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Arnold of Soissons
Mar 4, 2011

by XyloJW

What caused you to make the trees zionists?

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PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Captain Bravo posted:

Honey is awesome and anyone who suggests attracting a species of bee that doesn't produce honey should be ignored. :colbert:

Very true. Honey is one of the only food products that I eat practically every day in some form.

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp
The proper maintenance of bees is a symbiotic, mostly hands off, process that yields wax and honey, both of which are highly medicinal and can be used as food preservatives unlike sugar cane product. It's a very efficient use of ecological niches that otherwise are ignored.

Farmers that use naturalized methods will typically plant flowering perennials that shed or can be cut back for biomass accumulation, such as burdock, comfrey, chamomile, chicory, yarrow, etc. There are also annuals that aggressively go to seed and fill in all the niches but that typically varies locally.

Applebees Appetizer
Jan 23, 2006

If you're looking to save on groceries, try couponing as well. Once you get the hang of it you can save a shitload of money on groceries and toiletries.

Not sure if couponing is a thing in Canada though.

Rent-A-Cop
Oct 15, 2004

I posted my food for USPOL Thanksgiving!

Tsinava posted:

wax and honey, both of which are highly medicinal
Uh, not really. I mean, maybe if you're trapped in the woods or you live in the 12th century but in the year of our Lord two thousand and fifteen Neosporin exists.

Lead out in cuffs
Sep 18, 2012

"That's right. We've evolved."

"I can see that. Cool mutations."




TheFluff posted:

a hotbed frame or whatever you call it in English (basically, make a 1x1 meter wooden frame, fill it with soil and cover it with a sheet of transparent plastic or something).

It's called a cold frame. :v:

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp
The reason people use neosporin is because it is cheap and sold in grocery stores, not because its a more effective treatment than beeswax, which serves as an extremely effective ointment on its own. Honey is medicinal too, it kills off bacteria, which is why you get the shits if you eat too much. These are well known, googlable things.

Please stop derailing the "living off the land" thread by telling people to go to the grocery store.

Tsinava fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Mar 6, 2015

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

Robo Boogie Bot posted:

This is actually good advice. You'll notice the strongest decrease in your grocery bill by finding out what grows well in your climate and incorporating those foods into your diet. I'm in zone 5, and a lot of what we grow are greens (kale, collards), lettuce, herbs, root vegetables, beans/peas, and early tomatoes. Essentially, things that can survive a cold spell. We have planted other more "exotic" vegetables as well, and some years you will get lucky with a long growing season and bushels of roma tomatoes and more cucumbers than you can give away. And others, last year namely, you'll have sub 50 degree temperatures well into May and freezing rain in June that will decimate everything besides your root vegetables.

Stay strong northern friend :unsmith:

These pretty much match what we normally grow, aside from the kale. I've heard that it's pretty low effort, I'll pick some up tomorrow to try out!

Captain Bravo posted:

Also potatoes

I've been thinking about converting some old tomato cages into potato towers on the suggestion of my girlfriend's aunt. It looks like they would save on space.

Plans:

I've also drawn up some plans for 2 raised beds, which would be a financial investment in materials and soil, but would allow us to plant both in the beds and in the area that I posted. One of the beds would be quite long (12'-14'x ~2.5') and would be put along our walkway, the other would be smaller (4'x 18") and would have a string trellis attached at the back, which would be secured alongside a shed that receives quite a bit of sunlight, and would be totally dedicated to growing beans and peas...

Tsinava posted:

Mason bees are quite easy to attract. Just bundle a bunch of small tubes up (bamboo chutes work great) and hang them from a tree. Mason bees nest in them.
Mason bees pollinate flowers at a very high rate.

... the bamboo "tee pees" that we've used in the past for them can be converted into Mason Bee nests to be scattered around the property. I love growing roses and lavender, the latter of which I'll be growing plenty of from seed, so food shouldn't be too much of a problem for them.

I've been entertaining the thought of growing corn in a fair portion of the pictured area/ the garden off to the left hand side... is it worth the space?

