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23 Comments

  1. Almost felt like I was reading one of my garden posts or youtube videos – My Victory Garden. This guy has it right … you can establish a baseline of garden knowledge from books, but like all prepping, it’s the “doing” that provides the wisdom (and fun). I have 20+ years of garden experiments, weather woes, varmint battles, soil particulars, and finnicky family taste discoveries for our home-grown veggies and fruits. And there’s also the physical fitness aspect – gardening will get your body moving, build muscle, deliver fresh air, and bathe you in life-giving sunlight. It’s a family affair where my teen children leave the mobile phones behind!

  2. Great read. I recently sold my “homestead” and left behind a fine garden with great regret. It is difficult to start a new garden plot when you are old …. well, older. But it is a labor of love. And if it isn’t? Plan on doing something else and trading for garden food.

    I found that it takes at least three years for a garden to begin good production. Amending the soil those first three years is critical. Once in “production” you better have a system for preserving the bounty.

    An additional bonus is that …..unbeknownst to me at the time ….. my children were watching me labor every spare minute in the garden. Now as adults they are avid gardeners. I guess gardening indirectly created interests toward a wholesome life instead of substance abuse, tv-itis and such.

    There is one bad thing about growing your own food. Supermarket produce will never taste as good.

  3. We have clay soil too and Lots of rocks. . It’s the Rocky Mountains ! We built a lot of raised beds but because we are getting older and I don’t have long arms, we made them 3 feet across. Less stress on me. We are able to get free composted leaves from the county . They gather them up in the fall and by spring they are well broken down. They give them away here free and if you arrange it and come real early with a truck or trailer they will even load them for you. Also I have raised seedlings in a South facing window but have recently used led lights the daylight kind. I had great success this year with them. Money is snug here so I was able to get used planting trays from a local greenhouse ( they just get new ones each year) . I washed them and reuse them every year. We grow our stuff organically so I purchase organic starter soil or make my own. I look for ways to save money all the time and starting your own seedlings saves a lot.

    1. Sis, I just learned a new phrase from you, “Money is snug here”. Love it.

      Being in the same “snug” boat for most of my low income life, I am very frugal and agree about getting everything possible free.

      My grow lights are regular shop lights, no need for the fancy “grow-lite” fixture. The shop light has served me well since 1982. Happy seedlings.

      Reusing trays and pots has saved me lots of time (something we often forget the value of) and money.

      Living urban means I am able to find bags of leaves my neighbors discard. Some go into the compost bin and many go on the garden in autumn. You should see the earthworm colonies under those leave right now. They are turning those leaves into rich soil as I sit here. To plant, I simply move some leaves aside, dig a hole, and drop the seedling in. We actually plant in a small percentage of the garden, you know. The leaves then hold moisture in the ground around the plant and end up as that soil by the end of summer.

      Carry on

  4. I had good black soil in one winter because I went around to every local coffee shop and begged for bags of used coffee grounds (worms LOVE coffee grounds), Then I saved all my eggshells, teabags, potato peels, crusts of bread, lettuce leaves etc, and once a week all Fall (Sept-Nov) I tucked a small lunch size paper bag full of this stuff into the existing local soil (which I shoveled into the planter bed til it was 8 inches deep) under a layer of screen door screen weighted down by used bricks to keep the possums and raccoons out. I let it cook all winter and in March I unrolled the screen, turned the soil and added a bag of glacial rock dust and a bag of Miracle Gro potting soil. Granted I only had the one bed which was 2 feet by 6 feet but I was able to grow a salad garden and have enough to share with neighbors. “Man, for all his accomplishments in art, science and literature, owes his very existence to 2 inches of topsoil and the fact that it rains”!

  5. Use cement blocks and glue them together with exterior construction adhesive for robust raised beds. See “Gardening Revolution” for some good tips. 4×16 works great. But he is absolutely right, you must do gardening to succeed (eat).

