For most of the US this cold blast will be the last and it will be time to start getting our hands dirty. I have a 12 acre farm that fully supports my family and leaves plenty left over for storage and the future. While I'm biased a bit, I think it's time to bring back victory gardens.
Get out there, dig in the dirt, and plant some seeds.
Feel free to ask advice here!
I own land, but I do not live on it. My profesion demands that I travel a LOT, so tilling soil and tending animals is not an option.
I have a hydroponics set up in my living room . Shelving/ lighting/ circulation system to grow all the vegetables I would in a garden. It requires electricity, so I have a secret generator and lots of gas hidden on the balcony for future use, and it takes the whole living room (The Brainwashing Box and Brainwashing instructional seating have been removed).
Instead of a pantry full of canned garden, I have a second bedroom full of self-grown dehydrated and vacuum sealed veggies and self-harvested wild game jerkies.
As close as I can get to a victory garden, and what my circumstances demand.
We all do what we can & this allows you to grow year round.
ONLY with ethanol fuel. Ethanol free, and filters in the line. LPG is good for damn near ever till the container rusts. Diesel susceptible to cold. Kerosene unsure of.
Roger to all that. planned for and in place....
And if it gets to the point that gas becomes unavailable, I wont be living in the city anymore, anyway. I'll be on my own land and I'll have other options that I wont discuss here.
I’m already planting. Onions, Irish potatoes, kale, greens… carrots and peas… lots can withstand a late freeze.
Take a grocery store onion. Cut the middle into a tall pyramid
where the base still contains the roots --- to a point at the top - eat the rest.
Stand it up in some water until it roots. Plant it.
Tried it when I was working, failed, work took up too much of my time. I've retired and last year was my first dive into gardening and am enjoying it immensely. It can get so hot here I decided on container gardening so I can move them around. It's still a learning process for me but worth it.
Ive been it it since a kid, now 74. I plant family heirloom cowpeas. Drought resistant, bug resistant, will grow on soil that other things can't use, they climb over weeds, will make a smother crop to mow when you are ready to plant other things. You can use them in three stages, green, shell peas, or dry peas for winter. Hand gather, no machine needed. Also, Illinois Mulberry tree, from Burnt Ridge nursery. Several months of production during warm weather to feed you. Grows very very fast, fruit in a year or two. Easy to graft onto wild seedlings. Also, sweet potatoes produce much for the labor. Keep on the weeding!!!
Save your peach pits. Crack off the shell with a vise. Put the almond on a wet paper towel in a plastic bag in the ice box. Wait for sprout. Plant in pot. Then transplant.
My daughter-in-law loves these. However I had never planted any before until last year. This year I will plant them off to the side of the garden somewhere so they will not take over the rest of the garden. No matter how much I broke the tops back, they spread everywhere. I'm so glad she loved them. So my son will till up another area strictly for them alone. You live and you learn.
Do I really need a pressure canner to preserve low acidic foods, like cooked legumes and potatoes, for example? I've gotten quite good at canning my tomatoes, apple sauce, and pickles, but I'd like to preserve more foods, like beans, etc. Also, thanks for the opportunity to talk gardening! My seeds are sprouting now...
I didn’t realize that I should use a pressure canner for most tomatoes now, many varieties improved on sweetness over the years and consequently had less than enough acid to properly can without the help of some citric acid, and to be totally safe and sure I’ve used one for tomatoes too.
I used my pressure canner for the first time last year, it came with a book on specific veg/fruit/meat etc with times/pressure required at diff elevations, etc. def worth getting one, not expensive either. Anything new there’s a learning curve at first but if you have the will to learn it it will definitely work to preserve those low acid foods you mentioned
I definitely think I will invest in a pressure canner sometime soon. I've heard tomatoes are just on the cusp of adequate acidity, so just to be sure I've been adding a bit of lemon juice, or if I make marinated grape tomatoes I'll use different vinegars when using water bath method. But I really want to start storing legumes, soups, and stews, too, so I'll go ahead and get the pressure canner. Thanks for the feedback!
Yes. Low acid foods should be pressure canned.
Some recipes for low acid foods include vinegar which is why you will be able to can using a water bath canner.
