Grow Your Own

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The trouble I'm having with working out how to grow veg is, well I don't really eat much of it. I grew up not eating any really bar carrots, and even that was just with a roast dinner. So I'm slowly changing my mindset of eating vegetables more. My mother didn't try to deal with a fussy child, when actually it was more her cooking than the vegetables. She is very much a cook til soft/mush person, whereas I've discovered that slightly cooking it works a lot better for me. Also we never tried out new dishes, or vegetables, so I hadn't tried lentils, avocado, black beans, and so many other things that I have now.
I think it's why, for me, it's cheaper to eat meat than vegan, as I just don't know about the ingredients and don't want to buy lots that I'll not use. Instead I can buy a chicken, which I know how to cook and make it last a week.
 
I am surprised no one has mentioned Bamboo plants, they are a very versatile plant that you can make clothing from, cement, food buildings. Plus the giant one will grow while you watch it - three feet a day. The giant variety will grow to 90 feet from seed in two months. There are several varieties you can plant in small clumps or to make plantations. Type Growing Bamboo on the internet address bar for lots of information.

I've said it before and I will say it again, by the way about bamboo clothing the plants can be used to make men's undies.
As a Panda might say, "ooh edible undies"!
 
With my ex, I always had to "hide" veggies in meat dishes. Now I dont need to bulk anything up quite that much! Maybe I should, I have bulk herbs to use! But they have such a strong flavour, not so great for bulk.

I like the stuff I can pick and eat as I wander in the garden. Lettuces, herbs and berries. The celery is going ok, and two of the strawberry plants have woken up for spring. The dill is hit and miss and the spring onions have gone to seed. (They are a good one to grow @nightshade , take up no room and are expensive to buy)

The pear tree is in full bloom, I put the water on the orchard today. The nectarine tree is not looking healthy. Probably fungal as I noticed it in a few of the other plants around too.


Mowed the lawn and trimmed the hedges today. I was doing the "wild lawn" thing before it was cool 😛 but now with the dogs, I dont want all those seeds in their coats. The bees were still out in force on the rest of the plants anyway.
 
Blueberry plants are in! I did a little more weeding as well, but my first plants are in.

I did take up some carrots but they're still small so I'll leave the rest a while longer.
 
I have a bale of hay that went mouldy cos I left it in the carport. Its gona have to go out on the garden soon. My bulbs seem just about done so I might dump it on top of those. The tulips didn't bloom again, so I'm doing something wrong with them. Maybe I should fertilize before I cover them? I'm really a terrible gardener.

I have a bunch of nice sized pots I could fill with some compost and attempt something long yielding in.

Planted some lettuce seeds but the bugs are out in full force. I will struggle to grow anything past them. I miss my duckies 😭 they were such great snail hunters.
 
Plasma
Plasma
Get more duckies!
Octavia said:
I have a bale of hay that went mouldy cos I left it in the carport. Its gona have to go out on the garden soon. My bulbs seem just about done so I might dump it on top of those. The tulips didn't bloom again, so I'm doing something wrong with them. Maybe I should fertilize before I cover them? I'm really a terrible gardener.

I have a bunch of nice sized pots I could fill with some compost and attempt something long yielding in.

Planted some lettuce seeds but the bugs are out in full force. I will struggle to grow anything past them. I miss my duckies 😭 they were such great snail hunters.
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Maybe you need to dig a moat around your garden. Once you kill a crawling insect inside the moat, it is not replaced. If you can find water, that is.
 
November
November
The mozzies would love that! Are you their king hmm???
You could use a trick reservoir operators have done: Add a few drops of oleic acid to the water. It floats on top and forms a monomolecular film that reduces evaporation. Or you could add citronella oil. Or if you have acid soil, you could add lye. Mosquitoes would avoid that. And no, I am not their king. I am the king of their enemies.
 
Ducks would love a moat! I think I should just get more ducks. Trucks drop bugs and seeds all into the yard from above. The slater bugs are my own doing, for using so much mulch. They will destroy seedlings but tend to leave the older plants alone. I swear there are weird bugs here no one has recorded yet! The wild birds do a good job too, they know to come down if I've moved a pot. Clever little critters.

The mozzie fogging truck has been past today. No idea what they use in it. Hopefully nothing that will muck with my food too much. Shire didn't do it last year cos the rabbits were so bad, they wanted the mozzies to spread the diseases to wipe them out. Didnt work, rabbits are worse this year and now they are worried about mozzie borne viruses again cos of the Japanese encephalitis over east.

Gona let the endive out the front go to seed. Its past its best now anyway, bit old and tough.
 
I'm guessing the outdoor carrot crop is done now . You might be able to tease a carrot greens crop in early spring if you plant some stunted carrots in a bucket and keep it out the frost . I've done it (and thought it was way too much trouble 😛 ) .
nightshade said:
The trouble I'm having with working out how to grow veg is, well I don't really eat much of it. I grew up not eating any really bar carrots, and even that was just with a roast dinner. So I'm slowly changing my mindset of eating vegetables more. My mother didn't try to deal with a fussy child, when actually it was more her cooking than the vegetables. She is very much a cook til soft/mush person, whereas I've discovered that slightly cooking it works a lot better for me. Also we never tried out new dishes, or vegetables, so I hadn't tried lentils, avocado, black beans, and so many other things that I have now.
I think it's why, for me, it's cheaper to eat meat than vegan, as I just don't know about the ingredients and don't want to buy lots that I'll not use. Instead I can buy a chicken, which I know how to cook and make it last a week.
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You can't go wrong with
runner beans
courgettes and marrows
Other squash . People tend to do a butter nut and a pumpkin but there's loads to choose from.
Tomatoes under cover
New potatoes or second earlies .
Some salad under cover.

