Some things are just super easy to grow, others take so much effort its too much for the average person. But hell yeah, grow ur own food if u are lucky enough to own a garden.
Yeah. When I lived in NW Florida (ugh), jalapenos grew like weeds in a small pot. Always had way too many.
Also a fun fact: in early spring you can often see green grass-like shoots growing before the grass starts and are quite tall. Those are wild alliums, the same family as garlic, onions and scallions.
Technically it's poisonous to dogs, yeah. It's a mild poison, but like chocolate (and grapes and raisins), they shouldn't have it.
Leeks are part of the Allium family (which also includes onion, chives, and garlic) and are poisonous to dogs and cats. Garlic is considered to be about 5-times as potent as onion and leeks. Certain breeds and species are more sensitive, including cats and Japanese breeds of dogs (e.g., Akita, Shiba Inu).
Grapes and raisins are a different class. Alliums and chocolate are bad, sure, but if your dog has a bad reaction to grapes and really raisins, it can be 2-3 raisins cause kidney failure. They’re not quite sure about the mechanism, only that it doesn’t take much and isn’t an always thing.
Oh yes, they're not a "mild" on the poison scale compared to like, grass onion and such.
Very true.
I know cultivated onion and garlic are definitely poisonous to dogs. (and cats) I'm not sure though if wild allium contains the same chemical, and in the same amount, but it would be likely, which could easily lead to the hemolytic anemia.
It might benefit you to know that pepper plants can be kept alive nearly indefinitely if you give them good enough conditions. So if you keep them in a pot, you can trim them and move them inside over cold months (bare stems is fine as long as they don’t dry out), and then in spring they are already super well established and big and start putting out peppers really early.
I never do well with new pepper plants, but second season they produce like crazy.
Thanks you for the tips, I actually didn't know they were perennial. That said, I think they just aren't too fond of the climate here. I'd need a greenhouse (and space outdoors) or a heating mat and a decent sun light. I tried with chilies the other year, and even got a few fruits, but they were small and never ripened. The plant really struggled. To be fair, the plant was an experiment from the get-go. I germinated it from seeds I got in a cheapo chili flake jar from Lidl so I didn't have huge expectations to begin with.
I live in Norway and one year I planted 10 chili plants. I treated those plants like royalty and in the end I got like maybe 2 chilis per plant lol
I will note that when I moved to MD the plant did well but grew like 1 pepper all year. Gave up after that. Heartburn also made it less viable to eat so many. :p
I'm not sure what MD is, my brain just thinks "markdown" or medicine doctor. I hope your heartburn is doing better now!
Oooh, right! I didn't know that was a place, my only reference to Maryland is a brand of biscuits. Thank you!
I have to ask. When I hear Maryland I think of a biscuit brand. Is Maryland known for chocolate chip biscuits or is the biscuit brand completely unrelated?
I've never heard of that before but I did find this when I looked:
https://www.burtonsbiscuits.com/our-brands/maryland-cookies/
The growing season is so short here, you need to start them inside 2 months before planting them outside if you want them ready before the first frost in sept gets them.
Could always get a little tent and a grow light to grow them indoors. Peppers need decent light
Florida gardener too.
Jalapenos do great, okra grows in the summer! The summer! Mustard greens will too, and the Stokes. Purple sweet potatoes. In the cooler seasons, collards, lettuces, fennel, I've had surprising success with broccoli and cauliflower. Tomatoes I can grow whenever but birds eat them. Radishes fail me every time. No carrots or radishes have worked, ever.. I just learned asparagus is perennial here, going to try that too.
My wife and I just moved from a townhouse to an actual house with a backyard so we can garden again. We're around the Sarasota Area and the yard is really soft and sandy. Pretty sure something's digging under there which is why it's so soft... But they were there first so what're ya gonna do. Any suggestions for planting this summer? Definitely gonna try Okra
Congratulations, I didn't know anyone could afford a house in Sarasota right now, wow!
Yes to okra, it loves our summer, unless you have the nematodes that love it more than we do. Jalafuego hybrid jalapenos are robust plants and spicy peppers that can survive summer. Hibiscus likes our summer, and you are far enough south to grow mangoes.
For the garden garden you might do better with raised bed and some better soil over the sandy soil, but mangoes and citrus like it. "Well drained" as they say.