Faerunner
Dec 31, 2007
Corn is an overgrown tropical grass which requires a lot of itself to properly pollinate. It is also a nutrient hog and can play host to a thousand diseases and insect pests which will reduce your yield. It's also SO cheap around here when it's in season that nobody really needs to grow it for the savings. I have yet to meet a home gardener in my area (PA, zone 7) who really likes to grow corn. Most of us stick to tomatoes and zucchini... but sure, try it out. It's not HARD to grow, really, just hard to get a good yield out of the typical small garden. If you want to be more space-efficient you can try the 3 Sisters planting technique (squash and beans between the corn rows) but when we last tried it the pole beans didn't germinate and grow well at all. The squash did ok, but would've been better planted earlier, I think.

Good luck! It's always fun trying your hand at gardening for the first time in a new place. I will recommend that you carefully consider how much time you want to spend in your garden before you start planting. Gardens can be a set-up for a lot of work, especially in late spring when the tomato plants haven't taken off yet but the weeds have.

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp
I would really stress that you should plant fruiting trees and shrubs as well OP. You're going to wish you had them eventually so you might was well do it now. Most fruit trees are deciduous and fertilize the soil below their branches.

Plant them carefully of course, with regards to root system shapes, height, microclimate. Make sure to plant them in crater gardens or surrounded by rocks, or do both if you want. Naturalized horticulture is all about stacking effects.

Don't worry about having fruitless fruit trees. You have wild blueberries. Your yard is screaming at you to grow things in it, it's practically throwing food at you.

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

Tsinava posted:

I would really stress that you should plant fruiting trees and shrubs as well OP. You're going to wish you had them eventually so you might was well do it now. Most fruit trees are deciduous and fertilize the soil below their branches.

Plant them carefully of course, with regards to root system shapes, height, microclimate. Make sure to plant them in crater gardens or surrounded by rocks, or do both if you want. Naturalized horticulture is all about stacking effects.

Don't worry about having fruitless fruit trees. You have wild blueberries. Your yard is screaming at you to grow things in it, it's practically throwing food at you.

I'm very open to growing trees- not so much about paying the $65- $100 that they charge for 6' ones around here, however. Would it be practical to try growing them from seed indoors?

Also, can you link me to a guide for crater gardening?

Arnold of Soissons
Mar 4, 2011

by XyloJW
In a wooded area those little lovely baby trees that you could mow over that barely come up to your knee, are about 3 years old

Starting with acorns or w.e is very time consuming

Blitter
Mar 16, 2011

Couple things - before you choose where to plant, you need to sort out sun exposure. Something like http://www.findmyshadow.com will get you some idea of where the sun/shade plantings should go. This is not as easy to guess as you might think and has a huge impact on lots of plants. The other think I would recommend is that if you have a side of your house that has good exposure, plant your tomatoes and other fruiting plants that will need as long a season as possible there. In particular, if you have a reasonably reflective surface, or a brick or masonry wall, you will have additional warmth for the plants nearby, and will extend your season by weeks in either direction.

quote:

I've also drawn up some plans for 2 raised beds, which would be a financial investment in materials and soil, but would allow us to plant both in the beds and in the area that I posted. One of the beds would be quite long (12'-14'x ~2.5') and would be put along our walkway, the other would be smaller (4'x 18") and would have a string trellis attached at the back, which would be secured alongside a shed that receives quite a bit of sunlight, and would be totally dedicated to growing beans and peas...

Climbing beans are a great choice, and produce an amazing amount of veg that is easily blanched/frozen. My experience with string trellises is that they're kind of a pain in the rear end, and instead I just plant around the base of each of three poles (in a triangle) with some other poles lashed across the top horizontally, joining them. It's nice because you can walk under it, and pick from all sides. Just a thought.

Since you're doing this on the cheap, consider going to your local recycling depot and asking if they have, or can hold back large plastic buckets, or other large containers for you. It's amazing how many rubbermaid type containers get tossed, and for plants like tomatoes a 5 gallon bucket with some holes drilled in the bottom makes an excellent planter with the advantage that you can move them around. Also, do be aware that your lumber needs to not be covered in preservative, or it'll leach into your soil. Similarly, no railway ties (yum, creosote). This also means it'll start rotting pretty quickly.

Peaches and cream corn is delicious, but as mentioned it's a crapshoot if you get warm enough weather to have them produce and then it's a pretty small return for a lot of ground (and sun) used. I would second recommendations for zucchini (surprisingly frost resistant) and cucumbers for shadier areas, and add swiss chard (delicious and produces a ton, well into the fall). Spinach and butter lettuces are nice, but finicky. I planted Radicchio last year and was surprised how well it grew/produced; much less susceptible to slugs than lots of other types of salad veg.