Pick up a Ball Blue book. It is the size of a magazine. It covers water bath canning, pressure canning, freezing, and dehydrating. It gives detailed how to info and tons of recipes. It is my go to preserving resource.
Have branched out and started fermenting cabbage in gallon jars for the first time last fall.
Good luck!!
Okay, I bought a book on Preserving and Canning for Beginners, and I'm familiar with the Ball Blue book, and I also consult the National Center for Home Food Preservation online. Thanks for the feedback! I've been thinking about sour kraut, too, but I might be over extended this year, lol. Good luck with your fermented cabbage! (I made and canned do chua Vietnamese pickle to make banh mi Vietnamese subs; it's so easy! Carrot and daikon radish, I recommend it.)
Will check it out. Thanks!
Farmer anon, how do I know how much water to give my plants?
It seems like an arcane science to me. I watered them all a good bit daily, except for the ones that don't need it like sweet potatoes and pineapples, but they never grew.
Then, the hurricanes rolled through Florida and dumped way more water on them every day than I could possibly get through watering, and they all grew like champs.
They're in raised beds btw.
I suggest soaker hoses. More efficient. You only have to water three times a week.
Save your rainwater and use it.
Don't pour water at the stems. IMO it washes away the nutrients.
look up wicking watering plants
look up self-watering above ground
Raised beds need more watering than in the ground because they drain faster. Read up on French intensive or square foot gardening. Because the plants are close enough to touch, they shade out weeds and shade the soil a bit too. More food, less space.
I need raised beds or am screwed. Sandy soil location
I have rocky soil, or I should say we laughingly refer to the pile of rocks we live on as "soil." It drains off almost as soon as the rain falls. And we hit an extremely dry spell every summer about July. I do have some decent soil on another part of my land but I have to string really long hoses together to water it. Mulch like crazy or use French intensive planting. And then there's the black walnuts. Did I tell you about the stuff from their roots that kills many types of plants within 85 feet of the trunk? And taking out the tree doesn't fix that.
BTW, when you build your raised beds, make sure the soil you buy to fill it is good. Lowes the last couple of years has been selling some really awful stuff as soil - unrotted chunks of wood, sand, lots of junk in there that isn't soil.
Less mineral buildup if you are watering with tap water.
Non aerated tap water is more prone to root without good drainage.
In addition to gardening, I'm going to build a small chicken coop this summer (between tilling and planting the large garden, it will take me a while to make the coop as I'm not an experienced carpenter, but I have the tools and a good book and spare wood, so I'm gonna go for it) so I can order chicks next spring. I wanted to get chicks this spring, but I have to be realistic about how long it will take me to build the coop.
Built mine two years ago. My hens are done molting and they know spring is peeking around the corner. Egg production is up to 7 a day. I average around 15 a day when they are in full egg laying mode. I have 17 including one rooster. Be patient, remember it’s a chicken coop not a house, it doesn’t have to be perfect. I’m on 10 acres and surrounded by woods. Predator proofing is the most Important thing. Use hardware cloth, not chicken wire. Chicken wire will keep the chickens in but don’t keep predators out. Good luck to you and yours!
Edit: Also, prepare a set up to brood the chicks. They can’t go straight to the coop. I used an old metal dog kennel and lined the sides with cardboard and kept paper towels on the bottom for easy clean up. Throw a large blanket on top to make them sleep. It’s a bit of work up front but more than worth it.
Yes, my coop plans include hardware cloth, and I intend to put together a chick nursery. We live in a small town, and regulations require that they be contained, although I kept free-range hens in Mexico when I lived there a few years ago. I intend to build a nice big pen for them in the backyard, which is nowhere near 10 acres, just a large rural backyard. It's best for them, really, because we have a lot of hawks out here in the Wasatch Mountains. I intend to make the pen somewhat mobile that I can move it around the yard as needed. Thanks for the tips and support!
Oh, quick question, if you please...Would you recommend a heat lamp, for the chick nursery?
Good luck and I bet it will turn out just fine..
Thank you! Cheers
Check out backyard chickens dot com, tons of info
Oh yeah, thanks. And there are tons of channels on YT for backyard chickens. I'm going to grow black oil sunflower seeds this summer to supplement chicken and bird feed. I don't think I have enough space for corn, unless I tear up more of my lawn, which I probably will eventually.
