Growing your own Vegetables/eggs/fishing etc

I grow tomatoes, green beans, and some berries in my yard . . . . The problem is my dogs like the spots too, and no matter what kind of fencing I put around the garden, they still manage to get in. One dog likes to eat it, and the other likes to mark it . . .

I don't have a yard, I live in an apartment, so I am out of luck, although, some of our patients brings in garden goodies once in a while, which is very nice! :)

oh yeah,peppers,tomatoes,beans,zucchini.got the idea from my
aunt in PA.she also showed me how to can the tomatoes.great
way to eat good and save.

and you know where your food comes from (including dog pee if your dogs can get in the vegetable garden like Goudah's!)

My husband made a really strong, tight DOG AND DEER PROOF fence for me all around my garden, so thankfully we don't have that problem. He used that plastic "snow fencing" or "construction fencing" that you see that is normally bright neon flourescent orange, but he found some that was green so it really looks nice. He put those heavy metal fence posts in every 15 feet, with long canes every 5 or so to help stabalize. He even made me my tomato cages from scrap pieces of metal fencing, they are WAY stronger than the storebought ones.

I love my garden!

I thought I'd share my garden production this year. Weather wise it was a tough one, very very wet so late started planting, my goats destroyed my self-planted seedlings so had to buy a bunch from a nursery, and I planted in an area I'd not used before so some stuff worked wonderfully and others did not.

I had more bugs and I am sure they were brought in by the nursery seedlings, there were bugs, slugs and catepillars I had never even heard of! And some of the weeds too were different.

I planted 5 varrieties of tomatoes, 4 melons, corn, spaghetti squash, 3 lettuces, 2 spinach, 5 peppers and beans.

The tomatoes did the best, we have eaten them every day (seriously) both cooked and fresh, and have put up (canned, dried and froze) hopefully enough to last through the winter. And they are still producing now.

The peppers, both sweet varieties and spicy one, also did amazingly well. So many that I have been able to share some with my husbands boss without feeling like I was making a mistake for our future consumption plans. Man were they prolific!

Some of the melon did great, some didn't, but of the ones we got, they were amazing. Between 4 pairs of plants we had 11 full sized canteloupe, athenas, large seeded watermelons and small personal sized melons. They were a true luxury item as I would not have been able to buy them, and the fact that they tasted awesome was a real bonus.

The corn was crap, started too late, too much wind, then too dry, so it only produced very small ears so our 2 bottlefed coon are enjoying them for breakfast daily.

the lettuce did good until it started to bolt (seed and get bitter) so I have to plan better next year. The spinach all did amazing, but again I need to stagger my planting better so it doesn't all get ready at the same time.


The spaghetti squash was odd, had a ton of blossoms but only 3 gourds? It was on the end of the garden that did the worst, I am unsure why though? Maybe just too too too wet?

The beans did great for a couple of weeks, but I planted the hills too close together so they just overgrew and couldn't climb properly so they were choked. But we did have a couple of baskets that we enjoyed while we had them.

My apples are producing now, my "darling" goats had destroyed 2 of my 4 trees, so instead of having enough apples to can 80+ quarts of apples, I will only have 15 or so. I know one is completely dead but am hoping that the other one will survive the winter and make a comeback next year. Of the surviving 2, one produced as well as it had in the past, the other was very meagre but I think will be ok next year.

The best part of this was that I hardly had to buy any produce other than my citrus, and with my finances as they were, I likely would have really been hungry this year if it hadn't been for my garden.

Good for you smo! We have a pretty small backyard, which is mostly taken up by the swimming pool. However, my inlaws live on a large acreage, and they share their abundance with us whenever we make the drive to visit them (about 40 miles). We have also enjoyed lots of fresh produce this year--corn, cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, cantaloupe, watermelon, crenshaw melon, apples, grapefruit, oranges, peaches, onions, carrots, and probably some others that I've forgotten about.

I've also gone down a couple of times to help my mother-in-law do some canning, and I have applesauce, peaches, apricots, and lots of jam!

my 4 tomato plants started late because of weather in illinois,but my 4 pepper plants,2 zucchini plants,and 2 cucumber plants provided good output until the tomatoes came around.got good volume from all and it is almost canning time.

Alias I have heard a lot about "square foot" and "container" gardening for those who live with limited space or hard growing areas.

They may not be pretty but I have seen a lot about tomatoes growing and FLOURISHING in 5 gallon buckets, and lettuce in wood or plastic grocery crates. Also I have seen some stuff about "hanging" gardens? I think mostly tomatoes, but maybe other plants will work as well? It is something to look into at least!

good luck!

Maria I think the biggest challenge (it was for me anyway) was first sitting down and doing some research online or in MODERN gardening books about what does well in your area.

I made so many mistakes and am glad that some of the things did as well as they did. I was in a hurry and again was delayed by the rain, but I made too many excuses not to weed or bug my husband to put the fences and trellis' up that by the time the ground was dry enough, I had a LOT to do rather than a little.

