Just curious, but as the holidays are now behind us I've noticed that the seed catalogues are showing up in my mailbox and that got me thinking about our garden . . . anyone else into gardening?
We didn't plant anything last year because we spent a good deal of the summer in the UK traveling, this year I have plans to go back to planting about an acre and a half. But doing it much differently than I have in the past. While I tend to garden on a much larger scale than some, I know others who have gardens that make mine look tiny (and they sell their excess at Farmers Markets for profit).
But even city dwellers with balconies on their apartments can do container gardens, suburban dwellers on 1/4 acre lots can actually stretch their food budgets a VERY LONG way by putting in a modest size garden and inter-planting edible shrubs into their landscape. Blueberry bushes, bush type cherries and 'dwarf' fruit trees can easily be planted in small yards adjacent to your wife's roses, petunias and marigolds.
Container gardens can be tiny, but still very productive and provide bushels of tomatoes, piles of strawberries and baskets of peppers.
If you have a spade, a garden fork, a hose and some ground it is very inexpensive to get a garden started. In fact it is IDEAL for those folks on limited incomes or who may be at risk of losing their jobs in an economic downturn because the cost of seed packets is usually about $1, often less, sometimes a bit more, but a packet of seeds can produce a crop that is often more than a family can eat over a couple month time span.
So, anyone else into gardening from the 'practical', 'tactical' or 'survival' point of view? What crops do you plant? Do you practice organic gardening? Do you practice beneficial co-planting (carrots & tomatoes, etc)? Does your family 'can' your harvest? Anyone market garden? What size is your garden? Etc....
We didn't plant anything last year because we spent a good deal of the summer in the UK traveling, this year I have plans to go back to planting about an acre and a half. But doing it much differently than I have in the past. While I tend to garden on a much larger scale than some, I know others who have gardens that make mine look tiny (and they sell their excess at Farmers Markets for profit).
But even city dwellers with balconies on their apartments can do container gardens, suburban dwellers on 1/4 acre lots can actually stretch their food budgets a VERY LONG way by putting in a modest size garden and inter-planting edible shrubs into their landscape. Blueberry bushes, bush type cherries and 'dwarf' fruit trees can easily be planted in small yards adjacent to your wife's roses, petunias and marigolds.
Container gardens can be tiny, but still very productive and provide bushels of tomatoes, piles of strawberries and baskets of peppers.
If you have a spade, a garden fork, a hose and some ground it is very inexpensive to get a garden started. In fact it is IDEAL for those folks on limited incomes or who may be at risk of losing their jobs in an economic downturn because the cost of seed packets is usually about $1, often less, sometimes a bit more, but a packet of seeds can produce a crop that is often more than a family can eat over a couple month time span.
So, anyone else into gardening from the 'practical', 'tactical' or 'survival' point of view? What crops do you plant? Do you practice organic gardening? Do you practice beneficial co-planting (carrots & tomatoes, etc)? Does your family 'can' your harvest? Anyone market garden? What size is your garden? Etc....