  6. Fortunately we have had more time than expected to practice what we preach, cause I’m behind the old ‘power curve’ when it comes to real experience in the garden. My gardening ‘bible’ is Gardening When It Counts, hence my approach is old fashioned and focused on growing what grows good, so we are not lacking for nutrition. As a pragmatist, I’ll tend to first ‘eat to live, rather than live to eat’. ‘Living to eat’ will hopefully happen, and can happen if I get the first part right. The old writing skills are definitely rusty and that is not good, cause by talking or writing about a subject, one can learn. So please chime in you old hands! Admittedly I ain’t been learning enough about gardening as I could have. Fortunately as hard core survivalists, we have learned many skills, focused like a laser beam, and piled up essential skills, and no different is the skill of gardening. Yet we only get to practice once a year, and I ain’t got many years left. Perhaps this is the last year we got. So what to do, if we want to chew and chew? For other ‘noobs’ as myself, how do we speed up the process? I suggest we use the ‘shotgun’ method and experiment. This means improvise as necessary. Spring is springing, so spring up, and get at it in any way one can, expedient means are absolutely acceptable, and perhaps preferable. We are under the gun to get it done. This is your personal FTX (Field Training Exercise), so get into the field, and get some exercise to get the training. We learn best by our failures, so do not fear failure, but fear inaction, and failure to learn from other’s hard won lessons. We will not live long enough to make all the mistakes that can be made, to learned gardening on our own.

    This literally how I see it, so this year I’ve gone nuts. To compress this year’s opportunity to learn by doing with minimal effort, and expense, without fear of looking like a fool, planted are 4 different garden types, raised bed, traditional, container, and a field expedient green house, each with different soil types, using myown starts, and direct seeding with a variety of proven cold weather short season seeds that have been stored for at least one year. These are seeds that may or may not germinate. Where possible several varieties of a type of plant where used to determine which were the hardiest. Several plantings will be made, including one in late July and August. If any one of the beds fail, other planting will be used to take advantage of the remaining season,albeit, less than ideal. The make -shift green house now in use to grow an early crop of potatoes, will then be used to grow vegitables that are well known to grow throughout the fall, and beyond the first frost. This is about nutrition not calories. The best experienments are planned out and executed with great disicipline, but even haphazard attempts are still instructive. So I say go for ‘it’!

    Last year’s limited experiment with potatoes proved to be very useful. 4 types planted in the best black and beautiful soil available here in NW Montana late season, and only the Gold Yukon did well. It in fact blew the competition away. It was planted late in the season as seed for the spring. It worked. It was seed for this spring. In Denmark there is held each year, a traditional competition for the first potatoes grown in that area. I accept that challenge. Ambitious, reckless, yet let see what is learned. By keeping each type of garden small, and planted with the greatest variety of available plants of the cold weather short season types, the exercise might be manageable. Too large, and it would be a less effective tool for learning. Don’t bite off more than one can chew is the thinking.

    Tunnel Rabbit

  7. Like the other comments here, I agree experience is the best resource.
    As for building soil, if you have the time use a cover crop, also known as ” green manure”. These crops can be a single variety or a mixture. I’ve always preferred the mixtures. Most will have some legumes included which will “fix” nitrogen from the atmosphere on their roots and leave it behind for the next crop. God is smart and everything has a design. These crops, when turned back into the soil provide raw organic matter, smoother weeds while growing, attract beneficial insects, and if you have livestock most can be used as feed generating another form of fertilizer. As a bonus, I’ve found them to be inexpensive overall and easy to use. Most any farm store should have some and possibly varieties selected for your particular climate.
    There are myriad ways of incorporating them into your garden plan; every other row, borders, 50/50 split each year, etc.

    1. Great point Delroy. I use red clover I get at the farm store. Cheap seeds and it replenishes the nitrogen as you say. Get it down in the fall so you have a nice cover for the winter. It helps with erosion as well.

  8. I think that a lot of people think that they can’t grow food if they don’t have a big garden in the ground. I am blessed to have plenty of garden space. But I also know myself and know that some things are better grown in pots close by to where I go all the time (Zone 1 in permaculture terminology). So I have a lot of ground pots and hanging pots with veggies in them. With the right soil, you can grow lots of food in pots, even if you are in an apartment. I grow cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, chives, basil and lettuce in hanging pots. There’s probably a lot more that could be grown in hanging pots. I have lots of pots of aloe vera and I swap them out when I get one used up, and I let it sit and grow in the sun. I bring in another pot and use off it. It works really well.

  9. Interesting article, a lot of the article is familiar to me, as I was raised on a farm.
    both my grandparents and parents had large gardens. but now with my wife of 48 yrs gone, I’ve lost interest in gardening and a lot of other things that we did together.