Lol we tried corn, a small amount. Big mistake - just as it was at harvest-ready, crows wiped it out. You pretty much have to grow enough such that there will be enough left after the crows take their cut...
Yeah, I kind of figured they would take up too much room in the yard, for such a small harvest. The sunflowers are big enough, but we don't mind sharing with the birds...that's who we plant them for.
we bought our 40 acres last fall, using modern methods, but goal being mostly self-sustaining along with working with my neighbors. Good ppl all around and most of the farmers are glad to see folks leaving the cities, as long as they leave the metro politics in the metro. second or third thing they essentially ask or test is if I'm some kinda city-slicker... that's when i point to my Trump, Gadsden, and 5x8 'Murica flag. LOTSA of patriot homesteaders on youtube and a few emerging on rumble. the knowledge is all there, GO GET IT!
Tip: go to your local library and see if they have a “seed library” it’s a free source of different seeds saved by the local garden club. Here in New England I’d say half the libraries I go to have them.
I'll be going at it full time soon. Unless we get a surprise in March, I think we're done with the cold here in eastern NC for a while. It's supposed to get into the low 80s today. The flowers are blooming, the trees are budding, and there are robins all over the place.
Zone 8b here, already got potatoes in the ground, corn, tomatoes, peppers in trays. We have gotten serious about gardening over the past couple of years and have learned a lot. Added 2 more 50x50 plots this year. One will be for field corn and one will be for viney stuff (mellons, squash, etc). We still have onions, carrots, garlic, and parsnips in the raised beds from the winter garden. We have lettuce in the greenhouse.
I believe this is a thread where u/Mary911 shall shine.🤩💐
Start small if you have to. I have a clear plastic bin that I am going to use to grow small greens. Saw the video on TG a while back. Couple of bags of soil, cut out the plastic(bag of soil for clarification, using the bag as the pot)in a square leaving 4 inch or so strip around the edge. Lay the bag in the lid of the bin, plant some seeds, water and put the bin part over it like a greenhouse. I'm going to try this before I have to build a raised garden. Soil is terrible, no way to plant in the ground.
Check out Back To Eden documentary, they rehabilitate soil with wood chips and some compost
I am so impressed with you and all of the commenters here. Gives me faith in Americans. I’ve done a bit of gardening, have learned much about what different vegetables do in my microclimate and soils. Have learned which veggies do best with a lazy and forgetful gardener. My best advice is 1. Do online research specific to your location, there are so many people giving good advice on the internet, and I had to learn not to take advice from people on the east coast or Midwest, when I live in Southern California. 2. Bus Blend Malibu Compost…(for small gardens not acres!) expensive but a little bit goes a long way and improves the soil amazingly. 3. Find the herbs and flowers that attract beneficial insects in your area, and plant them in and around your other stuff. Things like green lacewings that can be bought at gardening stores, will eat up so many bad bugs that are trying to eat your food. There are beneficial nematodes that you can put in the soil to get rid of flea and mite eggs. Over a period of 2 years, I stopped spraying any anti bug stuff, planted bunches of beneficial bug stuff, and nature took its course. It looked like a mess for a while, but as the beneficial bugs arrived, over time It balanced and I don’t have problems with things like aphids anymore. Vegetables do take more time and attention. I learned to just plant what works in my climate, and what does okay on neglect, and let go of the idea of doing it all.
so many questions! I have the land and the desire but so far lack the green thumb.
what's the best way to prep and maintain soil for nutrients?
can human compost be used? at first thought one winces at this but I think to myself how my family eats organic foods and take no pharmaceutical meds or anything that would otherwise be offensive. horse manure is praised and very regularly used after all. if so, any thoughts on best additives that are healthy and organic for composting process?
living in the northeast (suburb of Boston), what plants should I buy seedlings of to get started indoors?
best way to start indoors (e.g., hydroponics, fluorescent lighting, hot room, natural sunlight)?
best material for laying over an outdoor garden to mitigate weeds while also preventing harmful chemicals from seeping/leaching into soil and plant roots?
best places to buy seeds from?
sorry for barrage of questions. be happy with responses to even a couple of these to get me started in the right direction and hopefully impart knowledge on the overall GAW community.
thank you!
