Growing Your Own: What did you grow / raise / harvest?

[Muledeer]

Last weekend, I practiced the first thinning of my root vegetables - radishes and turnips.  The plants I thinned were young and tender - just seedlings - so I promptly refrigerated and washed them, and I have been supplementing my store-bought, bagged lettuce salads with these tasty treats - they are kind of like sprouts but with more leaves.   Within two weeks I will be eating my own grown lettuce!  I also planted the cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower plants.  We will be having a snowstorm and a hard freeze this week.  I hope everything survives.

[Mocha Jo]

We went from snow last weekend to 90's by Thursday. I don't even know what to do with my seedlings besides put them out and hope for the best. Nothing has had time to get robust yet except the beans, though. I may put them out Thursday.

[Muledeer]

This week has been unusually cold and snowy for this late in the season.  Interstate 80 was closed all day yesterday from border to border in Wyoming due to the snowstorm.  My recording thermometers have shown temperatures in the teens and 20's (F) every night this week since Monday.  The coldest it got was 16 F.   I didn't come to my mountain greenhouse all week, and I expected mass death of the plants.  After all, the greenhouse is not heated and only keeps the inside plants a degree or two warmer than the outside temperature.  I did not take any measures to protect or cover the plants in any way.   To my surprise and amazement, everything survived!  The crucifers, lettuce, carrots and garlic were unscathed.  The radishes, beets, turnips, and chard had some leaf kill but the plants did indeed survive.  I'm going out there now to water, fertilize and remove the dead, frost killed leaves.  I'm still on track to be eating lettuce before the end of May!

[Mocha Jo]

Wow, that is great about your greenhouse, Muledeer! I sort of wish I could do an earth bermed greenhouse- dug into the ground 3 feet or so and with greenhouse walls and roof above. I think that wouldn't even need much heat except in the dead of winter if you chose to keep it going. If I could add a rocket mass heater it would stay warm all winter, at least enough for cold weather plants like kale. Sigh. I'm never getting out of this house, so just dreaming.

[Muledeer]

A bag of lettuce, turnip greens, and 3 small radishes were harvested from the greenhouse this evening.  Does anybody know how to cook turnip greens?

[The Dryad]

We've been growing this tree for a couple years now (we have the ritual of saving seeds, planting them and seeing if something will come up), I have no idea what the heck it is anymore, all I know is it's in the stone fruit category, yet not a peach nor a plum.....anywho, we're also growing a couple of sunflowers, so yay! Sunflower seeds are coming soon, probably.

[Zennster]

I'm the proud parent of a basil plant and I'm trying to grow a red pepper plant at the moment. I have also just planted some chillis, so hopefully they'll germinate soon.

[Muledeer]

Turnip greens....... they can either be sauteed with onion, or boiled with pork.  I chose to saute with chopped onion and dried hot peppers (from last year's garden), in bacon grease, along  with roasted pork loin.  It was pretty good.   

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

Yum! So much nicer than a plastic wrapped imitation. I read with envy, as I survey my little postage stamp....but the plans are taking shape, next year I might have a shot at seeing what the 6 inches of alkaline topsoil covering the builder's rubble will yield.

[daveb]

I see this thread and can't help but think, "what did you grow and where did you grow it?"*

 

* based on the line from the history of politics, "what did he know and when did he know it?"

 

I realized I have a couple of old packs of seeds, basil and marigold. So I think I will try planting them and see what transpires. Not sure if anything will come of it since the packs are at least 20 years old, if not older. Still, seeds can keep a long time, right?

[RiseOfCourage]

Lots of green thumbs here! I envy the greenhouses- what a great way for healthy eating!

Lol, my first thought reading this thread question was about entheogens...er, the stealth growing of, uhm, medicinal, plants/fungi/cacti, *cough*.

The thing I CAN mention are wonderful Medicines as well: the aloe vera.

First thing in morning, a tonic made from some aloe gel, raw honey & water is great for health. The bitterness of fresh gel dissipates after sitting in some water for a minimum of ten minutes. The raw honey also helps.