    1. Those are best for full on indoor growing, but as an electrician and a gardener I recommend T5 florescent lights with 6500K bulbs for popping seeds and making starts.
      Not all LED “grow lights” are created equal. There is a large amount of outright junk out there, and unless you are in the business of growing plants indoors it can be difficult to sort it out. If you want to go this direction I suggest you do a LOT of research before buying. A 6500K T5 bulb is a 6500K T5 bulb, though, and you can get bulbs and fixtures at your local big box home improvement store or online.

  11. I’ve been working my place in the maritime NW for years and I want to encourage any new folks to keep at it. No, I don’t have the perfect garden but I try to improve something each year. Last year was my first attempt at growing the 3 sisters; I don’t recommend anything like the close spacing of bio intensive for that combination.
    When I started the place looked like the surface of Mars. You’ll want to start small on your garden but plant cover crops everywhere you’re not doing anything with. I used buckwheat as my primary seed because it grows well as a pioneer plant.
    Grow different things to see what works. I have a mixed fruit orchard to help assure (no guarantees) that something will come through; mostly the trees produce. This year the peaches look great, the apples and plums good, but only one of the 3 pears looks to be productive.
    In the short term vegetable garden continue to grow what works and the family will eat (not salsify). I plant the same varieties of tomatoes each year, but also try a new one. If I could only plant one it’d be Principe Bourghese (YMMV) but I don’t have to only grow one.
    I’ve not done it but I have seen others who had enviable tomatoes crops with each plant in its own 5 gallon bucket.
    Try, persevere, learn, and then try again.
    Hope this helps.

    1. Good article. I agree with the writer. Over many years I witnessed other gardeners using peat moss without much success. In fact, their gardens seemed unhealthy when too much moss was applied.

      As a alternative, every fall I purchased alfalfa from a local horse lover (expensive in Alaska due to shipping) and covered the garden over the winter. The alfalfa protects the garden’s nutrients from being washed out, decomposes and tills in beautifully in the spring.

    2. I was taught to add peat as an amendment for sandy soils to increase moisture and nutrient retention, but never more than 5% by volume, and usually more like 2%. It’s also highly acidic so is best for plants that like a little lower pH. Combined with an equal amount of perlite it can do wonders for sandy soils.
      I have no experience with coir but that’s by choice. It’s almost a hydroponic medium when used in pots because it doesn’t hold moisture or nutrients well nor does it support any ecology at all. It’s just something for the roots to hold on to while the plant is grown completely with fertigation. I wouldn’t recommend adding coir as an amendment for general gardening.
      I agree that compost is a superior amendment for almost every situation.

  13. RR, so much of what you offer is right on. Esp. the link to the broadfork, Meadow Creature. The one I use may be my most valuable tool. This week, I am using it to dig up deep-rooted quackgrass. I am able to get “almost” all the roots, each of which left in the soil would birth new grass.

    Carry on

  14. Tried and failed growing stuff for over 2 years, then remembered a brilliant quote. “A man’s got to know his limitations.” So rather than spend tons of money on tools, equipment, soil, pesticides and so many other things, as well as wasting valuable time, I decided to put the money into buying freeze-dried food. Might be slightly more expensive, but if you factor in the time saved not farming and earning money instead, probably better off. And if SHTF, I won’t have to worry about spending time fighting off insects and pests. Plus I will have animal protein without having to raise livestock. And I can barter for fresh food, if I need to, with things that I am skilled at, which ain’t growing stuff.

  16. As a kid, I hated weeding in our acre sized garden with super heavy clay soil. In a typical summer, you couldn’t go into the garden for 2 days after a rain or you would come out with pounds of mud stuck to each foot. As an early teen, I started raking up the grass from our large lawn to mulch the plants. My Mom suggested that I cleanup the spillage from filling our silo with haylage and I moved many wheelbarrow loads and mulched the entire garden with 3 to 4 inches of mulch. We didn’t need to water all summer, no weeds and when I went to check for new potatoes, I found large potatoes just under the mulch (the largest one was 2.5 pounds, solid and delicious). After 2 years of heavy mulching, the texture of the soil had completely changed and everything was growing like crazy.

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