Grow your own

I'm really interested in starting a garden once spring rolls around; you never know exactly when in New England though 

I hear you on that every year I jumped the gun I got burned. Now Mother's Day is my rule of them except for stuff like lettuce spinach and broccoli.

I saw the thread title and name of the person who started it and feared we may be in for a discussion on hydroponics and "that glow officer? why, it's the wife's sunbed of course."   Ah, hem, moving swiftly along...

My father-in-law grows a fairly extensive garden - lettuce, cabbage, peppers, zucchini, eggplant (aubergines for our mates across the pond), corn, and tomatoes - he also has a couple of fig trees that have done very well in the past couple of years.  My wife and I don't have the time to devote to anything near that scale, so it's just a small tomato plant and a couple of herb plants (parsley and basil) at our house.

Uptil last year's failed attempt, three tomato plants in a growbag each year has been the full extent of our veg growing - ususally variants you can't readily buy in the supermarket - normal size yellow ones (my favourite), those green stripey ones (I think they're called tiger, I'm not so sure of those but they look good in a salad) and either some cherry or beefstake depending on who wins the argument at the garden centre (me or the wife ... okay most years I lose and we grow cherry toms).

I'm more a foraging kind of person - a bit of free food is always welcome. My wife bought me a foraging/hedgerow book for christmas that I'll make good use of once the weather returns. Using the book I discovered part of my front hedge is blackthorn, so instead of trimming it every six weeks perhaps I'll let it grow-out and harvest the fruits for some sloe gin

AllP0werToSlaves wrote: thellama73 wrote: AllP0werToSlaves wrote: I'm really interested in starting a garden once spring rolls around; you never know exactly when in New England though  Spring rolls? I didn't know you could grow those in a garden. Sweet! I re-read my post after and I totally thought the same thing!

Zing!

I was thinking about starting a prog gardeners thread.  My wife and I have been doing container gardening for a few years now.  Nothing like stepping out your door and picking some fresh herbs for cooking.  Chili peppers are also amazingly easy to grow in pots.  Had some good luck with tomatillos last year.  That plant went crazy.  Didn't produce a whole heck of a lot of fruit but it gruesome.  Tomatoes don't do so well unless you grow one of the smaller varieties.  I think they need space for a deeper root system.


Edited by Slartibartfast - February 08 2011 at 20:02

timothy leary wrote: ^You are sure right about the roots on tomato plants and if unstaked wherever they hit the ground they put down new roots too. I would highly recommend sweet 100's for container growing. They are extra sweet variety of cherry tomato perfect for salads or pasta sauce. It is a challenge for them to even make it to the house since they are great right off the plant.

We put our tomatoes in cages.  Take that you evil fruit/vegetables.    What's funny is being a member of the nightshade family, people didn't want to eat them when they were first cultivated in Europe.


Edited by Slartibartfast - February 09 2011 at 06:33

I've never grown my own vegetables (except for the ones that I smoke with Mary Jane), but I have a garden patch where I grow the cooking herbs, parsley, thyme, rosemary (that's Mary Jane's sister), sage , oregano, basilic (that one is relatively tricky) and more of these..

Basil and cilantro tend to go good around here for a couple of months and then they flower and crap out. 
Speaking of Mary Jane:
So I said, Son you want to permeate
And discover the realms of the unknown
With Mary Jane
After all the other boys that are you age
They only wake to medicate
Do I know her family?
Is she even mannerly when she's out in society?
"She even bakes"
She even bakes?
"These odd brownies"  -
Tori Amos
First time I heard that song I was thinking, she isn't singing about you know what?  Yeah she is.

Aww man, speaking of rosemary, that's one that I love to do a quick stroke with and inhale the aroma that gets on my hand.  The fragrance is fantastic.  It does fairly well in containers but doesn't seem to tolerate cold weather.  Parsley (we usually do Italian) is another one of those that does well for a couple of months and then flowers and craps out.

On a side note, I can hear a owl outside.  Can anyone answer the question?  Who who who who?


Edited by Slartibartfast - February 09 2011 at 06:44