Oh God no we're still renting. We bounced around the idea of buying something but prices are insane, and we're not sure we want to settle in Florida. The home insurance cost and the increasing risk of big storms would make me too anxious.
Thanks for the advice! We were definitely thinking raised beds, but wanted to try our luck with a few in-ground things.
Oh i have no idea, i have never grown garlic so far.
Often you can get hardier breeds and i would expect it to be possible in the UK as longs as its not freezing.
This looks like a decent guide. Basically lots of sun, not too much water, lil bit of fertilizer and you are sure to get something.
Yeah pretty easy, have a go. Maybe a bit too mild to be ideal but if we're talking home production that doesn't matter much. There's a big farm on the Isle of Wight so we can't be too far off.
It's relatively easy, because most pests won't eat it and they are pretty frost resistant. There are winter and summer varieties, so don't mix them up.
Garlic is fine unless you're way up north, it's semi hardy so won't like a prolonged or hard frost but will survive outside just fine.
Lettuce and tomatoes are surprisingly good value. I'd put them top tier.
Not sure what else is really good. Beans are easy but you never get enough.
You don't like boomer humor knee slapper jokes like
"My wife is a bitch, please take her"
And
"Oh look it's a homosexual"
?
I don't think I've ever seen "oh look it's a homosexual" as a boomer humor joke, but definitely a lot of using LGBT as a sideshow.
Hang with my dad for a bit. When he’s lucid, he’ll pop Forrest Gump voices, poke fun at gender neutral pronouns and talk loudly in the open about my gay neighbors (who are amazing). All this often leads to a fight and learning that it’s not ok to verbally abuse boomers, but it’s ok for them to verbally abuse everyone else. This privilege comes with age.. so I’m told.
Trust me, you’re not missing out
As another millennial... you're not wrong, but you basically put the bar on the floor there. The funniest thing about most boomer humor is that they actually think they're clever.
I keep having this glitch where I'm stuck in the opening scene with the jojo cubicle. I'm supposed to get a letter telling me I've inherited a farm but that hasn't happened yet, anyone else got this bug?
Neighbor tried to plant potatoes. She got about six pounds worth of top and no tuber.
We spent weeks debugging and still don't know what went wrong.
Potatoes you have to keep mounding up with dirt to force the plant to grow more roots (tubers) instead of the leafy tops.
Potato tubers are not actually roots. They are modified stems. So the surest way to force more potatoes is to “hill” them. In the commercial fields this is done with a huge tractor raking soil from in between planting rows and piling it up on the plants. You essentially bury the plants stem as it grows taller. Then the buds on the stem will push out stolons (horizontal underground stems.) these will terminate in tubers, aka: potatoes!
Source: did potato disease research for my PhD.
Additional edit: loose/sandy soil is critical. Too dense of soil and your tubers can’t expand well.
Warning: I am not a beet expert. But I believe beets are actual roots. Just like carrots. And I think you only get one beer per plant? Burying the stem would just make it harder for new leaves to come up.
Potatoes are pretty unique in this sense. Even sweet potatoes are not the same.
All stems and leaves and flowers and shit. But no potatoes growing in the roots of the plants.
The leafy top is called a haulm and on commercial farms the harvester has a header that removes the haulm before the main part of the harvester scoops up the potatoes. Anyone who's played Farming Simulator is familiar with these machines, such as the Ropa Panther 2.
Nitrogen grows green leaves, Phosphorus and Potassium help with root growth. Those are the 3 elements are the ones you are trying to keep in balance. Or more in one direction depending on the plant.
Obviously there is a bit more to it then that, but that's the general idea.
You can just take the bottom bulb from green onions, and just stick it into some dirt. Even when they're old and the green parts are slimy. I never bother watering, and they do just fine.
You can even stick them in a glass of water to get them to freshen up a little, but without dirt for nutrients, they will thin out and die eventually.
Tomatoes works too, paprika take the seeds out dry them a week plant them (inside first), etc.
Do this with a regular onion, especially if you've already got one in the pantry trying to sprout. As it grows you'll get onion greens that work just like scallions in any recipe. Let it go to seed, now you have infinite onions, but depending on your local climate and luck, leave your original onion bulb to winter, and shoot again, and it has probably split into new bulbs, so you'll probably get 2 new onions from the plant, plus onion greens, plus seeds. Eat one bulb, and leave the other bulb to grow more onion greens.
