Gardening

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MrsBennefield
MrsBennefield Posts: 36 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Are there any garden lovers out there? I love my garden and having fresh veggies during the summer. Please share your garden contents, tips and tricks for growing a nutritional garden for a healthy lifestyle!
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  • Angiefit4life
    Angiefit4life Posts: 210 Member
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    Yes. we just planted our seeds. Love love gardening. wish I knew how to post our garden pics from last year.
  • evileen99
    evileen99 Posts: 1,564 Member
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    Grow what you like to eat. Some things, like bell peppers, are hard for backyard gardeners to grow (at least to get them to a decent size). Don't use any pesticides or sprays; I figure you're going to lose some of your crop to birds, squirrels, and bugs.
  • goddessofawesome
    goddessofawesome Posts: 563 Member
    edited February 2015
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    We had an awesome garden this past summer. We were freezing (we had to invest in another freezer just for our produce) and canning pretty much every single weekend. This year we are going to invest in grow lamps and start things in the basement. We tried it last year but with the absence of grow lamps it was rather difficult. We got a lot of our veggies from this guy that we dub the "Crazy Tomato Guy" and he told us how to plant our stuff and did it ever grow! Basically you want to dig a hole (duh lol). Fill it up with cow manure. Put in a scoop of garden tone, a scoop of alfalfa pellets, dirt, put the plant in and cover it up. We did this with all our vegetables and when those roots hit the manure they took off! We used all heirloom seeds in our garden and unfortunately we were a bit late in harvesting the seeds. Most of the items we didn't know HOW to harvest. This year I will do more research and figure out how to harvest them to replant. We lost tomatoes to a baby bunny who only nibbled on the ones closest to the ground that were ripe. We didn't use any pesticides or the like and didn't have any issues with bugs. I think the fact that we planted marigolds around the perimeter of the garden helped.

    2oo26bz03sh2.jpg

    These were our tomatoes:

    w01n7ia8li85.jpg


    We had a ton of stuff:

    Tomatoes
    Lettuce -- romaine, spinach, red leaf and green leaf
    Carrots
    Beets
    Potatoes
    Leeks
    Green onions
    White onions
    Kale
    Broccoli
    Cauliflower
    Peppers -- lots of different kinds, hot, mild, bell
    Squash - regular yellow and patty pan (which is an awesome squash!)
    Zucchini
    Eggplant - two different kinds again. Regular and some funky kind that I think is called Japanese eggplant
    Cucumbers

    I think that's it. We had so many tomatoes I was canning a few times a week. We made a ton of tomato sauce with them since that's what we end up doing any way, canned a bunch, froze all our cherry tomatoes for use in soups and stews.

    This year we are expanding the garden and plan on growing corn (hopefully we can find non-GMO corn), making a nice herb garden, and a few other items that are big and/or viney and come back every year. I'm actually getting excited about it!
  • agbmom556
    agbmom556 Posts: 694 Member
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    What a beautiful garden!
  • joflo723
    joflo723 Posts: 119 Member
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    LOVE that garden!

    I love gardening. I have a small yard, so I garden on a small scale with two raised veggie beds. I'm blessed to be able to grow year round since we're in Florida. Winter is actually our best growing season...summers can be too hot here! But the tomatoes and peppers like it. These are my two beds in Nov 2013. The last pic is my bed that I eventually got tired of dealing with the squirrels getting into...so for that one I made a hinged wire frame to go over it!

    2013_11_02_18_22_06_HDR.jpg
    2013_11_02_18_21_59_HDR.jpg
    2014_11_10_07_10_11.jpg

    The one thing I've learned over the past few years is just don't overthink it. I've studied and planned and spent SO many hours trying to make the perfect garden...only to run into new pests and plant ailments that I had no idea I'd encounter. Seeds are cheap so just have fun with it and don't stress it like I did (and still occasionally do! lol).
  • annaheyoolay
    annaheyoolay Posts: 100 Member
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    joflo723 wrote: »
    I'm blessed to be able to grow year round since we're in Florida. Winter is actually our best growing season...
    I wish we had a growing season like that! Not quite as long here in Colorado :\
    I have a small garden with herbs, zucchini, tomatoes, beans, peas, eggplant, lettuce, kale, yellow squash, and broccoli.

  • MrsBennefield
    MrsBennefield Posts: 36 Member
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    @goddessofawesome‌ NICE!!! Our garden is more like @joflo723‌ (love yours, too), smaller with the raised beds, but enough to keep me busy all summer. We have zucchini, yellow summer squash, tomatoes, cucumber, okra and green beans.



  • erindellamore
    erindellamore Posts: 46 Member
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    Impressive gardens!! I would love some gardening friends on here. I just moved to the east coast from the west coast so I'm getting used to seasonal gardening now. In fall I successfully did beets, carrots, kale, lettuce and Swiss chard. Bugs ate my leeks, my potato plants were destroyed by the high winds here, stink bugs invaded the plants I brought here from California, and my cabbage and broccoli are doing who knows what.
    But I'm really looking forward to spring and actually utilizing more space. Animals are an issue and I don't have the means of fencing off large plots so corn and pumpkins will be my only trial by error, and everything else will live on my large upstairs deck/patio, safe from those darned deer and rabbits. I'm really excited about tomatoes this summer, hot peppers, sweet peppers, cucumbers, etc, all of which I've had incredible results with in the past container gardening. I have a lot of experience hydroponically and indoor gardening so my learning curve is now doing it outside, pesticide free, and maintaining a job at the same time. It takes hours everyday turning over every leaf!! Props to all the larger scale organic gardeners and farmers out there....
    Anyways, add me if you'd like a gardening buddy!
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    I am jealous some of you can start already. I will have a row in our community garden this summer. My plan is:

    Mostly carrots purple
    Zucchini bush type
    Multiplier Onions
    Kohlrabi
    Cabbage
    Radish
    Buttercrunch lettuce
    Beans
    Sunflowers

    Sunflowers just because they are so impressive.
  • erindellamore
    erindellamore Posts: 46 Member
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    I'll be doing red sunflowers myself @jgnatca‌ !
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    edited February 2015
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    @erindellamore, I found some volunteer sunflowers sprouting in the community garden this spring and I let them do their own thing. They appear to be from a hybrid and yes, there were some lovely red ones too.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=baCwgFZ7o3g
  • UtahWI
    UtahWI Posts: 257 Member
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    Dreaming of gardening season here in WI! But the seed catalogs are coming out (flower porn!) and it is at least sort of light out at 5pm, so that means it is coming!
    We always have tomatoes-generally Roma for sauce (we can a ton of sauce), and a variety of cherries for salads. We also freeze those for winter use in soups and stews. Zucchini, yellow summer squash, a variety of winter squash, eggplants, a huge variety of peppers from hot to bell, carrots, chard, lettuces, asparagus, strawberries, blueberries, grapes, a relatively small variety of herbs, typically tons of beans that get sent to my mom and her pressure canner, peas. We try to experiment with something new every year. Last year was both good and bad. There was a ton of rain, but that turned out to be a mixed blessing. We also have one end of one garden dedicated to perennials, and I always put a couple of random rows of annual flowers in for beauty.

    The first summer my hubby and I were together, we planted some giant sunflowers. His granddaughter, 2 at the time, was told they were flowers. She said, "no they are not, they are trees!" They were gorgeous.

    It all takes a tremendous amount of time and sometimes I wonder if it is worth it, but then it is. We try to be as organic as possible, we use composted horse and cow manure. I always have visions of expanding, including flower beds, but have to keep myself in check. That whole having a job thing, lol, because if I can't keep up with it, it just becomes a source of stress...Add me for a garden buddy if you wish...
  • Lonestar5775
    Lonestar5775 Posts: 740 Member
    edited February 2015
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    Saw some comments about rabbits and here is something that has worked for me for years. Take a bar of the most fragrant soap you can buy and tie it to a stake every 5 yards around the perimeter of the garden.

    The rabbits associate the odor with people and in 20 years I have seen rabbits in our yard frequently and never had one to eat any plants EVER or even seen one in the garden.

    We use no other prevention method for animals around our garden.
  • jim_just_jim
    jim_just_jim Posts: 148 Member
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    Is there a group to join for this ? Make it easier to follow posts. Would love some inspiration on growing my own healthy foods and see how others are doing, maybe share some tips.
  • LetsTryThisAgain54
    LetsTryThisAgain54 Posts: 381 Member
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    I can't wait to plant my veggies again. The way this winter has been so far in NJ, I'll be lucky the ground thaws out by May!!! Lol!!!
  • goddessofawesome
    goddessofawesome Posts: 563 Member
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    NCServant wrote: »
    Saw some comments about rabbits and here is something that has worked for me for years. Take a bar of the most fragrant soap you can buy and tie it to a stake every 5 yards around the perimeter of the garden.

    The rabbits associate the odor with people and in 20 years I have seen rabbits in our yard frequently and never had one to eat any plants EVER or even seen one in the garden.

    We use no other prevention method for animals around our garden.

    Unfortunately the rabbits around my house aren't that afraid of people. I can get pretty darn close to them -- maybe a yard away -- before they hop away.

  • WednesdayJanuary07th2015
    WednesdayJanuary07th2015 Posts: 163
    edited February 2015
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    I love to garden but unfortunately I don't receive enough sunlight & grow lights/are expensive. Plus I reside in an apartment, so it isn't like I can have a miniature greenhouse; it's considered an enclosure.
  • MonaLisaLianne
    MonaLisaLianne Posts: 379 Member
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    I love gardening and would love to revisit this thread! Unfortunately, I can never find these discussions again once I post to them. =( Is there a secret to finding out where you've posted on MFP?
  • MonaLisaLianne
    MonaLisaLianne Posts: 379 Member
    edited February 2015
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    Tips for keeping the bunnies, ground hogs and chipmunks at bay:

    - Plant lots of marigolds in and amongst your veggies.
    - Spray with fish emulsion fertilizer. It REALLY stinks and they hate it as much as you do.
    - Sprinkle hot chile peppers & seeds all around the plants (bonus- you'll get hot pepper plants lol).
    - Here's a weird one, but human urine is a strong deterrent for vermin.
    - Hair from your hairbrush, or your dog's hairbrush scares them off.

    Just a few oldtime tricks. :)
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
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    I have 2 large gardens, plus several fruit bushes, vines and trees and a few nut trees. Most of the vegetables we eat are home grown. I can, freeze and pickle vegetables for winter, plus we have a cellar full of winter squashes and root vegetables. In winter we grow what greens can survive the freezes, which is just kale and collards now that we're into the really hard freezes.

    We use fences to keep from sharing with the critters.

    Check out www.motherearthnews.com for great gardening tips, including companion planting and when to plant for your area.

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