances for failures, except there weren't any! I had courgettes coming out of my ears! The tomato plants didn't really do too well as we had a very wet summer last year in the UK. Not one cabbage plant even sprouted though, which was lucky really, considering the vast amount of everything else!

We did have a problem in the early stages of filling the raised patch with top soil, where our neighbours cat would come along and use the fresh top soil as a, ahem, toilet :rage: However, after removing all of the offending and tainted top soil, we lay lots and lots of cuttings from the bramble hedge behind our house between the plants, that cat soon stopped using our vegetable patch in an inaprropriate way lol

This year we'll grow courgette's again, though not that many and will concentrate on different varieties of beans, tmatoes and radishes and beetroot.

 

[John in Covina]

If the weather is dry, you can get a bigger can of hot type pepper like cayenne and sprinkel on the top of the soil. This is supposed to keep the cats away.

 

[rumblefish]

Does anyone have good tips on propagating your own seeds from year to year? I usually just buy seed packets - but thought it might be nice to try this to further the cycle.

Broccoli rabe and arugala are real easy to harvest seeds from. Since they are both eager to bolt, you can leave one plant of each in the ground from spring planting to produce enough seeds for next season. The bolted plants don't take up much room so you can plant your fall crop of the same around them. Arugala flowers are white and broccoli rabe's are yellow and they're not hard to distinguish while alive, but once these plants have died the plants and the seeds look very similar, so keep track of which is which. Then just roll the seed pods in your hand over a plate to collect the seeds. I haven't bought a seed pack for either of these in a while. In fact when I encourage some one to start a garden, I start them off with a envelope of seeds of arugala and broccoli rabe. Want some?

Fruiting plants are more complicated because of the hybridizing from the various types of the same plants that you may grow. For instance I grow three different types of tomato; plum, cherry and beefsteak. From cross pollination I wind up with the offspring of a combination of two of these three. Not that what I get is bad, but I want plum tomato for cooking, cherry for salads, and beefsteak for slicing, not something in between. If some tomato plants come up in the garden from the year before, I find a spot for one more or pot them and give them away. It's interesting to see what you've wound up with.

Last year I went all organic. I use no pesticides except for bacillus thuringiensis (BT) which is a bacteria that kills pests like cabbage worms and leaf loopers. And during the winter, while I'm hunting, I collect a few praying mantis egg cases to put around the garden. I used Japanese beetle traps for the first time last year to protect the raspberry leaves and they worked very well. For fertilizer I use composted yard and kitchen waste including loads of egg shells and organic-high and low nitrogen fertilizer (high for leafy plants and low for fruiting plants). It's a bit more work, but I like the idea of it.

Be careful using repellents around plants you intend to eat, some of the commercial products warn against their use near food crops. I saw a guy on TV make up a mixture of, get this; human hair and urine, cayenne pepper, and tobacco juice to deter rabbits. And I've heard of another concoction using putrefied eggs*yucky* , no thanks. My second year planting a garden at my house the rabbits would wipe out a few lettuce plants over night, then sit in the bushes mocking me:rage: :fing28:, so I put up a rabbit fence around the garden.

I still have frozen blueberries from last year and I just dug out and replanted the horseradish. Right now I have spinach from wintering over last year to be picked this week, and I planted seeds for escarole, more spinach, turnips, arugala, kohlrabi and beets last Saturday.

I'll post more and some pictures as things come up and preserving starts.

 

[Joie DeVive]

I planted seeds for escarole, more spinach, turnips, arugala, kohlrabi and beets last Saturday.

I love kohlrabi! Most people have never heard of it!!
Just out of curiosity, how do you serve yours? Oh, and are yours "white" or purple?

 

[rumblefish]

I love kohlrabi! Most people have never heard of it!!
Just out of curiosity, how do you serve yours? Oh, and are yours "white" or purple?

I've only grown the white.
I dice them large 1"x1" with root vegetable like turnip, carrot, and a peeled sweet potato and put them in a large cassarole so they're one layer. Then in a sauce pan reduce to half, 1/4 cup cranberry juice and 1/2 white wine with a tablespoon of butter. Pour over the diced vegetable and toss, then bake at 350 until tender. Toss occasionally. Most of the liquid should be absorbed.
I also like them sliced raw over a salad.
The greens I slice with collard greens and saute with garlic and olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

Is there much difference between purple and white? I've never tried the purple.

Any ideas yourself for preparing?

 

[MaryDeluxe]

GentleJohnny...I grow a garden and a veggie garden every year. I came across this website the other year and since you live in PA, I thought you might enjoy reading it!
Victory Gardens
Handbook of the
Victory Garden Committee
War Services, Pennsylvania
State Council of Defense
April, 1944
http://www.earthlypursuits.com/VictoryGardHandbook/VGHv.htm

I have a tiny yard and only have about a 3'x6' space for my veggies. I can get a ton of veggies out of just that little space! You don't need a lot of space to grow veggies, you just need to be smart about what you plant!