The one thing with this aloe garden is it's location near where the neighbors walk their male dogs. Uhg. No picking the closest leaves.

 

[Mocha Jo]

I have a large old aloe plant in a pot that I have used for burns, but I think if I started eating it it wouldn't last long, LOL.

I have finally- in spite of the weather- gotten almost all my plants in except for the cucumbers. I have an awful lot of kale .I do hope the little tomato plants perk up if it ever gets warmer and a bit sunnier. If anyone even dares say the word "drought" this summer around here, violence may be done. We are so soaked that the ground can't hold much more water.

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

Reading all these great posts about what's being planted out there, I got a little hanging basket and filled it with trailing strawberry plants...well, it's a start!

[Mocha Jo]

 Ooh, strawberries. Yum! We had a biggish plot growing up. Now I go down the road and pick enough to make jam with.

[Muledeer]

I have never figured out how to protect strawberry plants from hungry animals.  I do enjoy a fresh garden strawberry - they have so much more flavor than grocery store strawberries. 

 

I planted three rows of radishes in the greenhouse - purple plum and watermelon varieties.  The watermelon radishes were supposed to be white on the outside with red flesh.  All my radishes have failed spectacularly.  Most of them have bolted to seedflowers without even trying to form a bulb underground.  The heat inside the greenhouse is probably just too intense for radishes.    I have been enjoying fresh lettuce all month long with a few purple plum radishes - they are purple on the outside with white flesh.

 

I have never looked at my aloe vera plant as food - I just keep one around in case I get burned.  That tonic you make sounds very healthful, @RiseOfCourage.  I wish somebody would post something about growing their own "medicine" on this thread - weed is becoming more and more legal and accepted here in the US and even more so in Canada.  If the penalties were not so harsh in my state I would surely be growing my own cannabis as well!  By the way, I love your avatar photo is that your own dog's face?

[Mocha Jo]

I have had problems with all the root plants. I have yet to figure out how to weed around them without disturbing the forming root veggie. I am trying the deep mulch method this year to keep the weeds down and I put in some onions as a trial. We shall see...

[Skycaptain]

I've managed something I thought was impossible, and killed a potato plant 

[daveb]

You committed potatocide?

[Muledeer]

I've seen potato plants come back after severe frosts, withering droughts, and being eaten down to the ground by the deer.  How on earth did you kill one of these things, @Skycaptain?  Are you sure it's really dead?

[InariYana]

When I was a little kiddo I grew a few varieties of radish in my gran's garden (short chubby ones, long white 'icicle' ones...), also carrots and peas. I used to love helping my gran dig up potatoes and onions too  I don't have a garden now, but if I ever lay my hands on one, it will be full of vegetables. Especially 'weird' varieties like purple carrots

I keep house plants at home (one giant Monstera is my fav) and sometimes try growing plants from seeds (like lemons or bell peppers) but it rarely works and usually something starts eating my baby plants grrrrrr  

[Skycaptain]

It's on its back, roots in the air dead. I don't know how I managed either. 

 

On a happier note, there are lots of baby pods on my broad beans 

[Tintinfan]

Spider plants!!! Lots of them. And some alivo vera

[daveb]

On 6/22/2017 at 1:05 AM, Skycaptain said:

I've managed something I thought was impossible, and killed a potato plant 

I once killed an air plant/epiphyte

[Autumn Sunrise]

On 22 June 2017 at 6:05 PM, Skycaptain said:

I've managed something I thought was impossible, and killed a potato plant 

How on earth did you manage that? 

 

On 1 June 2017 at 2:36 PM, The Dryad said:

We've been growing this tree for a couple years now (we have the ritual of saving seeds, planting them and seeing if something will come up), I have no idea what the heck it is anymore, all I know is it's in the stone fruit category, yet not a peach nor a plum.....anywho, we're also growing a couple of sunflowers, so yay! Sunflower seeds are coming soon, probably.

