self-sufficiency

anybody else grow vegetables?

here's my garden:

chilis:

star pupil:

beets:

(the leaves are absolutely delicious in a salad, too)

courgettes:

(we already ate most of the first crop. if you harvest them when small and slice them very thinly using a cheese slicer, they are incredible in salads)

tomatoes:

saw the first fruits last week. we're gonna have more tomatoes than we know what to do with.

rocket, parsley, and chives:

you can't STOP these motherfuckers growing. in the event of an apocalypse, i'll have salad.

nice one Dave!

Beautiful garden. I would love to do this but sadly time and space are not on my side (no room for a garden).

edit: I think your name is Dave. =/

I want a garden. Soon. hopefully.

  On 8/8/2013 at 11:46 PM, StephenG said:

nice one Dave!

 

Beautiful garden. I would love to do this but sadly time and space are not on my side (no room for a garden).

 

 

edit: I think your name is Dave. =/

His name is Kaini.

  On 8/8/2013 at 11:50 PM, AdieuErsatzEnnui said:

I want a garden. Soon. hopefully.

Same, would be a nice thing to get invested in. Cool pics btw.

Just tomatoes and cucumbers here. Will have to take some pics later.

i grow skin at a really fast rate around my armpits. I cut it off and cook it when i'm hungry. that's pretty self- sufficent

didnt mean to fuck up this thread by the way. Serious post.- I wish I had the space to grow vegetables. It's something I'd love to do. I need more money basically

My tomatoes are getting their assed kicked. Then again it was 106 F today, has been over 100 for the last week or so, and it's supposed to be over 100 for the next two weeks.

We have a lot of basil, both sweet and purple, some oregano, little chilis, a ton of green onions. You can just keep the ones with good roots and plop them into soil.

I used to have a fucking assload of orange mint. I mean like, it was fucking overflowing with leaves. I could of supplied an entire day of mojito drinking in a California gated community with the amount of mint I had. I was about to give some away when three cutworms ate the entire fucking supply overnight I took them aside, placed them each on a rock, then read their crimes before executing them. Green goo shot out of each one like a hose.

  On 8/8/2013 at 11:42 PM, kaini said:

rocket, parsley, and chives:

you can't STOP these motherfuckers growing. in the event of an apocalypse, i'll have salad.

Lushness. Are there any particular tips with the soil or watering you can recommend?

awesome photos kaini!

@pennywise: you can easily grow salads in containers dude (for really cheap)! i just took a one-night class on it a few weeks ago (i'm apartment locked too so i'm trying to find ways to grow more around here). so many greens and herbs i'd never heard of at that class. we don't get a lot of sun on our deck at my apt so i'm thinking of putting a few containers on rollers so i can move them with the sun on the days i'm home.

i may be getting a small garden plot from one of the city community gardens i've been volunteering at, but i'm not sure if they'll give it to us or not... the plots are divvied out based on volunteer hours and i started getting involved kinda late this year so may not make the cut. it's all good though, gonna try to find a place with a little bit of a yard next time we move in a few months

quad edit: forgot to mention, i'm also growing dandelions, lol. besides just loving the little bastards, i'm trying to grow enough that i can pull up their roots and make tea after i eat their gnarly leaves, which are amazingly healthy + tasty in the right mix.

I have a nice little garden which I'm going to put stuff in. It's not really the right time of year yet though.

I'd like to grow some herbs and tomatos, any other suggestions? (not chillis).

  On 8/9/2013 at 3:46 AM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 8/8/2013 at 11:42 PM, kaini said:

rocket, parsley, and chives:

you can't STOP these motherfuckers growing. in the event of an apocalypse, i'll have salad.

Lushness. Are there any particular tips with the soil or watering you can recommend?

 

i just give them this goopy plant food dissolved in water once a week... 3 capfuls to 10 litres.

The courgettes look to be the female variety

I can't believe you'd rape them like that by planning to harvest them without their consent

Misogynist bastard

  On 8/8/2013 at 11:42 PM, kaini said:

anybody else grow vegetables?

 

here's my garden:

 

chilis:

star pupil:

 

beets:

(the leaves are absolutely delicious in a salad, too)

 

courgettes:

(we already ate most of the first crop. if you harvest them when small and slice them very thinly using a cheese slicer, they are incredible in salads)

 

tomatoes:

saw the first fruits last week. we're gonna have more tomatoes than we know what to do with.

