Short- or Long-Term Gardening

[james terrio]

Hey y'all, it's that time of year! I'm really excited about once again having a tiny piece of land to cultivate, and some time to work on it. This will be my first full year of living in the humid sub-tropical climate of East Tennessee, and I'm loving it... my friends and family back in Central WI are still dealing with serious cold and snow. I've been hard at work on our garden for several weeks already

My shoulders are tan, my muscles are pleasantly sore, I've lost a little weight due to honest work, and I have spent a couple hundred bucks on topsoil/compost and having a dude till up my suburban backyard... I think it's very much worthwhile. I'm more of a "bug-in" than a bug-out kinda guy, although I understand both points of view.

Nothing says "survival/preparedness" like already having some healthy food growing and/or preserved. Yeah, MREs and other freeze-dried stuff is great too, but good Lord it's expensive!

I cannot possibly be the only one around here who feels that way

My wife and I have so far planted several "window box" type containers with lettuce and greens and herbs and spices, have many many seeds germinating, and last night we started two rows of mounds with sweet corn... our plan is to follow the classic "three sisters" plan and add pole beans and squash to those mounds as the corn comes up. Our goal is partly to save a bit of money and get some exercise, but most importantly, to eat veggies that don't have a huge "carbon footprint" from being trucked all over tarnation and aren't loaded with pesticides and harsh chemicals.

So, let's hear your plans and ideas for quick-results and/or sustainable gardening. If there is a helpful thread from years past (and I'm sure there are), please link it here for reference. Thanks!

 

[sideways]

Gardening is a good idea for sure. In a very extreme scenario you might not be able to defend it but you will have the food in the mean time, and learn how to grow stuff. It has been on my radar since I saw the youtube video about the dervaes family growing most of their food on an urban lot.
[video=youtube;7IbODJiEM5A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IbODJiEM5A[/video]
(the intro buildup is about 5 minutes long, after that they go into the details)

Up in the north gardening is limited to the summer time, so that is when I do my gardening. Time constraints and laziness means it's mostly just during the summer months though. Our garden has apple trees, strawberries, currants, peas, carrots, and potatoes. The closest neighbors do zucchini's and other berries so we trade for those. Bees are in the works. Grains and livestock (dairy) are also within range, but trade has not been established. Not a lot grows up here outdoors, so I'll get a greenhouse eventually.

 

[fishshooter]

Got one garden right by the house that we just put zucchini, crook neck, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions and several variety of hot peppers in it. Got some more tomatoes, egg plant, cucumbers and watermelon seedlings in the green house that'll go in this weekend. Got a larger garden inside a chain link fence by our barn up the road. We let a couple of the neighbors use the area too. Got peas going now, but we grow sweet corn, beans and okra there. I have blueberry bushes and scuppernongs vines there too. We also grow basil, oregano, thyme and cilantro in containers around the garden. Garlic and chives in another box container. Trying something new this year, growing tomatoes in hay bales. My neighbor has done it the last couple years and it does amazing. I think that would be a good idea in a small area. That, and I grow some stuff in Earth Boxes, and they have impressive results for the space. Cherry tomatoes do really well in them, produce a lot per plant.

 

[james terrio]

I grew up in Central Wisconsin, sideways... I completely understand about short growing seasons.

There is no doubt in my mind that even a little gardening can be cheaply-done and provide a small measure of economic security, and a worthwhile amount of fresh veggies/greens. I've done it myself on property I rented; the landlord didn't want the whole yard torn up, but allowed me to cultivate sweetpeas and carrots and peppers and onions in a single 18" row around the foundation. He was mostly just happy that I cut down the damn box elders that were growing there already, and causing problems with bugs.

While living in that same rental house, we took a broken-down kiddie-pool we found on the curb, poked some holes in the bottom and laid down a layer of gravel I scavenged from the alley for drainage, filled it up with dirt from the shady side of the garage where nothing grew anyway, plopped it in our driveway and made it into a shallow planter that gave us fresh salad greens all summer long. Just pick the outer leaves off each plant and let the cores keep growin'.

Adapt and overcome

 

[Hammer67]

Perfect timing, James - based on the "Bugging Out Fallacy" thread, I was just thinking about how it seems like you rarely see much focus on longer-term 'survival' skills, such as gardening.

A couple weeks ago, I got lured into thinking about getting our garden started early this year. I should have known better - we got a couple inches of fresh snow yesterday, and it dropped to 17F last night. Even in the middle of the summer here, it can be almost impossible to grow peppers and tomatoes, unless you have a greenhouse, as we can get freezing nights any month of the year. Such is life @ 6200' in the Rockies. But things like kale, cabbage, lettuce, beets, garlic, rhubarb, potatoes, etc. do quite well here. We also have a healthy mint and rasberry patch, and a couple apple trees. Hope to get a few more of the latter in the ground this year. And I plan on hunting more than ever this year to bring in as much good meat as possible to balance out all that green stuff...

 

[fishshooter]

I had the opposite problem this year, Smithhammer. The warm weather this winter sent the broccoli and cauliflower to flower early, and the lettuce and spinach barely made. Had more collard greens than I could give away though, and the cabbage did OK.

 

[james terrio]

(the intro buildup is about 5 minutes long, after that they go into the details)

I decline to comment on the poli/soc concepts in that video. I prefer to keep my statements on this forum/topic strictly pragmatic. But I completely agree with their idea of using whatever you've got to produce as much as you can, with minimal effort/expense.

 

[sideways]

Yup, that's why I said people can skip the first 5 minutes. The main takeaway from that the video should be what you can do with a small urban plot in a sunny region. 6000 lbs of produce in a year on 1/10th of an acre, yes please. I leave the politicking to others.

 

[Shotgun]

My wife and I are dabbling in gardening. We don't have a place to do anything significant but we had one of those storage bins that we filled in with dirt last year and planted some beans and squash. We didn't get enough to live off of but it was pretty fun. We're honing our cooking skills so we're going to plant some herbs like rosemary and basil in addition this year. We need to get on that.

 

[schmittie]

I remember gardening every summer growing up. I always enjoyed it. The sad thing is it took me over 10 years to start my own grden as a married man. Anymore, I appreciate avoiding the big stores any way I can, including butchering and processing my own deer during hunting season.

So far, we have enjoyed planting some things we can freeze. (I tried corn 3 years ago and never will again. Over 30 plants that the squirrels destroyed. You should be fine though if you plant squash at the base. I understand the little rats don't like stepping on the prickly squash) we plant tomatoes and freeze our own sauce, broccoli, jalepinos and other peppers freeze well. So do strawberries (a perrinial).

It's a lot of fun and we expand our tastes a little more each year.