I would strongly recommend getting your seeds from a good canadian source, as they have varieties that are better suited to our climate. T&T Seeds or Stokes are my favourites and they have excellent staff that will happily answer pretty much any question and will make intelligent recommendations. Their websites actually have a ton of good gardening info, including stuff about spring starting, which you should totally be doing, as it's way cheaper to start with seed than buying small tomato plants from a greenhouse etc. If possible, buy locally grown potatoes for your starters (since they'll probably do better than an import) and if you like apples, I'd guess that you can find a seedling from annapolis valley that'll work where you live.

Good luck!

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp

Professor Shark posted:

I'm very open to growing trees- not so much about paying the $65- $100 that they charge for 6' ones around here, however. Would it be practical to try growing them from seed indoors?

Also, can you link me to a guide for crater gardening?

There's not really a guide for them. They are a specific type of earthwork.

Pictures help though:

Captain Bravo
Feb 16, 2011

An Emergency Shitpost
has been deployed...

...but experts warn it is
just a drop in the ocean.

Blitter posted:

Also, do be aware that your lumber needs to not be covered in preservative, or it'll leach into your soil. This also means it'll start rotting pretty quickly.

No, you want to start with unvarnished wood, and then apply a coat of water-based lacquer yourself. It's a little more work-intensive, but it allows your woodworks to last a goodly amount of time.

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

Tsinava posted:

There's not really a guide for them. They are a specific type of earthwork.

Pictures help though:



I was afraid that's what you were thinking... is there any point in doing something like that if I'll only be able to get down a couple feet?


Blitter posted:

Sun and Beans

Thanks for the sun link, it looks like the garden is in an ideal spot and the raised beds are also great (with a lone tree casting a shadow on it in the late afternoon).

Re: beans, maybe I'll hold off on the string trellis since we already have 6 "tee pees" to use.


Arnold of Soissons posted:

In a wooded area those little lovely baby trees that you could mow over that barely come up to your knee, are about 3 years old

Starting with acorns or w.e is very time consuming

Scratch that then. Maybe I can put together a tree fund and start a couple orchards over the next few years.

Carnival of Shrews
Mar 27, 2013

You're not David Attenborough
You may have said this, but I'm not sure where your house is located relative to the suggested veg patch.

quote:

Maybe I can put together a tree fund and start a couple orchards over the next few years.

There is a reason why fruit trees are pricy. Almost all fruit trees have been propagated from cuttings, so that they are clones of the original cultivar...but you don't just take a cutting, dust it with rooting hormone and plonk it into soil. The cutting will usually be grafted directly into a dwarfing or semi-dwarfing rootstock, to prevent it becoming as big as this giant apple tree:



A short article on the process is here – grafting is a fairly dry subject to most gardeners but it's worth knowing how it's done, if only because it partly explains why certain plants are pricy. Rose bushes are often grafted, for example.

Fruit tree choice can get quite arcane: in addition to taste, hardiness and disease resistance considerations, many trees have adaptations to prevent self-fertilisation (ie, extreme inbreeding), mediated by proteins carried on the outside of the pollen grain that a flower can recognise as coming from another flower on the same tree. There are 6 different major apple pollination compatability types, for example and an apple is usually not fully fertile to pollen of its own type (though some more-or-less are, like Cox's Orange Pippin, very popular over here) and usually does best with pollen from numerically adjacent groups. Fortunately in most towns there are a variety of fruit trees, and the pollinators do the rest.

It would be nice, but possibly tricky, to find out the name of your existing apple tree; hopefully it was a solid choice. Fruit trees are an investment, in terms of purchase, time to establish, and the area they shade (though you can train them along walls). In spite of all I've said about cost, I've seen supermarkets in the UK sell good reliable fruit tree types for about £12 apiece in the Spring -- but they've always been jumbled up with all kinds of very 'optimistic' choices for my climate, so if you find a similar fruit-tree bargain hunt you'll need to discover what you're getting in terms of hardiness and pollination type by a stealthy Google.

In terms of herbs that will give a nice quick crop, several people have mentioned rocket/arugula whichcommands a fancy price in supermarkets but is actually tough as old boots. Another good herb choice is mint, a hardy perennial (plant it in a buried plastic bucket with holes punched in the bottom, or your garden will become infested with it), and chives and garlic chives are very cold-hardy perennials too.

