Garden for your Fresh Vegetables

I grew up helping my Grandfather plant and care for a garden. My Mothers family had 6 Brothers and Sisters, They produced 26 Grandchildren, I was the eldest of the Grandsons  so I was to help with feeding the family. My Grandmother Canned many quarts of Vegetables. I also was a traveling Vegetable vendor in our small town pulling my wagon of goods door to door selling a little extra produce. Granddads way to help me some, for my labor. Granddads knowledge passed to me has helped with planting a garden for my family. 

I asked a few questions at the top of the the page.

Feel free to add.  What is your story?

Me & my daughter garden year round, it's alot of fun.

We do organic gardening indoors, conventional gardening outdoors - we always do lots of tomatos, sometimes we'll toss in various bean stalks, corn, peppers, onions, brocolli, cauliflower, potatos, etc. We also have black rasberries, grapes & blueberry bushes in the back yard that we snack on through the summer.

Plus we go on "adventures" into the woods and stuff and we'll pick mulberries in the spring &  gather black walnuts in the fall, etc.

This past summer we put out our first real garden. We called it our learning garden cause we sure had a lot to learn. We will put another one out this year as well. My goal is to have enough to take us through part of the winter. I have not ever canned, but I will freeze what I can. I have three girls, and they make good garden helpers.

My husband did most of the garden last year. I said I wanted one and he ran with it. He started his seeds in April maybe? May? This summer with it being bigger I will be out there more I'm sure. He loves the planting and growing part - I love the cooking part. 

I would love to learn about composting.....

Richard, what is your indoor gardening? Foods or house plants?

We like to plant Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans, the girls are developing a taste for turnips, we added a few Butternut squash plants the last few years, I made some really good Bread, almost like zucchini bread.. just with Butternut squash instead.. It was Nummy Num, Num..

What Items did you freeze, and how well did they last?

We tried our hand at it the last 3 years. We soon learned no meat or bones though.. Our lesson learning was green, then brown, more green, then brown. Such as grass then sticks small ones, more grass, more brown along with table scraps.. also turning it once a week.. did pretty good for our first time and we are still learning..

Great thread! AFP lives! ;)

I'd hand out some points, but it seems new member Total_Mayhem has already climbed the ranks with point gifts from other members. Again, great thread.

Total,

This year our indoor garden consists mostly tomatos (italian beefsteak, roma & cherry), a few trial potatos (they however are not doing well indoors) & a couple of jalapeno pepper plants (who like the potato plants have also been completely shaded out by the monsterous beefsteak tomato plants.

Thank you Kpaul.. And also the offer of points..

I'm just glad to read the information from others, and share..

I would like to hear from anyone with there successes as we all should think about planting a bit of food As Spring approaches..

Compost recipe from somewhere, sorry I don't remember the link to the site..

Create a base of 3- 4" woody,brushy material to promote aeration don't not mix into pile.

Alternate layers of green and brown materials; keep the layers 2"- 4" deep. Common green (nitrogen) materials are grass, food scraps (uncooked fruit and vegetables, coffee grounds, filters, tea bags and egg shells) (wet), garden trimmings. Common brown (carbon) materials are, fall leaves, straw and newspaper strips (dry). Chop up larger materials for faster decomposition.

Whenever you add a food scrap layer, make sure you sprinkle it with soil and then cap off with a brown layer to prevent smells and flies.

Mix contents often (minimum once every two weeks). This introduces air and starts heating up again. Mix older materials with newer materials for faster decomposition.

Moisture content should be like a wrung out dish rag. Only add water if pile is very dry after mixing.

Pile will shrink. Continue to add and mix. Place carpet on surface of pile to retain heat and moisture.

Compost is generally ready to use when it looks like humus (after about two to three months). However, aging the compost for another 1 to 2 months is recommended.

Do the Cherry tomatoes do well with low light or do you supplement them with growing light. Do you have a greenhouse setup.. Or just growing in a Southern view in home window environment.?