If you are doing it for your first time, start small! Prepare the ground in the fall for what you will plant in the spring, it will make your spring ground preparation that much easier. Find someone near you with horses, chickens, goats, etc, and ask them if you can rake up their yard for some fertilizer. Don't spend money buying it from Home Depot or somewhere like that. Spend the winter deciding what to plant, how to fence it/trellis is, etc. Planning ahead of time is half of the battle. Pick a few things that do well in your area, and that don't take too much effort, and start there.

I had the fencing, fence poles, canes, zip ties, twine and scrap fencing for trellis'/cages so it did not cost me anything for the "permanent" parts of my garden. I can reuse those things next year, just change them to fit what will work better.

Prepare your ground now. Borrow or rent a tiller, they should cost about $30-50 for a half day. Don't try to do it with hand tools, you will kill yourself and your family.

Start your seedlings in the winter. Don't wait until spring. Start saving tin cans, yogurt containers, juice cans, etc, or you can make your own newspaper pots that break down when you plant them. Don't bother buying those peat pots, they are expensive. You should buy potting soil for the seedlings, it does cost $5-10 per bag but having "clean" soil will make the seedlings stronger and healthier.

Have a compost pile or bin working all the time. There are lots of online sources or pm me.

I don't have much of a yard to ggrow anything, heck we are having a hard time even growing grass in the yard lol. But I do visit the farmers market weekly. Most of them are elderly and I would much rather buy my fruits and veggies cheaper from them plus it provides them with some much needed extra income. We do hunt and fish. I have a freezer full of lake pearch and venison. If we have a good hunting year we will trade venison for other meats from fellow hunters. Plus in the small town I live in we know farmers and when they are ready to butcher some of their beef we will buy a 1/4 of a cow and they sell it for $1.50 a pound and you have to pay for the processing. Plus our daughter works for Jack's pizza so we always have frozen pizzas in our freezer thanks to her. We are lucky that we know people so we can save on food. But you can always go to your local meat market (not supermarket) and they often sell 1/4's of beef for about $1.99-$2.10 a pound and you will get steaks,roasts and hamburger and it is much cheaper than the supermarket. It comes from a local farmer unlike the supermarkets you have no clue where that comes from. You can also get pork the same way. It is another way to save on your food bill and help the local economy. You will pay a big chunk at one time but in the long run it saves you. Because a 1/4 of beef averages 180-200 pounds. But if you add up the cost of buying the meat seperate you will save hundreds.

i agree about the meat market.. i always end up saving money that way

As my name suggests, I make soap for a living. I sell my products at a huge farmers market so each week I bring home tons of veggies, most of which are being frozen for the winter. Now is the time to stock up on peppers..at least at my market red peppers are going for 50 cents and under. Peppers, celery, zuccini, squash,green beans...buy them up and freeze them for the winter!! Farmers market eggs....buy the jumbo ones. The eggs at my market are sooo big that I only have to use 1 egg when a recipe calls for 2 so they end up being cheaper. You can generally find out when they were laid and if you store the in the coldest part of your fridge, they will last 2 months!! In some cases, farmers market prices might seem higher but generally you are getting freshed picked and higher quality...the veggies will last longer and taste way better!!

Soaplady, I always wondered about your name! Now I'm happy to know why you call yourself "Soaplady"!! :D :D

I wondered too!

Soap have you noticed an increase/decrease in shoppers at the farmers market, or noticed an increase/decrease in the farmers? Have your sales gone up, down, or are they steady?

About freezing down things, how do you guys do it? I mean without canning or drying them? I had a lot of cherry tomatoes so I just bagged them up in sandwich bags and froze them, but I'm not sure how to do the sweet/green/colored peppers or the spicy peppers. Can I cut them up and do them the same way, or do I need to cook them first? I am trying to save time and energy and since they'll just be cooked in a dish anyway, do I need to cook them first?

Whenever I have a pepper that I don't use entirely, or I have peppers in the refrigerator that I'm not going to use before they spoil, I chop them and put them in a freezer bag just the way they are. They work fine for using in recipes. I do the same thing with onions.

There are some vegetables that you need to blanche before freezing them though.

I do the same as you do with onions, I chop one, use part, bag that up for the freezer, look at my cutting board, knife and smelly hands and figure "what the heck" and continue chopping onions. Then normally I'm only chopping and being smelly once a week or so :)

Do you know what vegetables need to be blanched before freezing? I only have tomatoes, peppers and a bit of squash now.

Tomatoes don't need to be blanched, but frozen/thawed tomatoes are only good for cooking, of course. Here is a good link about freezing them:

lancaster.unl.edu/food/ciqtomatoes.shtml

Squash is one that needs to be blanched. Here is some info. about that:

uga.edu/nchfp/how/freeze/squash_summer.html

There is also a link on the squash page that will take you to general information about blanching.