I seriously admire anyone with the commitment to make a permaculture-type cultivation pit, but for me, it's a combination of :effort: and the raw clay that such an excavation would reveal. I am a lazy gardener.

Captain Bravo
Feb 16, 2011

An Emergency Shitpost
has been deployed...

...but experts warn it is
just a drop in the ocean.
Basil is a good herb to grow. You can use it as an ingredient in recipes, you can use it to flavor, or you can turn it into pesto sauce and make a meal out of it. Plus it's quick and easy to grow. Plant a bunch, and harvest most of the plants just before they start to flower, then let the last plant flower and pollinate itself, then use those seeds for next year's crop. I think my turnover last year was about one week from seed to sprout, three weeks after that before I could actually start eating some of it, another month before most were in their prime harvesting period, and one more month for my flowered plants to start producing seeds. So that's a three-month cycle, which should be perfect for your snow-blasted hellhole of a country. :v:

Faerunner
Dec 31, 2007

Carnival of Shrews posted:


In terms of herbs that will give a nice quick crop, several people have mentioned rocket/arugula whichcommands a fancy price in supermarkets but is actually tough as old boots. Another good herb choice is mint, a

Likewise do not plant lemon balm in the garden without some severe restraints upon its growth. I now have lemon balm coming up anywhere it can, and thus a steady supply of lemon balm sprouts to feed to my chickens. The mint family is tenacious and awesome.

Frozen Horse
Aug 6, 2007
Just a humble wandering street philosopher.
There is also a program run by the USDA, I think, where you can send off for a free apple tree seedling so long as you agree to grow it. The downside is that it is from the seed of a random cross-pollination, so you are almost certain to get some very tart, small apples that are only good for cider if anything. On the other hand, it could be a new breed of apple.
Other trees that you could try include walnut, but only if you like staining everything dark brown and all the non-grass plants under the tree dying.
Basil, you should have started seedlings indoors in the middle of last month, but you can still get a decent crop. Also, pesto freezes well once made.

oliwan
Jul 20, 2005

by Nyc_Tattoo
Have you considered growing weed?

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp

Professor Shark posted:

I was afraid that's what you were thinking... is there any point in doing something like that if I'll only be able to get down a couple feet?

Most certainly! The best thing about earthworks is that they are totally scaleable!

Carnival of Shrews
Mar 27, 2013

You're not David Attenborough
What garden tools do you have at present, OP? (from forks and spades to stuff like fruit nets, stakes etc.)

swansong
May 7, 2005

Goonfleet said I have to post on SA more
It'd be a bit of an initial investment, but with your shorter growing season a little indoor rig would pay off in the long run. Hydroponics doesn't have to be nearly as involved or expensive as some of the fanfare makes it out to be. Large cardboard box + tin foil + decent growing light and grow medium and you can grow some stuff. I never had crazy good indoor success with fruiting things like tomatoes, even with pollinating alternatives, but I grew things like kale and peas extremely well with almost no effort once the system was kind of on auto-pilot.

Throw in a patch of radishes outside. They're probably the easiest things to grow anywhere and grow very quickly, harvestable within a month of planting from seed. Kind of a new gardener's encouragement plant.

Good luck!

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

swansong posted:

Throw in a patch of radishes outside. They're probably the easiest things to grow anywhere and grow very quickly, harvestable within a month of planting from seed. Kind of a new gardener's encouragement plant.

Also, delicious. Throw some sea salt on sliced radishes, and you have yourself a killer snack.

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.
It sounds like you've got a lot of good ideas, and I encourage you in your efforts. I think that you'll be pleasantly surprised at how much food you can produce during the growing season, even if it won't be enough to live off entirely.

Personally I'm a big advocate of raised beds - particularly for people that are newly trying out their green thumb. In my experience, often the soil in urban areas is filled with rocks and clay from digging out the foundation of the houses nearby, which makes it fairly poor for gardening. A raised bed fixes that issue, and not only do you have much better control of the soil, but you also are more able to deal with weeds because they are more apparent in the regulated space. My advice with raised beds is big taller than you'd expect. Even if you don't want to spring for all the soil at once, that extra height gives the option to provide your plants with a significant root structure. It also will better more capable at deterring weed seeds from blowing along the ground and into your vegetables, and ultimately it's easier on your back since you don't have to stoop down quite as much. And if you are successful at your raised bed and want to move on to even more cost-efficient mass agriculture, then you can always build an additional line of truck beds (or even just start planting seed, though it probably will be met with limited efficacy unless you have miraculously good soil). The important thing is producing a good harvest, and encouraging yourself to develop the habits and skills that are required to tend and water your crops.

