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19 Comments

1. Lots of really good advice. My Wife has been a Gardner all her life. I just started after I retired from the Army. Your method uses the “kiss” rule (keep it simple stupid). Just do it!

2. What great ideas. We have gardened for years but I really like some of your ideas and will implement them. Thank you for sharing.

3. I’m even lazier with the tomato seeds. I dry them on paper towels and save them until planting time. Then I just cut the paper towel sheets into squares and plant them directly in the dirt. Thin later.

   1. toc, most tomato failures I’ve saw came from people fussing with them. They aren’t the delicate plants folks think they are. The best looking plants I ever saw were growing in a wastewater plant settling pond! Maters the size of your fist! :0

4. Without compromising OPSEC, can you give us an idea of where you are (i.e., where these ideas work) – a state or climate zone?

   1. Thanks for the interest. these ideas have worked equally well in the Palouse area of Washington, the blazing heat of central California and the frozen north (except for the sweet potatoes which need the heat). Jd

5. gardening is not much work. fine ideas you bring.to survive-we must garden!

6. Yep,

   I’m with you, brother. A friend once visited my bountiful garden and called it the “richest urban homestead” he had ever seen. Glad to see testimony from others who step away from the conventional gardening ways.

7. Tried companion planting(things that like to grow together)and use grassclippings as mulch(cuts down on watering and weeding and composes into the soil)

8. Great article…thank you! Encouraging to those of us that fret over “proper methods”….I’ll relax and enjoy gardening more now.

9. I gotta tell u,I find your ideas GREAT!!
   I am going to put them to work in my tiny little garden!
   I have one spot only that grows “fist-sized” tomtoes,Outstanding!

   The rest of my backyard is devoted to flowers.
   I would like to put out an above ground area to grow strawberrys ’cause my own are the only ones I like.
   Gotta go,

10. Already did it

11. Love the article!! I see one thing i’ve never done, i’ve never started squash like that before but you can bet your bottom dollar i’m gonna try it!! I’ve been gardening since gardening been gardening and I absolutely love it! I have the Earthboxes, I just recently builded 2 4×8 planters, I plant in those big pots that horse feed come in! I have given up the ground due to back surgery!! Next year I will add 10 5 gallon buckets painted in every color of the rainbow! I’m growing Okra, squash, Zucinni, Bell peppers, cayenne peppers,jalapeno, Anaheim,sweet and hot banana peppers, Tomatoes, I even did a pot called “Fries and Ketchup”..A betterboy tomatoe with whit potatoes around the tomatoe! Neat huh? Egg plants, sweet potatoes, peas, greenbeans and last but not least, Sugar baby watermelons!!

12. Will try your sweet potato idea!

13. Not only will kale self seed but also lettuce, bok choy, mustard greens and arugula just to name a few.

    1. Absolutely! And so will chard, lots of the herbs, etc. thanks for the reminder! Jd.

14. Thanks everyone for your positive comments. Maybe I need to do a part 2. Jd.

15. Late November of 2015 I was given some squashes my sister had used to decorate her Thanksgiving table. I cut them up and fed them to our horses. Several months later, in the middle of the 2016 drought where we could not keep grass (or anything else) growing in our pasture, I noticed a huge squash plant growing right out of a manure pile. I just let it be and did not touch it. And then harvested a bunch of beautiful squashes–no rain, no grass, but plenty of squashes.

16. Thanks for your helpful ideas. As I’m aging, I need your shortcuts to keep gardening. Please continue with your series. I am interested in your ideas for soil fertility, herbs, “decorative” front yard plantings, and so on. Please keep writing!

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