I can help with the best places to buy seeds from, although you may find some good places locally as well. Online, I like MI Gardener, Seeds Now as well as Burpee.
I imagine it's near impossible to know how organic and unadulterated any seeds are because we'd need to know the history of the fertilizer and soil and any intentional or unintentional impacts to the plant over the years, but any suggestions on best way to feel comfortable that a seed has good genetics? for example, seedless watermelon I wouldn't trust, but are there other less obvious modifications that happen to tomatoes, onions, lettuce, etc to warn a conscientious grower and end user?
Heirloom seed places are quite dedicated.
Sorry, just got to this comment. You can buy organic seeds, and both MI Gardener and Seeds now also have some choices that they call heirloom seeds. You can look out for either of those options.
I try all different ways of gardening. Cloth pots, raised beds, in Ground with woven black plastic with burned holes. Open ground. I like the chaos of a cottage or pottager garden so I mix it up. I start the seeds indoors (2nd year) and mix the ones I can with flowers and I have perennial fruits and herbs all about. So far I’m not a fan of cloth pots for food crops and find potatoes like the ground best.
I’ve been at it for years and never get tired of learning. Preserving the harvest is now my main learning focus. I hate wasting.
Would love to have a garden. Have a small yard (really small. Barely enough room for the dog to do her business). Been trying to figure out/design the best lower maintenance vertical garden for my limited space. I travel quite a bit so need something that won’t die in a week when I’m not home. Any suggestions appreciated and moving or stopping travel is not an option :/
My husband made me something like this https://www.etsy.com/listing/1204487328/2-tier-bucket-garden-plans. You can put tomato or peppers. I like it- frees up my garden for other things
Nice ! We made something similar with free pallets but without the buckets.
If you have a wall that gets sun half the day, you can set up a vertical garden with multiple rows of pots. If there is any yard space there, you can plant in raised beds in front of that. At my house, I have a huge back wall to the garage that faces afternoon sun. I put in posts and raised beds. I ran pipe at the top along with wires and twine so I could plant tomatoes and other climbing plants. I planted lower plants in the beds, such as bell peppers, onions, and a lot of herbs. Rosemary will survive the snow and keep getting bigger year after year.
Yes I have 5’ or so of fence that gets enough sun. I have found this setup but so expensive. Need to figure out how to make something similar. https://flowerstreeturbangardens.com/
How many square feet?
For the only place that gets enough sunlight maybe 10sqft. 5x2
We have dairy & beef cows, chickens, and more. Just spent this week spreading out composted manure all over our planting areas and getting it tilled in. I'm starting seeds in the greenhouse soon so we'll be ready to roll outdoors when the timing is right. I'm super excited for this year!
On it! First year of vegetable gardening!
Amen. I started winter sowing this week, zone 5. Can't wait for the garden to be thriving, and my homegrown chickens and eggs. We just did our hogs so set on that for a year.
So many of us feel the same! I live in Midwest in an hoa but I’ve been planting anything I can that won’t get me into trouble. I’ve planted raspberry, blackberry, grapes, blueberries strawberries, about to plant asparagus, 2 dwarf cherry trees, I’ve built garden beds and fabric planters, I’ve got over 100 packs of various seeds. I got my first carrots in the fall and they were amazing and all sorts of colors. We have about 1/3 acre in a planned neighborhood. If I could get chickens I would! I got a couple hydroponics growing what I can indoors too, but so many other moms or friends I talk to want to start. They can sense it, others mock us and it makes me sad but also know I need to be able to protect what I have. Listening to badlands media, one of the guys is like “gun is more important than food” because if it’s chaos you basically can’t play nice. Which kind of ticked me off, how about prepare yourself and not focus on trying to take from others. So many joke about it, “yeah I don’t need to store food, I have a gun I’ll just take what I want”.
Quail are a game bird and aren’t regulated where I live chicken and “fowl” are forbidden. Quail are hunted so can fit in the gray area!
We're growing AND we'll defend it.
