Monday, August 6, 2012

How does your garded grow?

I realize that most of you would rather die an agonizing death than to put the ole lady on the handlebars of your Huffy bicycle and peddle her ass on over to the homeless shelter soup kitchen to get something to eat, no matter how hungry you are. So bread lines and soup kitchens are definitely not in the cards for you.

Digging in the trash behind the local Piggly-Wiggly will provide a lot of usable food. Most people though feel this is too demeaning. They feel it is beneath them. After all, what would their friends and family say about such behavior? Time to look into more conventional strategies to put grub on the table.

The “respectable” approach to cheap food acquisition is of course to grow as much of the stuff as you possibly can. Growing your own food is one of the best strategies you can implement in your quest to achieve an independent and self-sufficient life. If you can only grow a small portion of the food you consume you will still be able to reduce the amount of money you spend at the grocery store significantly.

While it may be too late in the season for you to start a “survival” garden you should still start thinking about one for next year. With the drought we are currently experiencing, and with inflation on the rise you can only expect food prices to go up. So start planning now and get yourself ahead of the game.

Go to your local public library and read as many books as you can on the subject. Even the smallest public library will have dozens of books about gardening so you’re sure to find much valuable information. The internet is of course a gold mine for such info. Plan now for next year’s food supply and you won’t have much to worry about when the price of groceries gets so high that you have to go to bed hungry every night. The following chart will give you some basic info you can use to start planning your garden for next season.



 Ease of growing
Suitable for freezing
Length of growing season
Yield (lbs. per square foot)
Tolerates frost
Asparagus
medium
yes
52 wks.
3.3
yes
Eggplants
easy
yes
9 wks.
11.0
no
Beet
medium
yes
8 wks.
4.4
yes
Fava beans
medium
yes
20 wks.
8.8
yes
broccoli
medium
yes
8 wks.
4.4
yes
Brussels sprouts
easy
yes
8 wks.
3.3
yes
Cabbages
easy
yes
10 wks.
8.8
yes
Carrots
medium
yes
8-12 wks.
4.4
yes
Cauliflower
difficult
yes
8-10 wks.
10.0
yes
Celery
difficult
yes
14 wks.
8.8
yes
Chicory
difficult
no
12 wks.
0.9
yes
Chinese cabbage
easy
yes
8 wks.
3.3
no
Zucchini
easy
yes
8 wks.
3.3
no
Cucumbers
easy
no
8 wks.
6.6
no
Snap beans
difficult
no
8 wks.
4.4
no
Garlic
medium
no
12 wks.
4.4
yes
Jerusalem artichokes
easy
no
52 wks.
5.5
yes
Kale
easy
yes
10 wks.
3.3
yes
Lettuces
easy
no
7 wks.
2.2
no
Leeks
medium
yes
18-20 wks.
3.3
yes
Snow peas
easy
no
12 wks.
3.3
no
Melons
medium
no
7 wks.
3.3
no
Okra
easy
no
7 wks.
4.4
no
Onions
medium
yes
10-26 wks.
3.3
no
Parsnips
medium
yes
14 wks.
3.3
yes
Peas
easy
yes
12 wks.
6.6
no
Peppers
easy
yes
9 wks.
3.3
no
Potatoes
easy
yes
14-22 wks.
6.6
no
Pumpkins
easy
yes
8 wks.
6.6
no
Radishes
easy
no
3 wks.
0.9
yes
Spinach
easy
yes
6 wks.
3.3
yes
Squashes
easy
no
8 wks.
4.4
no
Sweet corn
easy
yes
10 wks.
1.1
no
Tomatoes
easy
yes
10 wks.
5.5
no
Turnips
easy
yes
6-10 wks.
3.3
no








4 comments:

  1. With all due respect, now is a great time to plant a fall garden. Anything you have marked as "easy" and "tolerates frost" is a decent candidate.

    This also is a great time to plant rye and wheat. These are not as hard as people think. I just weed whack down to the bare soil, rake off the grass, broadcast the seed, and cover it back up with the cut grass. It might not be the prettiest or most productive, but it is easy and cheap. My local feed store has rye for $0.60 a pound.

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  2. John, thanks for commenting. A fall garden is certainly not a bad idea. Anyone wanting to cut down on the amount of money they spend at the grocery store should grow as much food as they can...whenever they can.

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  3. Check out Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening. I ran into an old copy at the library bookstore. It was a PBS type of TV series. It is a great reference for high yield gardening for the small household. For first time gardeners with just concrete(ie apartment living), you can do container gardening without containers. Buy your potting soil (in bags) when on sale. The bag is the planting container. Simply lay the bag where you want your garden. Make little cross slits to plant your seedlings or seeds. Be sure to poke a few drainage holes. You don't want to drown your plants. Let the soil stay moist, but not soggy. Start with something easy like lettuce.

    You can start with just a small bag of potting soil and try mixed greens (mesclum) mix. You will be surprised at how many plants fit in a small space. The beauty of lettuce type crops is you can simply pick the outer leaves from several different little plants to make a little side salad. You don't have to hack the whole plant like you get in the grocery. The constant "mini-harvest" also keeps the plant busy putting out more leaves which can help confuse the plant and delay bolting -- which is when lettuce tries to make lettuce seeds and the leaves start turning bitter.

    Ultimate cheap-ass would be to get free soil when stores throw out damaged bags of soil. Yes, tin cans, plastic cups, milk jugs, whatever, can work well for container gardening.

    Also try plants like broccoli. When the main head is harvested, some varieties continue to put out numerous side mini-heads. Also, a cherry tomato plant is easy to grow.

    For more serious, larger scale cheap-ass gardening, check with your local county extension. Many of them have free mulch as well as a tons of information. But check on what kind of mulch. Sometimes it is Christmas trees that have been chipped down. It might be mixed landscape "green" trash which may include a variety of who knows what ... including weeds ... but maybe some pleasant surprises.

    It is a great way to save money, eat organic if you like, and eat healthy ---- to compensate for the dumpster trash stash of candy bars.

    Tapi Oka
    Southern California ---Granola -- Land of the flakes, nuts, and fruits.

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  4. To keep all that food cool (without power) you might try one of these ideas (I am not associated with any of these web sites and you might be able to google better plans for these but I wanted to add links so you'd understand what I was talking about)
    1) evaporation frig (pot in pot)
    http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Pot-in-a-Pot-Refrigerator (zeer pot)
    2)rammed earth root cellar
    http://okiciyapi.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/rammed-earth-tires-pallets-scrub-pine-root-cellar/
    3) Do you have a stream? I can't find a link for this one but make sure food is in water tight containers and submerge in a 'cage' made from two milk crates into a stream that is at or below 45 degrees F for dairy, meats or other touchy foods.

    Cooking can be done in a solar ovens or rocket stoves and there are many sites that show how to build these.

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