Are you growing food?

[underpants]

Or are you depending on others, probably many that you loudly or quietly supported removal of home gardens.  We homestead as much as we can and hope others are safe.  It takes years to cultivate land.  To form  a system that works.

However we can no longer help deniers.  I mean find  your bootstraps and pull yourself up and do it in an impossible time frame

So what are you growing/

Edited May 12, 2020 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[K.K.]

6 hours ago, underpants said:

So what are you growing/

Irritated mostly... 😛  

I can grow jalapeños. I kill pretty much everything else. Hopes...dreams, all boring, screamy, opinionated conversations leading nowhere.. sht like that. 

Do jalapeños count? 

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2020 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[Happy Lemming]

9 hours ago, underpants said:

So what are you growing/

Just Grapefruits... The lemon tree was all but dead when I moved into my home, so I removed it.  The next winter killed my orange tree, so I pulled that out, as well. I live in the dessert and can't really grow a garden without spending a fortune on water.

After the pandemic I may put in a kumquat tree they don't require all that much water and produce nice fruit.

[eleanorrigby]

Everything. Ok not really, but this should be my biggest garden. The corona shaved a good month off of my normal procrastination of not being motivated to start seedlings when there is still snow on the ground and I started way more seedlings than I usually do. I hope to fill up all useable space on this property.

I've growing all the usual suspects, corn, cukes, tomatoes, squash, chiles, onions, eggplant, strawberries, beans, herbs and flowers etc. Last year I had a big fail with Pak Choi and Fennel, so I'm trying it again. The jostaberry, cherry tree, goji are flowering and fruiting. It's starting to look really pretty outside.

Edited May 12, 2020 by eleanorrigby

[SumGuy]

A variety of tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, a variety of peppers, potatoes (because they are easy and the highest caloric content per acre I can grow here), and herbs and spices galore.  The latter are easy, in fact if not careful they can take over, I believe my chives and oregano have reached a detente but not sure, some like cilantro and dill go to seed pretty quick here if not careful.

[amaysngrace]

I don’t have to grow food.  

I’m a vegetarian living in the Garden State.

[underpants]

On 5/12/2020 at 1:26 AM, K.K. said:

Irritated mostly... 😛  

I can grow jalapeños. I kill pretty much everything else. Hopes...dreams, all boring, screamy, opinionated conversations leading nowhere.. sht like that. 

Do jalapeños count? 

 

 

 

Of course jalaps count.  If you can grow peppers you are a talented gardener. Peppers are hard to grow, if you can grow that you can probably grow much more.  

You can roast those with a stuffing with oil and delish. Poblanos and Cowhorn peppers are my fav for that. Not as spicey but just enough.  I like serrano for just the right amount of heat, but my seeds failed.

I encourage all who can to grow, compost (even in an apartment you can do this on a balcony).  I put banana peel in a pitcher of water, let sit for a few days and it becomes nature's fertilizer

.Coffee grinds, eggshells can go directly on crops, peels vegetable scraps should be dug it a wait (to avoid pests).

Anyone should be able to grow lettuce in a flower pot.  For those who know spring onions and leeks (chop down but keep the root, about 1 ton 1 1/2 inch bottom part), stick those root ends in dirt and never have to buy that again.  

Start letting some things go to seed and harvesting those seeds for winter/next spring planting.

Edited May 14, 2020 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[carhill]

Rural folks usually have substantial supplies just as a matter of course, and there's stuff to eat all around, either growing or on the hoof or wing, that's available. I'm less prepared than most and can easily go one-two months on what's laid in, more if rationed. I used to garden, it was a lot of work. My mom loved it so I put in the infrastructure so she had a place to do her thing, about 1/2 acre of orchard and garden. The rest got mowed by the tractor. Evenings of late when the bevies of quail show up on the patio I just smile and say 'not tonight' and leave them be. Same with the rabbits and pheasant. One with the land, god will provide.