 

rocket, parsley, and chives:

you can't STOP these motherfuckers growing. in the event of an apocalypse, i'll have salad.

very nice! you must have your toms outside? we have them in a wee conservatory and have been getting tomatoes for about 6 weeks already. we get a nice handful of cherry toms every other day just now from 1 dwarf plant in a pot.

we also grow chives, garlic chives, rosemary, thyme, lemon thyme, basil and an assortment of salad leaves... and sunflowers, which are now hanging up in the garage to dry. i'm going to make a bird feeder with my daughter.

we also get a regular supply of potatoes and courgettes from my dad-out-law.

yeah, the tomatoes are outside... just started fruiting last week.

edit: oh yeah, i already said that.

actually i'm a twat, it's pretty clear they're outside.

argh, my chilis aren't spicy. at all :(

http://www.reddit.com/r/spicy/comments/1k1kqc/my_chilis_arent_spicy/

Lookin' good, kaini.

I was gardening a few years ago when I had a back yard, but I lived by the ocean. Where the sun is elusive and the wind is plentiful. My crop did not weather well.

We had some decent jalapenos though.

beet greens are very underrated. i've been trimming back the leaves on the beets to encourage the root veg to grow, and was amazed how tasty they are. they're very sweet, and bleed a purple juice just like the beets themselves. i've been using them in a salad with rocket and overgrown parsley (which, although a bit tougher and more bitter than the small shoots, works excellently in conjunction with other greens).

This year, I went bananas with the gardening. I used to rent a patch in a communal garden with a friend I worked with for a long while in Seattle, but since moving to a new house I decided to go bonkers and utilize the amount of property it sits on... here goes.

I have a 7x12x8ft greenhouse that I am growing a variety of things in along with the outdoor plants, everything but the corn is in pots, 5 gallon buckets, or rubbermaid totes filled with a mix of my compost, worm castings, organic additives, peat, vermiculite, and perlite (changing the additives based on individual needs, i.e more calcium for tomatoes and peppers to prevent blossom end rot, high P/K value to my cucumber vines ect.)

I currently have in my garden

-7 strawberry plants

-4 heirloom tomato plants in 7 gallon pots (going on 6 feet tall now)

-2 bell pepper, one serrano, and 6 jalepeno varieties (mammoth, red, chipotle breed and one a friend gifted me) in 5 gallon buckets

- 9 cucumber vines in a 27 gallon tote, strung up bamboo poles and occasionally twist-tied

- 18 corn plants along 4x5ft rows (thinned after the original planting/germination)

- 2 summer squashes in 5 gallon orgo-bags

- one watermellon plant shooting 3 vines up bamboo poles covered in fishing net for support.

- Herb bins with thyme, basil, rosemary, tarragon, dill, lemon thyme, oregano, and lavender. Everything I can't use fresh, I dehydrate in the food dehydrator for dry use

Those are it for the veggies/fruities. I have jars of grain colonizing with pink oysters, miatake, shitake, and lions mane to spawn to their respective hardwood for use in autumn/early winter in the greenhouse, but that's for another thread. There are others, as well, but they aren't vegetables, or fruit. Here is a pic of me standing with the tomatoes from my horrid cellphone my girlfriend took a month ago attached, if I had a better camera, I'd give you gents more :(

how are the watermelon doing? i heard they can be finickey...

They are doing okay, they took FOREVER to start even in the greenhouse where the temps are fairly consistent. I am just starting to see the all the vines bloom. It seems it loves heavy doses of K and really seems to enjoy the fresh air better then the greenhouse. The summer has been abnormally hot and sunny so its been a good year for most plants.

what a great idea! I'll do that too :)

I'm half way through my first year of having an allotment. SOOOO fuckign worth it. Had a hell of a lot of broad beans, even though last winter was damn cold. I've got a few kilos left that I'll probably use some to make broad bean wine. Anya pots, my fave, and all other old potatos have been great so far. Carrots are a complete cunt. Had a cabbage last week which was an off purple colour, although not a red cabbage. Onions, garlic, spring onions have been good.

I highly recommend an allotment. It's hard work but for what you get, booosh. I did take some photos the other month but I can't find them. I've got one of when I first started last year:

Did manage to find one from the other month:

What about meat?