Also, check out a gardening calendar or almanac for your specific area. I've pulled up a few links to gardening calendars for Atlantic Zone 5, but they're extremely general and you'd be better off using one that is aware of the significant aspects of your particular growing region. They're often put out by nearby gardening centers, agricultural organizations, and even universities or civic groups. Such calendars have suggestions for what to grow successfully in your area, and what gardening tasks you should focus on each month. I've found them very helpful for motivating myself, and in identifying realistic goals for my garden.

Happy Gardening!

http://www.atlanticmastergardeners.ca/documents/AtlanticRegionGardenCalendar.pdf
http://www.canadiangardening.com/how-to/gardening-resources/hardiness-zones-and-frost-dates/a/1781
http://www.canadiangardening.com/plants/perennials/the-top-10-atlantic-plants/a/35586
http://www.harvesttotable.com/2012/02/march-vegetable-garden/
http://www.lowes.com/creative-ideas/gardening-and-outdoor/mid-atlantic-gardening-gardening-calendar/article
http://www.garden.org/regional/report/description/full/13

Kaal fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Mar 13, 2015

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

I just realized that the area behind my house is a natural crater :)


(Red Square = Crater, the "Garden" is the lighter patch)

It's currently covered in blue tarps right now (that dark area is probably accumulated water, the pic is a few years old) because it's infested with damned Japanese Knotweed.

After some reading it seems like the tarps aren't going to do it and that I'll have to get chemicals to kill it, which my girlfriend isn't a fan of, but it would be a great area to grow things in. It's at least 6 feet deeper than the level that the house is at.

Pharnakes
Aug 14, 2009
In my experience red devil doesn't need chemicals to control it. You probably won't kill it without herbicides, but it only really becomes a problem if you ignore it. If it's a cultivated area that you are maintaining, along as you go around and pull up the shoots every couple of weeks it will never get to the point where it's shading out other plants. When my father bought his house 30 years ago, the garden was nothing but bracken and red devil, and although there are a couple of clumps of red devil left in odd corners, it's no bother to stop them spreading into the garden proper. Basically it comes down to whether or not you are prepared to put in the time to control it manually. It will take many years before it gives up the fight and stops sending out shoots, but it's not hard work, the sprouts pull out of the earth with a good tug.

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp
You're setting yourself back by spraying the chemicals. Your aim is to increase microbial life in the soil. The knotweed is basically free fertilizer. You can use cardboard or a thick dark permeable tarp to sheet mulch and cut holes in it to grow other plants while the knotweed dies and decomposes.

Also spraying chemicals has a very likely chance of being ineffective and wasting your money and time.

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

Tsinava posted:

You're setting yourself back by spraying the chemicals. Your aim is to increase microbial life in the soil. The knotweed is basically free fertilizer. You can use cardboard or a thick dark permeable tarp to sheet mulch and cut holes in it to grow other plants while the knotweed dies and decomposes.

Also spraying chemicals has a very likely chance of being ineffective and wasting your money and time.

I've considered tarping over as much as possible (I got about 80% of it last summer, I know a guy who has a bunch of old tarps that he'll give me to finish off the rest and the spots it peaked out), cutting holes, and planting something like ground cover roses, since despite being such an rear end in a top hat of a plant knotweed is pretty cowardly.

I've also considered planting honeysuckle, which at least smells nice, and watching the two of them slug it out.

Carnival of Shrews
Mar 27, 2013

You're not David Attenborough

Professor Shark posted:

I've considered tarping over as much as possible (I got about 80% of it last summer, I know a guy who has a bunch of old tarps that he'll give me to finish off the rest and the spots it peaked out), cutting holes, and planting something like ground cover roses, since despite being such an rear end in a top hat of a plant knotweed is pretty cowardly.

I've also considered planting honeysuckle, which at least smells nice, and watching the two of them slug it out.

Maybe it doesn't grow quite as powerfully in your colder climate, but I've found Japanese Knotweed very hard to kill off. If you use textiles to smother it, the underground rhizomes can remain dormant for several years – during which time they will occasionally send out shoots to locate any daylight. IMO trying to clear this patch could easily take up quite a lot of the time that you've set aside for veg-growing in the bit of the garden that can currently be cultivated.