[schlumpy]

I grow a few tomatoes. My backup plan is freeze dried food sitting in a sealed bucket in the basement. A long-term clean water supply is the most difficult thing to manage. My options in case of a Zombie apocalypse are pretty limited.

I imagine that without the services I take for granted and depending on the season of the of the year, fifty percent, of the worlds population would be dead within six months. Only the young are suited to go back to a hunter-gatherer life style.

[Happy Lemming]

11 hours ago, carhill said:

 Evenings of late when the bevies of quail show up on the patio I just smile and say 'not tonight' and leave them be. Same with the rabbits and pheasant.

That is food for thought... Hmmm, I wonder if I can trap and eat those nuisance ground squirrels that are getting into the bird seed.

[K.K.]

12 minutes ago, Happy Lemming said:

That is food for thought... Hmmm, I wonder if I can trap and eat those nuisance ground squirrels that are getting into the bird seed.

I mean sure ... you could but why? I’ve got squirrels in my bird feeder too. It’s annoying for sure but still... let the poor little squirrels live lol. Plus if you trap them, how ya gonna kill them? Choke um to death? 

[carhill]

Ground squirrels are pretty nasty, at least in my area, and carry diseases. I harvest them routinely from the kitchen window to provide food for the scavengers and to give myself target time on the glass. Tree squirrels perhaps are a bit better but there isn't much there for human consumption. I promote a large population of cottontails which the cats routinely harvest as a control. There's also a few wild chickens running around. My best friend has the best mix, though hunting isn't allowed in his urban forest, with stellar sized deer and wild turkey leading the meat items. What I found was give wildlife refuge, cover, and water and they flourish. Back before crops became highly mechanized and stardardized, there was a plethora to choose from, from row vegetables to citrus to stone fruit to walnuts, almonds and pecans, with grapes dominating. Plenty of alfalfa for animal food too. Now though it's pretty much all almonds and pistachios within walking distance. Miles and miles. The one citrus orchard got picked for free so often that they put up a fence around it.

Anyway, for most folks, a couple raised planters or large containers on the patio are plenty. Gardens take tending, usually daily. Insects can be a real problem. In deer country the deer will eat the garden. Rabbits sometimes do too. I used to tent my fruit trees with bird netting to keep the birds from eating all the fruit, or damaging it. A substantial garden is like another job.

[Happy Lemming]

2 minutes ago, K.K. said:

Plus if you trap them, how ya gonna kill them? Choke um to death? 

I hadn't figured that out yet...  I don't think squirrel pot pie would go over to well with "V".

[eleanorrigby]

Groundhogs are my issue here. Every year it's like the movie Drag Me to Hell with them. It's so annoying to walk out to the garden and stare at it for a couple of minutes wondering what is different here, what's wrong with this picture,  then realize plants are missing, just a perfect  hole in the ground left. He ate all six of my eggplants last year and the three I just got in the ground this year already. I replanted more eggplants into containers. 

We have deer and rabbits here as well, but they are more judicious with what they eat. They just nibble a bit and move on. The groundhog will zigzag and plow through all of it once he happens upon food he likes.

 

[Fletch Lives]

Am I growing food? - Yes, I'm growing potatoes out of my ears!

[nospam99]

For squirrels caught in a 'no kill' trap, drown them. To facilitate that I built a real simple wooden form and line it with a large trash bag. Works on the chipmunks, too.

I grow blueberries, tomatoes, and corn .... every year, virus or no. I could easily grow 'more', but no point to that if I'm not going to eat it.

[K.K.]

20 minutes ago, nospam99 said:

For squirrels caught in a 'no kill' trap, drown them. To facilitate that I built a real simple wooden form and line it with a large trash bag. Works on the chipmunks, too.

Wow. See I know I’m a hypocrite by saying this because I eat meat. Not squirrels but other kinds. I go to the grocery store and I get burger and bacon and whatnot. It’s already dead, I tell myself. And so delicious. Games I play in my head so that I can eat a cheeseburger. 

