Growing Food, Community

[helwen]

A number of folks I know had veggie/fruit gardens this year, some for the first time. Some had more success than others, some had mixed successes, and some ended up having some problems, either because of lighting or air quality or something.

I think gwynt_y_storm had the best overall success. I didn't put my peas in quite the right place, but have enough for seeds for next year. The chamomile suffered from my lack of attention I suspect... too busy with fixing up the house. I plan on potting the few survivors to see if I can coax them to get some height. Might be a little too shady where they are... but overall I don't have complaints about how the garden did. The Liberty apple tree is doing amazingly well this year, and I'm giving away tomatoes and kale because of not having time to do all the canning I wanted to do.

It's good to have the extra to give though, since some folks' gardens didn't do as well this year. I'd have enough to give, even if I did have lots of time for canning. And of course gwynt_y_storm and her family have plenty and have been doing their usual thing of passing on the extra to others -- the management office at the apartment complex is a good one, and arranges for food to go to those who need it.

I was thinking on how this year was working out as far as food for now and for the winter, (I will be able to put some of the tomatoes up, and dry some of the kale for soup stock after all), and was feeling grateful to belong to a community that is trying to be more self-supporting.

Many house viewers commented on how well the tomatoes are doing, and a few asked if I was raising them to sell. I hadn't thought of selling any, but it did make me think on how in our modern monoculture set-up, we are dependent on so much not going wrong with our food supply. For instance, if Florida or California have problems with their crops (hurricanes or frost), citrus prices go up. Anyone remember learning about the great potato famine in Ireland?

On a much smaller scale, some of us here did well and others not so well. We didn't charge our friends extra (or anything, to be honest) for food we had -- we just want everyone to have access to good healthy food. I suppose we could always sell at the market, or do some barter, in the future. All these things have their place in the scheme of things. And heaven knows that some of the folks I've given food to, have been a great help to me this summer/fall -- a few veggies are hardly fair compensation -- but we're friends, and know that these deeds and favors will be returned over the years.

I was just thinking it was nice to not have to worry about getting some healthy food to eat, without having to worry about cost or long distances.

And as time goes one, at least some of us will worry less about some of the harder to get foods too -- I know I'm not the only one thinking about building a greenhouse for growing some of the more tropical foods - lemons, oranges, cinnamon, chile peppers, etc. I was reading last week about how the price of food is expected to go up a lot over the next few years, so the greenhouse plan is looking better and better all the time. There are some reasonable ones on the market -- although we'll be making ours, of course!

Comments

[joyeuse60.livejournal.com]

Re:chamomile... I don;'t think it was your skill in gardening that is the reason why they have not achieved the height you had hoped for. I have been growing it for several years now and I have found that in year 1 the plants don't grow very high.... in year 2 you get a mid sized plant which you can harvest lightly.. in year 3 you can really harvest heavily and then the plant seems to die, but since it self seeds that is not a problem. It seems the trick is to get it to self seed every year and then you always have some plants that are at year 3 stage.

Or at least that is how my chamoile has been going here in the Maritimes

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Ah! So it's like echinacea then... Thanks for the info -- can you tell it's my first time growing it from seed? :D

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

I really hope to have something of a veggie garden next year. Don't know what I'll put in just yet; the long-term plan is to take a small patch of lawn that we have on one side of the driveway and put in raised beds there but I don't see it happening for next growing season. My short-term goal in that arena is to get the compost pile built and started this fall.

Ultimately I'd like to be growing herbs (but I want to do those in containers that I can bring in for the winter), zucchini, maybe some tomatoes for M, cucumbers, green beans, peppers (bell and hot), broccoli. And maybe a small bed of strawberries. Oh, and cantaloupes. I'm well-versed in the tradition of "pass the extra off to your neighbors" - it's just what you do. My parents ALWAYS have more strawberries than they know what to do with (they freeze the extras and eat them on ice cream pretty much year round) and used to always be giving away tomatoes. This summer one of our neighbors has stopped by a couple of times with excess from her garden - swiss chard once, a huge bag of cherry tomatoes another time.

If you can grow bell peppers, you can grow chili peppers. I believe you can do them indoors (sans greenhouse), too, though I've never tried.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Your future garden sounds good :) I've also found that some years I just have to grow fewer kinds of things -- depends on how much I'm doing that year.

The greenhouse is so I have enough room, when the lemon trees get larger (even dwarfs take up space). The main challenge with the chili peppers is finding the plants/seeds. None available locally, so I'll have to order them.

I should mention here that even with the garden, we've gotten veggies from our folks at the farm this summer -- they grow different stuff than I do. And this year I got to bring up lettuce for salads, on a couple of our trips up there to work/hang out.

Hmmm, maybe next year I'll try selling at the Ashfield Farmer's Market.... or maybe I'll just keep trading with friends and family :)

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

Our cool neighbors are moving away, but while they were here, we had gardenswap.
Stuff that we didn't grow, we got from them, and vice versa.

My successes were onions and brussels sprouts, the leeks were too much trouble for too little return and the melons were too many square feet for too little return.

The asparagus is the best thing we have, and I'll put in more raspberries soon.

I missed the cherries this year, I was out the day they ripened.

Next year I must spray my apples, which upsets me terribly. I have fungus as well as bugs.

Nothing to preserve, but a start.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a pretty good start.

Yes, our apple trees could use some sort of treatment too. I think there's a spray made of natural stuff out there, not sure. They're doing pretty well even so -- I've watered them a couple of times this summer, figuring that if they aren't strained in other ways, they have an improved chance to fight off the diseases.

We had an attempt at caterpillar infestation earlier in the year. Fortunately I noticed and we removed them and destroyed them. Good luck with your apples!