I've never bothered using the seeds, I just keep a bulb or two in the pot. Been 5 years. I still buy onions if I want something like onion jam or French onion soup, where I need like 1kg of onions. But Ive never had to buy scallions, and I've got onion flavour all year long through onion greens (you can dehydrate them, and freeze them really easily too, to store them when you have more than you can use)
I also highly recommend throwing peas into a large tray of soil. Litteraly just grab a bunch of aluminium foil disposable oven pans if you need to, stab some holes in them with a knife, an inch or two of soil, some dried whole peas or fresh garden peas, a sprinkle of more soil or just a wet sheet of kitchen roll/paper towel on top.
You probably won't get peas, but you'll have tons of pea tendrils for salads. On my balcony it's the only "salad green" I've had any luck growing. I have a pretty black thumb. I can't even manage to sprout chia seeds without them moulding, and I've never been able to grow mint despite broad casting mint seeds directly into my garden, urging the gardening gods to spite me with weedy mint but no dice.
When I buy peas, 4/5ths go in the fridge to eat, the other 5th gets planted, and I'll get ~10 dishes from the tendrils vs 1 dish from the peas. Nutritionally the peas have more protein, but lentils are cheap, salad is expensive, so this works for my budget.
The trick with garlic is to just bury it everywhere in your garden where there's space, no need for a vegetable garden. The leaves take minimal space and digging them back up only requires making a small hole, plus they apparently keep some pests away.
It's happy in a pot on the windowsill, doesn't much care about soil quality, can be harvested just for the greens.
I plant it everywhere though.
This is accurate; grocery store tomatoes are bred for durability rather than taste. The canned tomatoes down the soup aisle are honestly better than the fresh ones in the produce section. A large pot in a sunny corner of your back porch can do a lot better than your local supermarket.
depends on who grows them, we finally started getting domestic tomatoes in stores again here in sweden and they actually smell and taste like tomatoes should.
They don't need to use the ones that are bred for durability if the shipping takes like an hour by truck..
Here in America? If you want higher quality farm-grown produce find a farmer's market, the supermarket is going to make the most spreadsheet friendly decision every single time.
If they are not organic they put fertilizers on them which is basically salt that makes the cells swell with water but not nutrition nor taste.
Supposed to be even more, particularly because you can pick at peak ripeness. Store ones they pick far beyond ripe so they transport and handle better.
yes, and the same goes for pretty much every other vegetable (and fruit, for that matter) out there.
Guy next door grows potatoes in a dozen old bathtubs. He is really old and hasn't bought any supermarket-potatoes in centuries.
You can feed your dog tomatoes, and you don't even have to bother with seeding!
Or fertilizer!
Cries in having no sunlight in the apartment. Mine didn't survive the dark apartment life, so can't confirm.
Picking up gardening at any age is a good thing not only as a way to stay active and keep your pantry better stocked but you also get a good sense of accomplishment
New life hack: this is what some of the very first human civilizations did to spend their time
Pretty sure it's this youtuber called Pro Home Cook. He and his brother used to do home recipes with limited pantry size and tools. But he got too big and started doing fermentation, sprouting, brewing and gardening.
Gardening is cool and absolutely can decrease your spending, but I want to take a moment to talk about how the efficiency of a home garden will never match industrial farming and that the cost effectiveness of fertilizers required to grow all of your own food would negate the savings unless you've got your own ammonia mine and recycle all of your poop.
I love talking about this stuff so I was wondering if you plan to treat the urine with sodium to make urea as a nitrate fertilizers and if so what sodium source are you using?
There’s also nitrogen in the sun, but you wont see me store the sun together with my precious poop ever, boss
Compost is a home project (and available in some cities as part of the waste management system) and nutritious for plants; but most of the things I grow as food I don't fertilize much or any. The fruit trees once a year or so, the garden soil sometimes in between planting or when growing watermelon or squash, bigger things do need some extra fertilizer (and tomatoes like some) but most seem to do fine with good soil and crop rotation/companion planting. Farmers have to use more because they've depleted the soil with monoculture. I still don't think it's cost effective when time is factored in, but it's better fresher food and not as fussy as farming.
Genius, you just keep putting back less than you take and it lasts forever~! How come nobody thought of that? Snark put aside for a moment, I think composting on a large scale should be done, even in urban environments, but it won't impact the statement I made even a single bit.
