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My girlfriend and I have been talking about finances recently and have decided that since we both enjoy gardening and growing our own food that we should try to live off of our garden as much as possible this summer. I'm wondering what would be the best vegetables and herbs to grow in order to reduce our grocery bill for the late spring, summer, fall, and beyond. We're in Zone 5, Atlantic Canada. The ocean is right across the road from us and we have a near constant breeze for most of the year. The soil becomes rocky after ~2 feet. The sun rises from the top left of our garden and it receives sun for almost the entire day, though the "Danger Zone" gets some shade in the afternoon due to a shed not pictured. This is a quick mock-up of what we have to work with:  Notes: The "Danger Zone" is an area that I dug up and found the scattered remains of an old door, complete with rusty nails and what is very likely paint. I'm not sure if it's lead based or what, but my girlfriend doesn't want to eat anything from there. We planted flowers there last year, I would like to do the same this year. Edit: Holy crap, I had no idea how big chestnut trees get. Ours is small right now, planted by the previous owner. Professor Shark fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Feb 26, 2015 |
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Feb 26, 2015 13:31
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:48 |
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Sockmuppet posted:We don't have a garden, so I can't help you there, but we pick a lot of berries, fruit and mushroom in the autumn and make jam, dried apples and dried and frozen mushrooms. Get a big deep freezer, it's so much easier to make freezable jam than the boiled sort you have to can, and I think it tastes much better. We pick both wild berries and garden berries. Another tip is to look for areas in your city where people have fruit and berry trees that they're not interested in harvesting from, and hang notices saying you'll pick unwanted fruit and berries. We haven't done this yet, because we're already friends with a couple of old people with big gardens who simply can't be bothered with it anymore, so we come for visits and do some gardening for them, have coffee and a lovely chat, and return home with tons of delicious stuff. I've never bought jam in my life, and I bake with frozen berries and fruit all through the winter, all for free. Next autumn we'll be hanging up notices asking if people have apples they want picked, because we've bought a fruit press and we're going to make a ton of cider Nice- we do have a patch of strawberries that will hopefully have survived their fall transplanting that we can pick from, and further back in the woods there is a fair sized blueberry patch... protected by dozens of massive ant nests 
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Feb 26, 2015 21:30
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Rent-A-Cop posted:What's your grocery bill breakdown look like? That's where you should start. Find out what you're wasting, what you can substitute a cheaper product for, what you can buy in bulk, etc. We're spending a lot on vegetables, specifically peppers, mushrooms, carrots, and lettuces. We're trying to cut out unnecessary stuff like Kurig coffee, snacks, etc. We're using our grocery lists as a guide to what we grow, my girlfriend already being pretty good at buying in bulk and using store brand stuff Gibbo posted:Atlantic Canada? Enjoy your 3 month growing season. I know, it's terrible. I think that growing spinach will let me extend it to 4-5 months LogisticEarth posted:I haven't gardened in years, but absolutely just use raised beds or pots. That way you don't have to worry about "danger zones" or anything like that as you'll be using whatever soil you put into the beds. It solves all sorts of problems, from weeding to trampling through your garden, to soil quality and drainage. We're planning on putting together some raised beds along our walkway and growing ^^^ spinach and other salad stuff out of them.
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Feb 27, 2015 11:03
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Lots of great replies, I'll get back to the thread later tomorrow but just wanted to say that I appreciate all the replies! Also, bees are something that I'm very interested in getting into as a hobby. I've been thinking about buying or making beehives out of bamboo, which I guess Mason bees prefer, since their populations were/ are doing pretty lovely Re "living off the land", I did mean "how to we pad our grocery bill?"
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Feb 28, 2015 23:56
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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. 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. ... 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?
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Mar 6, 2015 22:57
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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. 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?
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Mar 7, 2015 11:50
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Tsinava posted:There's not really a guide for them. They are a specific type of earthwork. 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 Scratch that then. Maybe I can put together a tree fund and start a couple orchards over the next few years.
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Mar 8, 2015 17:32
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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.
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Mar 16, 2015 14:59
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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. 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.
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Mar 17, 2015 13:07
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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.
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Mar 22, 2015 15:26
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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.
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Mar 23, 2015 23:51
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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!  )
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May 9, 2015 20:45
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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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May 9, 2015 22:39
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I just see Butternuts as something that was good enough for the Iroquois and should be good enough for me, Professor Shark.
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May 9, 2015 22:40
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:48 |
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So this is a thing I did over the last couple days: I laid down newspaper between rows and up onto the mounds, leaving only a thin, long area of exposed soil, then put black mulch on top of the newspaper to weigh it down. I did this because weeds always get out of control in our garden each year. I've only done it for about 1/3 of the garden, and my girlfriend is worried about water not getting to plants and the mulch burning them. Opinions?
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May 26, 2015 10:17
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