But if the highlight of my day became drowning a poor little defenseless squirrel that’s only doing squirrel things, I’d seriously question my soul, and probably jump from the highest building I could find. Because that’s just hard core evil. No offense but daaaaaamn. 😭
 

 

 

[Happy Lemming]

If G. Gordon Liddy can eat a rat, eating a squirrel can't be that hard... (LOL)

This whole pandemic started by some people eating bats, I think I'll leave the squirrels alone.  Carhill is right, my ground squirrels probably carry diseases and such.  I'll leave them for the owls, hawks, eagles and coyotes to munch on.

I still have meat in the freezer.

[nospam99]

No need to eat the squirrels, just kill them.

Incidentally, the 'squirrel things' they do include eating my corn and honing their teeth on my gutters, screens, wooden parts of my porch, and pool tools. They have torn completely through the porch screens in several places.

[carhill]

Oh, yeah, I replace easily a quarter mile of drip line twice a year due to squirrels and their teeth. County won't let us poison grain them anymore so I stick coumadin squares (rat poison) on the fence posts along the drip line. That slows them down a bit in areas where shot lines aren't permissible for taking them out with a gun. In the spring when they're breeding there are thousands, it's like the ground is moving. They would decimate the orchard if left to their devices, not to mention the yard.

Oh, with gardens, don't get me started on gophers, it's like Caddyshack. 😂

[underpants]

My squirrels are cool.  I feed them so they respect my garden area.  We rescued a baby last year so may be spread the word?  We have also adopted a cat from the pound who of course has adopted the garden as hers.  She watches over it and scares everything away.  

It is amazing what you can grow in a small area. We are fortunate to have a large yard 1/2 acre but we probably use less than a quarter for food.  We expand every year..  I used to use the Ruth Stowe method of heavy hay with a heavy layer of newspaper (8-12 pages thick watered down) for a no weed garden.  My biggest challenge this year is mulch.  So I ordered an action hoe and it is pretty cool.

Just spoke to a plumber on how to retrofit at least our washing machine to spill gray water back into the yard, opening up a new area to crops.

Feeding my 3 bin  wheelbarrow friendly compost heap that I built over a decade ago then neglected.  The dirt in there is sooo black.

It is daily maintenance.  For me it is my church.  Thank goodness I have many beneficial insects and not many pests, my problem is weeds.  In my experience planting some flowers (ie in my case tall beautiful sunflowers attracted a predator bug...so the next year I planted the sunflowers far away and was able to harvest.  However,,, near August those jerks found my veggies.  I miss them (sunflowers) but would not recommend some flowers for pollinator attraction.  It was the leaf footed bug, aka, the 2 brick bug.  We stopped growing for 2 years to get rid of those jerks.

We are growing many herbs, lettuce, kale (off ground in boxes), cucumbers (many varieties), melons (watermelons, cantaloupes, honeydew), tomatoes, corn (hiding that all over the yard), peppers, beans, squash.  That is all in a 16 x 16 bed.  Beans and cukes trellised.

We have blueberries, 10 mature bushes set to produce, a lime, tree  a root bound lemon tree I found next to my work dumpster (on our south facing wall, both thriving), a fig, pear and a pomegranate.  

Have more interesting seed varieties on the way.  I promise a food item you grow will taste better then anything you could ever buy. 

Edited May 14, 2020 by underpants

[eleanorrigby]

On 5/13/2020 at 11:39 AM, carhill said:

 

Oh, with gardens, don't get me started on gophers, it's like Caddyshack. 😂

That movie has been suggested to me a few times, I think I need to finally watch it. I have an idea it will help me purge some of my gopher/groundhog murderous intentions. I really want to leave these little buggers alone, but they won't leave me alone. They can't just eat half and leave me the rest, they want it all. Like the taxman, not satisfied till they have the pennies off my eyes as well.

[eleanorrigby]

18 hours ago, underpants said:

For me it is my church.

Me too, and what an inviting church and service it is, right? I feel welcomed, illuminated and supported.

[Ellener]

I am balcony gardening now and will try food stuffs as I get better at it! Already trying herbs and some rhubarb from seed...love watching things grow.