Dunno what to tell you - different plants put different things into and out of the soil, we cut the grass in the yard, and the bushes and things, all sorts of stuff can go into the pile that becomes nutrients and of course plants eat sunshine, not just soil nutrients. It's been working a few years and the soil keeps improving.
Farming is a whole different thing and more reliant on fertilizer.
Industrial farming, as commonly practiced, is unsustainable. We basically just turn fossil fuels into food, and degrade our environment (including our food production capacity) while doing it.
Vegetable gardening can definitely save you money, including negations. Most people, including myself, just do it as a hobby though.
I started vegetable gardening last year, and all my inputs, so far, have been free (with the exception of seeds, seed starting soil, and various inexpensive tools). I've used chicken manure from Craigslist (had to shovel it myself), home made compost (grass/weed clippings, arborist wood chips, kitchen scraps), and sometimes urine for extra nitrogen (lol). I've noticed that with adding compost on top of my soil, I don't really need much, if any, fertilizer (manure or urine).
Nitrogen-fixing plants can also be used to bring more nitrogen into your little garden ecosystem.
I haven't used any pesticides or herbicides. I just hand pull any weeds when I see them and mulch with either wood chips or paper with compost on top. I hand-pick caterpillars when I see them (or hunt for them when I see a lot of damage), and just throw them into my lawn (they don't seem to be able to make it back).
I'm still learning and experimenting, and have had certain species decimated by pests (brassicas), but I think I can experiment with timing, varieties, and hope natural predators will move in (I started planting plants in my perrenial beds that are supposed to attract beneficial insects, and put a birdhouse near my garden). If I find I can't grow certain crops or varieties well in my environment, I just won't. I save the seeds from my healthiest plants, so hopefully, this will eventually select for varieties that do well in my particular conditions.
No matter how you slice it, surviving completely off of home gardening would not be any more sustainable than industrial agriculture. Just more costly.
Efficiency in produce per monetary cost. But for efficiency of human health per natural resources, I think gardening might be a winner.
I think you're abstracting too much to try and make your point. What on earth does "efficiency of human health per natural resources" mean in comparison to "efficiency in produce per monetary cost". I think youre just lost in a little too much sauce when trying to justify your view.
I mean, say you have a certain amount of natural resources (land, chemicals, organisms) and you want to maximise health; or you have a certain standard of health and want to minimise resources used.
To put it another way, I think if across the whole of society we had more small-scale gardening that would be a benefit to human health and the environment compared to exclusively using large scale farming.
Conversely, if the goal is maximum financial profit, or absolute quantity of produce, it is more 'efficient' - i.e. more quantity of your goal for less quantity of your cost - to do large scale farming.
It was already well established that only the wealthy can afford a consistently healthy lifestyle, but thanks for chiming in.
Defeatist is accepting a system that harms the poor. Separating yourself from the system is unrealistic for the vast majority and doesn't fix it.
That seems to be what you're doing. "Only the wealthy can live healthy" and giving up on discussion to change that.
I see solutions to make Industrial Agriculture work to help all people: land redistribution, regulation, subsidization of what is actually needed. I see no way to make gardens at home work for every person, it's a complete nonstarter.
You're the defeatist, here. You're fleeing from the problems.
*proposes way to help*
"Noo! You're fleeing from the problems"
Good. You go ahead and work on you proposals to improve industrial agriculture. I might not think that's a complete solution, but it's not defeatist. Saying, "only the wealthy can eat healthy" and leaving it at that, sounded defeatist.
But I hope you can agree my support of more people doing home gardening - also not a complete solution - is a suggestion of how to improve things, not defeatist. You might disagree with its utility. You certainly disagree with it being a solution for everybody. But need you attack it as defeatist and running from problems?
Okay I've re-read back to your first comment and I think I see what you mean, now.
You mean, that you see gardening as something available only to the wealthy, so discussion of gardening helping with health is of no relevance/help to the question of how to improve the situation for the less wealthy, right?
I see your point. When I chimed in with gardening's 'efficiency', I wasn't trying to think of it as a solution for all people. That said, I do think some of the less industrial methods of farming are worth more effort. Maybe more people having gardens, rooftop aquaponics allotments. Small/local farming collectives. These things can help the balance be more in favour of getting the most health and human benefit, rather than the most money for shareholders and owners.