Front pasture just reclaimed for this reason
I started doing this about 12 years ago, but my vegetable garden has become less productive each year. I think part of the problem has been my failure to supplement the soil with manure or whatever good stuff, but also bad weather that varies from too wet to drought and back, and now there's too much shade over that area. I'm going to try to relocate it this year to where I currently have a patch of grass, not sure how much prepping of the soil I need to do.
Rotate crops perhaps?
Make sure you rotate what you are growing. Tomatoes and cukes should not be grown in the same area year after year. Same for root vegetables. Doing so depletes the same nutrients.
Instead, grow tomatoes one year, carrots in the spot next year. A good gardening book will specify the crops to rotate.
Lasagna gardening might work. Check YT.
Do you compost?
I have a compost pile of mostly leaves, tilled them in a couple years ago. One year I tilled in bags of rotted manure, but neither of those made much difference.
You are removing all the nutrients from your soil by gardening. If you don't add nutrients back in things will not grow. Leaves have very few nutrients. The manure probably helped with some nutrients, but not all.
I'd recommend you invest some time learning how to compost(it's easy and free). In the meantime use miracle grow.
Check out Back To Eden, wood chips and compost rehabilitate the soil
i am planting on my deck since i am stuck in a city At the moment... anything helps...
Anything does help!
Chickens for years Gardening the last few have struggled with new / Sandy soil location . May finally have a boar sorted for my heritage Tamworth pigs ❤️🥰❤️🥰 Hope to start growing own own livestock feed. Victory garden would be awesome but thinking we cannot do it all and would love to find someone growing organic fruit and veg to barter for meat. Raising animals is my forte. I once read farmers are either great at livestock or Gardens not both. I know I shouldn't think limiting but feel it's accurate for me.😅
Choice of fertilizer? Is milorginite (sp?) a good option?
Go to a garden center and buy the square foot gardening book. The soil is 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 assorted compost, all by volume. This makes a fertile soil that never compacts. This is in raised beds. With loose soil, carrots will grow long and straight. With this, you never need commercial fertilizer, just a bit of compost from your gardening and yard waste.
I don’t like the smell of that.its human sewage treated into fertilizer
just gonna slide this in here : https://permies.com/
I planted saffron bulbs this fall and they did well. How do I know when to pull up the bulbs? Do I even have to pull up the bulbs every year?
Saffron is the pistils from inside the crocus flower. They loom in spring you remove them and dry them.
Thx fren! I actually had my first harvest already--planted the bulbs the fall and harvested them within a month! One of my more successful gardening experiments.
I'm on to phase two now which is when, if ever, I need to perform any manual intervention to get blooms next year. My understanding is they'll multiple underground and at some point I'm supposed to pull them up and separate them so they don't get crowded.
I know bone meal dug in above the bulbs after they bloom is very good for any bulb plant! Best of luck. I am taking saffron daily for mood and focus!
Do you have dairy?
This is my first year trying some "winter seed sowing". I have 15 jugs outside in the single digits right now, just waiting for spring. I hope it works out well, because I have more room outside for that sort of thing than I do inside.
It works but watch for them sprinting suddenly if it gets warm early.
I started a small garden 2 years ago with some pepper and tomato plants that I bought at home depot. I didn't really know what I was doing and it was kind of a pathetic little garden that didn't produce a whole lot. Over the winter I watched some youtube videos and played around with starting and growing plants indoors.
Last summer I grew 15+ varieties of fruits, vegetables, and herbs that were all started from seed. Many were 1-off plants that I just wanted to try growing, but I also grew a ton of bell peppers, jalapenos, and green beans that I was able to enjoy all summer and can/freeze the excess. I still have two-gallon bags of diced bell peppers in the freezer and a few jars of green beans in the pantry. Again, I learned a lot from my successes and failures.
This year I have probably 30 varieties of plants that I'm going to try growing. Many are still 1-off and "just for fun", like gourds and pumpkins for the kids, but also a ton of edibles for my family and a variety of flowers for the pollinators.
You don't need a farm to have a big garden either. I just have a double lot in the city and it can produce a lot more food than you would think. It's also rewarding knowing that I grew everything myself and I've enjoyed getting my kids involved in the process.
Anybody ever try growing ginseng? I know it takes forever, but it seems worth it because it's a powerful plant.
Hoping to get mine growing the right way & start chickens this spring.