Hey All. Happy Memorial Day. Well over the weekend my dad and I put our garden in. Hopeful that we are canning by the 4th of July.
This year we planted:
Tomatoes
Beats
Collard greens
Bell peppers
Banana peppers
Okra
Cherries
What are yall planting?
Havn't planted nearly as much this year as last due to a lot of stuff not coming up, so I've opted to try a few new seed types and the seeds from last years plants, plus a couple plants that came up last year.
I'm mostly just lentils, and some mustard greens/kale, radish, but I'm also getting some long term stuff in like cranberry bushes.
Some peas, carrots, basil, strawberry, a handful of pumpkin seeds, maybe I'll get the flowers to actually stay on this time. Not much time left I suppose to get stuff in the ground. I'll probably put in a few more things but I've been concentrating on expanding my garden space as everything was really compacted. I'd lilke to have planted some more oats this year and more of them but alas I don't think I have any more.
More will go in the ground but I've nearly doubled my garden space this year and made some simple 2x4, brick and stone beds, as well I have successfully done a raised bed up with a skid... ps if you are anywhere near a factory or business that throws away skids they are really good if you flip them upside down fill them with soil above the hole the soil came from, hole slightly smaller than soil, you could even line the bottom of the hole with plastic and make wicks to reverse drip irrigate your soil. The skids are a great garden tool.
I've had some more bushes and trees come up this year, and my grape vine I started last year survived the winter much better than expected so I'll be caring for it. My raspberries are also still going and have expanded, and you might find it funny but I consider my Indian apple bushes to be one of my harvests
oh I forgot my ragweed another crop I plant
the Indian apple goes in at the end of the season though. I peel them and use them like you would a pepper, they are basically rose buds. I use the flower petals too.
Not sure what else will be planted this year, I've tried to just focus on successfully growing some stuff this year instead of planting way more than I can eat from harvest time since I'm not canning. I still have tons of seeds left so I'll probably keep experimenting, and if I need the seeds I have them. I'd like to get hydroponics going indoors but I have some more stuff to do inside before I can do that... lots of projects to improve the function of my garden this year rather than just planting seeds. I also want to get more of a water catchment system. Since I use my dandylions and clover as a food as well as some other stuff that grow either there are trees or a patch left for growing greens for before my crop gets in. left i've really expanded my garden space this year, but I'm also not using last years space as I'd like to see what comes up there in year two, however next year I will use that space, and see what I happens with this years space. Likewise I'll expand again next year, but my focus is on getting stuff that survives and grows like grapes, the indian apple, the raspberries, and easy stuff like dandylion, ragweed, and if I can some other native crops, such as blueberry.
I also have gotten wild strawberry growing for the last few years since I transported it to my backyard after tasting it my first or second year up, it has taken over a big chunk of my backyard now, love the things. I'm not optimistic about this year but I think I will have more this year than last due to have tons of seed from my mustard and kale, which a less than 1 meter square patch did a good job at feeding me quite a bit and still giving tons of seed that survived the winter. I think I won't be completely feeding myself on the garden but I figure I'll do the summer on 6 more bags of rice which is only about $80 or so. I've also gotten a little better at sourcing from nature, I can also scavenge a lot of other stuff. But I will also be planting out in the woods at some point more raspberry and strawberry and cranberry the tiny bog variety if I find it. Late June, July and August I can eat my fill of Cattails and berries, there is also a local crop I use that is a green from the leaves, I'll get some ragweed seed also and I try to plant the seeds to all the berries I eat rather than swallowing them as is practical.
I'm not going to try anything real fansy this year though, as I found things like mellons didn't really work, but I'll see if I can get one exotic going under the greenhouse tarp this year.
Wow lots of words... I'm growing a bunch of stuff but most not in great numbers. I was using whole seed packs last year, this year I'm only doing a few handfuls of stuff.
I'm still quite novice but I think I have improved since last year.
