Growing your own food: April 2012

[Mum]

Anyone planting their own food this year?

I have taken root cuttings from my rosemary bush
Planted 18 strawberry plants (only 4 showing signs of growth though)
Tomato seedlings are ready for potting on
Rhubarb is flourishing
Garden mint is showing signs of renewal
Chives are looking happy
Broad beans are growing strongly
Jeruselum Artichokes have finally broken the surface.
Fruit canes are now filling out
Have some healthy blossoms on my fruit trees

and that is all I have managed so far this year.

What are you growing?

 

[HEChicken]

In past years I've grown as much of our food as I could, but we are currently in the process of moving to a new place, where there are no garden beds set up. Unfortunately, by the time we are fully moved in and able to set up beds, it will be getting late in the season to be planting stuff. I did plant a few potatoes a week ago and noticed that some kind of squash/melon is coming up in the front flower bed, so since we will have little else this year, I'm going to let that go ahead and do its thing. I also set up a pallet compost system so I'll have some excellent compost with which to get started NEXT year. I'm really gonna miss the growing season this year though.

 

[cravenchx]

beets, carrots, sugar snaps, october beans, potatoes, tomatoes,
green beans, garlic, onions, corn, squash, zucchini, watermelons,
blueberries and of course EGGS!

 

[deek]

do some of you order from seed catalogs? If so, which ones do you like? I'd like to try vegetable garden next year.

 

[Melinda35]

tomatoes, bell peppers, egg plants, cucumbers, green beans, squash, zucchini, cantaloupe, okra, onions, garlic, sweet corn, carrots, potatoes, black berries, and several peach trees.

Unfortunately we have not had any rain in a month so I am having to water everything. I hope my garden makes it. When I am out watering my garden the ducks come. It is funny because they never step on a plant and eat only the bugs so far.

 

[emryst]

Wow that is your garden from this year already?!!?!?

So far I have tomato, eggplant, pepper, onion, and basil seedlings inside. I've planted sugar snap peas, lettuce, spinach, potatoes, asparagus and bok choy outside. Once the weather warms up I definitely planning on planting more!

I get most of my seeds from Fedco Seeds and my potatoes from Wood Prairie Farm. I don't have any complaints with either place. =)

 

[Happy Chooks]

I have broccoli, kale, lettuce and spinach finishing up. Sugar snap peas are up but not blooming yet. Chard, potatoes and rhubarb are doing nicely. (my first year at rhubarb) I got my strawberries replanted. Raspberries and grapes are leafing out now. Raspberries will be flowering soon.

I spent all day last Sunday pulling weeds and getting stuff ready to plant for summer. I have to till in the chicken manure compost, then it will be ready to plant. Funny, I can't grow cilantro to save my life, but I have 2 plants 3 feet tall right below my chicken manure pile.

I'll be planting:
Various herbs
tomatoes
cucumbers
pickling cucumbers
cantaloupe
green beans
several types of squash
corn
bell peppers
hot peppers
pumpkins

 

[deek]

Quote:
Thanks. I'll try to get a catalog.

 

[ChickChicHurray]

I always plant a garden and can our food as well as put some away in the freezer. I just bought an Excalibur dehydrator and have dried bananas, pineapple, jerky, and spinach. The spinach is made into a powder to add to soup and stew. DH gets it without knowing.

I plant tomatoes, tomatillos, onion, potatoes, squash, pinto beans, lima (butter) beans, anaheim peppers, green beans, carrots, corn, cilantro (for salsa), and watermelon. Corn is now in the field, others in the house or seeds still.

It feels so good to go to the pantry and fix a meal knowing the cost of a few seeds made all these jars. I also buy a years worth of Stove Top Stuffing at Thanksgiving when it is on sale. Buy everything I can in bulk ONLY if I use the item. I have toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, soap, and such to last at least a year from buying when on sale with coupons. Alot of it was free or a few cents.

 

[PDXcluck]

"DH gets it without knowing."

HA! My wife used to do this with pepper. I 'hated' pepper for as long as I can remember and would sometimes start a meal by saying "mmmm, really good", then I would figure out there was pepper in it and give her a hard time. Now I put pepper on EVERYTHING and I love it...

We've been too busy building our coop and cutting down a hedge to plant our garden yet. But with the hedge down our beds will get much more light, which they need. Removing it also allowed us to move one bed over and create more room for squashes, melons, corn and a couple other things we don't usually plant in our raised beds.

We have three 4x8 ft raised beds and about 5x20 ft of in ground beds. At a minimum we will have tomatoes, beans, peas, lettuce, spinach, kale, bok choy, leek, chard, onions, potatoes, carrots, cucumber, zucchini, pumpkin, corn, summer squash, and peppers.

We like to grow a variety in our little plot though we are thinking about cutting back a bit on quantity this year and giving things more space. We were overly intensive last year and had tall broccoli with small heads and our leek was tall and skinny for the same reason. We also lost at least 30 pounds of tomatoes to late blight, again I think we didn't give them enough room, it was tragic. But lots of room for improvement this year!