I'm not a big fan of weedkiller but I know of no truly reliable way of getting rid of this plant apart from with glyphosate, and even this is a process that will take over a year. The dose required to kill the rhizomes is high, so that commercial eradicators have resorted to specially-designed syringes rather than spraying the leaves, which is wasteful, uncertain, and unpleasant for the operator. Home eradicators usually cut down each stem above the first node, jab a route to the base of the plant with a long screwdriver, and squirt in a measured dose, as described here:

http://www.solriche.co.uk/files/garden/j_knotweed.html

The crater sounds tempting as a place to grow stuff, but depending on how long you anticipate living in the house and how keen you are on eating home-grown veg anytime soon, I'd keep knotweed clearance as a long-term project and not try planting anything in the area in the meantime. I wonder why the crater is there in the first place. Are there others around the place, or is it the only one?

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp
Honestly you might want to and just keep cutting it back and using it for compost/biomass accumulation.

If you cut down all the knotweed and kept putting it in a big pile at the center of the crater you would eventually have a nice big pile of soil to use for whatever you need it for, and you'll need quite a bit if you're serious about growing stuff. also it would probably eventually get rid of the knotweed.

Another way to take care of invasives is, ironically, to plant other aggressive species such as white comfrey, buckwheat or thistle.

Thistle is notable because it has a deep root system so it's difficult for other plants to starve it and it's leaves are wide and arranged in a way to block light from plants and prevent them from sprouting. comfrey is the same way, white comfrey is extremely aggressive and goes to seed and russian comfrey doesn't spread as aggressively because it doesn't really go to seed but its leaves are huge and comfrey roots can go to about 10 feet deep so it's pretty much impossible to get rid of unless you sheet mulch it or keep chopping for mulch piles.

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

I was reading an article on knotweed and how researchers are working on deterrents here in Nova Scotia.

They've had success with chemicals, but one "green" solution that they're trying out has been laying down 0.5" mesh, which grass can grow through but knotweed slices itself up on when it tries to grow.

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp
That's an advanced form of sheet mulching and it sounds like an excellent idea! Another thing that helps with growing stuff: google. Haha.

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

The article is from 2013, I'm going to drop the guy they interviewed an email this week and see how the study turned out.

In the meantime I'm studying up on Potato Towers, which my girlfriend wants me to build. Everything I'm reading says that they produce as low as 2/1 (2lb yield for every 1lb of seed potatoes), I'm not so sure about them anymore.

BarbarianElephant
Feb 12, 2015
The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.
In terms of bang for your buck, the best option is a herb garden. Herbs are expensive and crappy from the shops.

Grow tomatoes and peas. Delicious from the ground, "eh" from the shops.

Don't bother with potatoes and onions. They are dirt cheap from the shops and don't taste any better when home grown (except new potatoes.)

Strawberries are foolproof and delicious. They grow like weeds.

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp
Potatoes an onions are only worth it if they're just kinda of growing effortlessly somewhere.

Most people i know who grow them at home do it only in the very passive sense of the word. It's usually something like they planted them in an aged compost pile or raised bed years ago and they just keep coming back. A pile of mixed sand and compost should be fine for growing onions and potatoes together.

The above poster is correct though. You want to invest in herbaceous perennials. They will be useful to you as well as help establish the garden. They create many different habitats and fertilize the soil.

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

Update: A lot of people who posted in this thread are now banned

Also, I'm constructing a raspberry trellis based on this video and I'm looking into purchasing more Chestnut and Butternut trees (fun fact: Butternut tree roots emit a toxic substance that kills other types of trees around them, but not grass or flowers! :haw:)

Pewdiepie
Oct 31, 2010

Professor Shark posted:

Update: A lot of people who posted in this thread are now banned

Also, I'm constructing a raspberry trellis based on this video and I'm looking into purchasing more Chestnut and Butternut trees (fun fact: Butternut tree roots emit a toxic substance that kills other types of trees around them, but not grass or flowers! :haw:)

Juglone is gonna also kill any solanaceous things you try to plant in your garden (tomatos and potatos).

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Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

Yeah, I'd be planting them far back on our property if I do decide to plant them. Maybe a non poisonous nut, like the Chestnuts I already want and a Hazelnut hybrid, would be better?

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