 

[Lady Day]

This is my new favorite thread

LD

 

[Joie DeVive]

I've only grown the white.
Is there much difference between purple and white? I've never tried the purple.
Any ideas yourself for preparing?

I've never tried the purple either and was asking because I was wondering if there was a difference myself...

I'll have to try your recipe, it sounds good. The most common way I eat them is peeled and sliced thinly, usually on a relish tray with things like carrot and celery sticks. I also have a great recipe I'll have to dig out, but the gist of it is that you shred or grate the kohlrabi (use a food processor for this, trust me, I didn't enjoy doing it manually lol ) and saute it in some lightly browned butter. Add salt and pepper and sprinkle generously with freshly grated parmesan cheese. Serve immediately while still very hot. It's wonderful!
I didn't even realize the leaves were edible, though it makes sense now that I read it. I'll have to try those too.

Do you ever get pesky little grey bugs on yours (particularly on the leaves)? If so, any suggestions on how to get rid of them? The only success I've had is removing them by hand, but that can get time consuming.

 

[Folly]

If the weather is dry, you can get a bigger can of hot type pepper like cayenne and sprinkel on the top of the soil. This is supposed to keep the cats away.

We've tried all sorts but that pesky cat still came back! I even tried tea bags scented (liberally soaked) in Olbas Oil to no avail.

 

[GentleJohnny]

GentleJohnny...I grow a garden and a veggie garden every year. I came across this website the other year and since you live in PA, I thought you might enjoy reading it!
Victory Gardens
Handbook of the
Victory Garden Committee
War Services, Pennsylvania
State Council of Defense
April, 1944
http://www.earthlypursuits.com/VictoryGardHandbook/VGHv.htm

I have a tiny yard and only have about a 3'x6' space for my veggies. I can get a ton of veggies out of just that little space! You don't need a lot of space to grow veggies, you just need to be smart about what you plant!

Thanks for the link Mary. I'll be sure to look at it in detail! You have a much bigger area to plant than I do, but I'll still have some fun with it. I went to a store the other day and was looking at different types of plants to think about using, and a woman walks up and says, "Is your wife going to be doing some gardening this year?" I turned to her and said, "Actually I'll probably do most of it." And she looked at all my WWII era tattoos on my arms and said, "You don't look like the Green Thumb kind of guy." And I just smiled and said, "No ma'am I don't. I'm the kind of guy that just wants to have some fun and save some Green Money."

 

[rumblefish]

Do you ever get pesky little grey bugs on yours (particularly on the leaves)? If so, any suggestions on how to get rid of them? The only success I've had is removing them by hand, but that can get time consuming.

Aphids! Five years ago I would have said "Sevin powder",,, three years ago, Rotenone (because it's more "organic" and not persistent, UV breaks it down very quickly). Now I use a pump sprayer filled with water and a few drops of dish soap or baby shampoo to blast them of the plants. The soap breaks the surface tension of water and makes it more efficient in washing away the little @#$%&. It's still not easy because you have to check underneath each leaf, but I believe it beats chemical pesticides.

I like the sound of your recipe! Grated Parmesan and brown butter? Can't be bad!

May I suggest another "greens" idea; The seeds I planted last Saturday (see post #30), all seeds for that matter, make great baby greens. When planting in rows, I sow seeds very heavily to assure a full bed. By the time the plants are 2" to 4" tall, I thin out the row for proper spacing. Clip off root and you've got great salad greens. Since the beets, turnips, kohlrabi, etc. germinate around the same time, you can keep filling up a salad bowl a couple of times a week till your done thinning.

Now you've got me looking and asking for purple kohlrabi seeds,,, I'll keep you posted.

 

[The Shirt]

This thread is going to make me so anxious. We still have snow on the ground! I've never attempted to start things inside - but I might look into that this year. I'm kind of excited because the BF will let me have free reign of his yard this year too. 2 places to plant is pretty thrilling.

MaryDeluxe- what a great, cosy, fantastic garden.
Rumblefish - I'm going to start to refer to you as "Teach" when it comes to this green thumb thing. Thanks for the instructions.

 

[rumblefish]

^ It's my pleasure.

 

[Miss 1929]

Aphids are evil!

But here's something I just read in Organic Gardening - if you plant catnip around the plants that have aphid problems, the catnip attracts lacewings, which eat aphids!
And the cats like it too.

 

[ShooShooBaby]

But here's something I just read in Organic Gardening - if you plant catnip around the plants that have aphid problems, the catnip attracts lacewings, which eat aphids!
And the cats like it too.

also planting things that attract ladybug will help too - they will eat aphids as well


i thought i posted here already, but i guess i didn't!

last fall i did a 3x6-foot sheet mulch, which has moldered down wonderfully! i added some compost last week and it's like a huge sponge and teeming with beneficial insects. i didn't have to do any tilling, weed-pulling, etc! i planted several pea starts, scallion starts, and seeds for a bunch of stuff that will be edible before i move in june. i'm sad that i don't get to make a full garden at my house, but the guy i have designs on just asked me to help with his... and he has a huge yard!