I like cabbages etc too but they can be a pain with pests . First year , you want banker produce . Food on plate without too much hassle . In my opinion anyway 😉 . Some things like shoots, greens , radishes and turnips can grow so quick they inspire you to keep going in early summer when it's all work and few rewards

They're all easy , prolific plants , great for a summer kitchen garden .. They will produce weight far in excess of the setup cost . Have something like these as a backbone and then grow what you like to eat .
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The rhubarb is a good banker . Lots of frozen fruit in your future 😀 .
 
Hunga Munga said:
runner beans
courgettes and marrows
Other squash . People tend to do a butter nut and a pumpkin but there's loads to choose from.
Tomatoes under cover
New potatoes or second earlies .
Some salad under cover.
Click to expand...
Except I don't like runner beans or tomatoes! Or radishes!

I am planning on courgettes and butternut squashes next year.
 
I don't like radishes either , or runner beans 🙂 . I would never buy either ...but it's surprising how much nicer fresh things can be .

I love a courgette . My season was a week or two too short for butternuts . Tried a few times and never cracked it . Personally I love squash plants , think they're gorgeous to look at in full flow .
 
My celery just shot up! Got some nice little stalks off this morning. They were a bit water deprived so I picked and ate them while I was out there. My parsley and lettuce have all bolted to seed. Maybe not enough water for them either.

Did some more lawn mowing and am less impressed by my lawn mower now. It kept cutting out. Either didnt like the level of the earth, overheated the battery, got full or just refused to start. Makes me more impressed by the whipper snipper that used to handle the yard on its own for a 1/3 of the price! It ran out of cord so I gave up for the day. Once we get a couple of hot day the grass will die off anyway. Just gotta keep the bits that can be seen from the road short enough for shire standards.

I covered the dying bulbs with the mouldy hay. Mostly to try and smother the grasses rather than trying and chop in between the plants.

My nectarine tree is really looking unwell, but I remember my peach tree was the same in its first year and it seems fine this time. Will just keep an eye on it. I know now after spending some time in the yard today that everything needsto be watered a bit more. Its been cloudy and cool so I didnt take the need for water as seriously as I should.

Had some asparagus last night too! That was a thrill 🙂 tiny stalks but so juicy! I really hope I cant keep it going and really establish a little patch there. I need to be topping everything up with better soil/compost as soon as I can manage it. Digging is hard work!
 
Garden is all watered for the morning. I strung up a shade cloth over the back, attached to the fence where the neighbours took their trees down. That whole corner is going to want to turn to salt so i really want to just get anything established there. There was an oleander I wanted to take down but now I wont cos at least its a tree! I would really like to get rid of those when I can. They are just a bit too dangerous for me.


None of my seeds survived. Its the slater bugs getting them and eating them. I basically breed them by using mulch haha. I am just not going to buy new dirt. I could soak it in pots and buckets but honestly do not have the energy to spare for that. I will just nurse along what the slaters dont like (lettuce/endive and herbs). Got a few handfuls of lettuce for breakfast.

Accidentally broke a vine off the grape vine trying to wind it back where it belongs. Need to do that on a day i can feel my hands better. It needs a lot more water as well. Not sure if i will dump the pond out on them and refill the pond or just let the hose run directly on them. I think the pond water might be a better bet as its needing a refresh after all that rain anyway.
 
I underestimated how much shade those trees over the back fence gave the place before they were cut down. They blocked the afternoon sun from my back yard, patio and the back of the house. Now they do not and I can really feel it today!

I am going to have to put the shade shutters down over the laundry and maybe try to find some more shade cloth to hang around places. The shade makes a massive difference. It dropped 2C immediately when a cloud covered the sun just now. Reminds me to utilise shade to the maximum as much as I do with mulch and water in the garden.

The blueberries are getting there! Bigger than last year already 🙂 I needed ground cover in many places after weeding and cutting grasses back so I have planted as many mint bits as I can. All from a hardy, full sun plant so I am hoping they do take over! I've never managed to get anything except weeds to take over so far! I love the smell of mint and any cover is better than no cover for the soil over summer.

Im pulling back on mulch to try and get the compost pile really going for better soil next year. I usually dump the bunny litter out as mulch but now it can all go in the big tin bin.

Still trying to get grass growing for the dog yard. The wild/winter grasses are dying off and the stuff i planted is greening up, I just hope I can nurse it through summer. The plan had been to use the ducks ponds to water and fertilise but now I will just have to use the hose and maybe epson salts? I duno yet.

Some of those rockmelon seeds I planted have popped up. Its just trying to keep them from getting eaten now! Not gona get my hopes up on them yet.
 
Admittedly it might be because I used to be a gardener that I am a bit concerned by nightshade suggestion of to grow your own, I decided not to bury my daughter but to allow her to grow up as naturally as a person could.
 
It would be great to grow everything

Tomatoes
Strawberries
Raspberries
Flowers

Especially fresh fruit
 
nightshade
nightshade
Have a look at allotments in your area
TamsinValencia said:
It would be great to grow everything

Tomatoes
Strawberries
Raspberries
Flowers

Especially fresh fruit
Click to expand...
I want to do sunflowers next year, and have the seeds for eating.

I'm still trying to get on top of all the weeds, but it's definitely looking better now.
 
I was SO close to buying a big bag of sunflower seeds from the stockfeed but the smallest bag was really too big and I skipped it. But Sunflowers are so fun!

Gotta water tomorrow. Booo
 
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