Are You Starting a Garden in Response to Rising Food Prices?

There are water barrels specifically designed to catch roof rainwater or graywater from the washer but they're pricey. That's why I haven't invested yet. My parents use trash cans but they can split from the pressure.

Square foot gardening is really great. It is easier to maintain the soil, weed, harvest, etc. And plants don't really need to be as far apart as they say.

I'm experimenting right now with mixing them up in the plantings rather than grouping them homogenously. (There's another word to look up.)

 

I don't have too much room for gardening in my apartment. I tried to raise some tomatoes but the seedlings were wiped out during a heat wave a few weeks ago. So I'm sticking with the full grown basil plant I bought at Trader Joes. If I can keep that alive for a few weeks I'll try some other herbs.

Other than that I plan to mooch off a friend of mine who I call "the Garden Goddess". She has an amazing container garden going in the yard of the house she and her husband are renting. Tomatoes, pumpkins, squash, peas, sunflowers, cucumbers, eggplant (yuck!), herbs of all sorts, grapefruit, orange and lemon trees and all sorts of edible flowers. I once remarked on how much she'll save once harvest comes and she said the amount of money she's spent so far on equipment and soil/seeds goes well beyond any savings she may have seen this year. But she enjoys gardening as a hobby and homegrown produce usually tastes much better than store-bought.

 

I've expanded my efforts. Unfortunately, our backyard has lots of trees so there's only a small plot for my to garden in. It gets about 4-5 hours of direct sun a day. Does anybody know of anything that grows well in shade? That's what I need.

I've expanded to growing berries. I planted a raspberry bush and will probably also add blackberries. I really should start that now, since I've heard that they don't produce their first year. I've also retasked some pots to grow carrots (sort of a mini-sqft gardening approach I suppose).

What I really want to do is put some fig trees indoors. Has anyone done that? I want to be able to pick figs so they need to be able to produce in a pot and without bugs. Is that possible?

This spring I've tilled in a bunch of compost (been composting for a year now) and some topsoil that I got cheap at the garden store. The soil was knackered. Last year was a dismal year. My squash plants were these pitifully small things that never produced a single fruit. The year before that a lot of the fruit turned brown while still "on the vine". The year before that things were great. So I'm guessing that the soil was depleted. I hoping that I've fixed that problem. Fingers crossed.

 

My garden is about 40 x 40 ish, been doing it 3 years already, this is year 4. I learn a little each year and try again. I have been canning about 80 quarts of tomatos and filling the freezer with other stuff (Corn and Onions and other things that slice and freeze well).

This years:


Last years:


One of these years when I can spend more time being a crazy person about the garden, I need to get on some forum and figure out what I should be doing to get my soil in better shape. It has too much clay / hardness going on as opposed to the Troy-Bilt commericials where it's this nice dark fluffy soil.

 

I'm feeling rather knackered...is that OK? Whenever I feel this way I want to do a soil test to see what is needed lime, sulfur, NPK etc Anyways...

If things don't work out in the garden I recommend sending some of your soil out for an accurate test. Your county extension agent should be able to help. You might try visiting this link. Soil-Water-Plant Testing Lab

I recommend visiting the garden web to search for answers to the other questions. Here are some helpful links at the garden web.

Yes, there really is a Fig forum.

Gardening in Shade - GardenWeb
Square Foot Gardening - GardenWeb
Fig Forum - GardenWeb

OBTW - there is a real good article in Mother Earth News for making a self watering container out of two 5 gallon plastic containers and a funnel. Might be good for a fig tree on wheels so it can hide indoors during those Colorado winters.

 

Pretty much the same situation here. Very acid soil. Very little NPK. Hardpan. High water table. = raised beds.

 

Nope, but will go hunting again after a five years to put another 100 lbs of free range venison in the freezer for the winter.

 

My parents have a lot of fruit trees and my Dad plants a large garden every year.

They use what they need, I get excess I can use, and any left over is put in baskets and placed at the end of the driveway, free for the taking of passing strollers. Some walk their dogs or kids or just walk in the evenings. Depending on the season they can take their fill of lemons, oranges, plums, tomatoes, or whatever is in season. (There are never extra figs or apricots.)

Funny, but no one ever brings my parents anything extra they grow.

 

Started small the first year, 50' X 50'. Lived in town. Walked about 2 miles to the garden every day to weed it. A couple of years later, I was living in the country. Lots of space but no water. Where I finally ended up (and lived for about 20 years) the well had only enough water for the house. Strictly dry-land gardening, dependent on rainfall. That meant rows 3 feet apart to maximize utilization of the rainfall. But it also required a big garden. And I was greedy: I wanted lots of fresh vegetables. 20 by 20 would not have given me much produce. City folks have little space but unlimited water, suitable for intensive gardening. I had unlimited space but no water at all, so I had to use extensive gardening.

I had a gross of pint canning jars and a canner that held a dozen quart jars or 18 pint jars. One year I canned 144 pints of sweet corn. Damn, that was a lot of work! But it sure was good. I figure if I'd paid myself minimum wage those jars of corn would have been worth about $25 each. Other years I was more balanced. One year I canned soup by putting carrots, onion, bell pepper, and I don't remember what else raw-pack and canning them. The processing cooked it and it was good soup.

Be sure to follow the directions carefully. And note that botulism does not make the lids pop out. If it smells bad don't eat it. You absolutely must keep the pressure above the required level (15 lbs for most veggies) for the stated time. But quality suffers if it goes too high for long, so it requires careful attention to keep it steady just a little above 15 lbs.

Done right you have really good food.

Some times I canned apple pie filling: Core, peel, and slice the apples, cook them just until they begin to soften, but no more, with sweetener if necessary (not needed if they are sweet enough) and some cinnamon. Then put them in the jars and process according to the instructions. Several dozen jars lasted from fall until about xmas, and then they were all gone. I never actually made any pies. I just ate it out of the jar.

I never canned anything from the store. Only from my own garden and my own apple tree.

I miss those days, but with my bad back and shoulders I would not be able to do that now.

 

We spent 24 years in the AF. We were able to move back to my hometown where we had purchased our forested land. It is nice to be home...at least for me. My wife is from just outside of San Juan, PR. I'm still trying to Salsa and my wife is still laughing.

 

Don,
I'm just north of Arvada in Westminster. The garden has done OK. Like I said earlier, the last couple of years have been pants. Before that it did pretty well. The composting went alright. The compost was frozen for a large part of the winter, but I just tilled in a lot of it. I wouldn't call it soil per see but it did mix in rather nicely with the hand tiller. I have a very small plot so I don't need any power tools. I do everything by hand. I'm glad to hear that your father's berry bushes did well. I'm going to be planting more because I am aware that the first few years are lean (none in the first year, I believe). I'll post back in a month or so with pics, when there's something worth showing.

Jim, thanks for the fig links. I'll have a look.

 

Hi Don - I do have a little area outside my apartment. It's technically part of the common grounds rather than a patio area. It used to contain a dead tree which I hung my birdfeeders from but the landlords saw fit to cut the tree down.

I figure I might as well make use of that area now and maybe start a little container garden (or maybe just put up something to hang my now unused feeders from). My Garden-Goddess friend bought me a little cherry tomato plant over the weekend so I'm going to give it a go with that.

On the herb front I'm happy to report my basil plant is still alive and sprouting new leaves!