Could it be a nectarine @The Dryad? They look rather like large red and green plums, but apparently they're actually a kind of smooth-skinned peach!

 

Are your seedlings still surviving, @Mocha Jo?

 

 

My little veggies seem to be coping quite well with the periodic frosts (one morning a couple of weeks ago we got down to almost -7! Pretty cold for around here )

 

The broad beans are bushing nicely and starting to flower. I must remember this year to pick them before the pods (and the beans inside) get too big - it makes them rather tough, and then any hope I have of persuading my (somewhat vegetable indifferent) son to eat them goes out the window 

 

Sadly, the frost damaged two little acacia seedlings that a friend gave me, even though they were on a covered verandah. They were special ones that have little red furry flowers instead of the more usual yellow or cream ones. I'm still nurturing them, but I'm not sure they'll make it 

[Mocha Jo]

Our weather has been so weird here (going from 90's one week to 40's the next week, thunderstorms, mega rain, and hail) that the kale is the happiest of all my garden. Everything else is growing, but slowly. My herbs in pots are a bust- they sprouted, but then drowned in the rain and hail, I think. I have been eating kale, the chickens have been eating kale... I need to go food shopping and make some Portuguese kale soup!

[daveb]

McKale's Navy

 

(speaking of kale and rain and all)

[Muledeer]

5 hours ago, Mocha Jo said:

 drowned in the rain and hail, I think. I have been eating kale, the chickens have been eating kale... 

Chickens eat kale?

I wish I liked kale.  I have one plant in the greenhouse so I can eat kale when kale calls.  But I really dislike its flavor as a vegetable.  I tend to use it like an herb to season my sautéed squash, and I only use the stemmy parts of the large leaves if they are tender.  I have a Russian red kale plant.  Did you know that kale is part of the cabbage family?

 

Garlic scapes were harvested last weekend.  They are the curly stem with an unopened flower bud growing from the top of the plant.  They are hot!  I used only one scape to season some instant garlic mashed potatoes yesterday and it was delicious.  I also use "green garlic" ...an immature garlic clove and stalk that can be used just like green onions but it has more intense flavor.  I planted about 100 garlic cloves last fall and, so far, they are growing into a promising crop, both outside and inside the greenhouse.   Only the plants in the greenhouse have scaped so far, and the deer have left the outside garlic alone. 

[Skycaptain]

You get two crops from kale. The immature leaves go well in salad, then there's the older ones for steaming etc 

[Myssterry]

I now have a hanging basket filled with a pink flowered strawberry and lots of ripening fruit.  I didn't grow it, I confess I just bought it.  However, it does have runners on it I will try and grow on for next year.

[Digs_Dead_People]

I strictly garden.  I can't own my own livestock, which would consist of chickens and goats if I could, because of where I live.  I do have two garden plots that I started last year, but the plants were all destroyed by a hail storm last year.  This year I planted tomatoes, okra, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin, and a blackberry bush.  I do have some herbs from last year growing as well, but I can't tell what because a hail storm came in a couple of weeks back and destroyed some more of my plants.  My second garden plot is aimed to attract bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies.  I'll have to try to remember what I planted because I planted a lot.  I have some sunflowers that survived the hail storm.  I'm more worried about the snapdragons.  Outside of the plots, I have wildflowers, lettuce, rhubarb, and corn growing.   I don't have pictures yet, but my garden has become an overgrown mess because the weather prevented me from going out and weeding.  I now have to wait to figure out what is food and what isn't since the rain and hail destroyed my identifier stakes.

 

Fun fact:  the lettuce and wildflowers were meant for the bunnies...who instead ate all of my strawberry plants last year.  So far they've left my garden alone this year.

 

I don't gather plants and I don't hunt.  I plan on partaking in the antelope hunt later this year, though, because the base is having a season due to the overpopulation of the herd there.  I suppose that that's a type of harvesting.

 

Edit:  I forgot!  I planted a plum tree last year.  It won't be fruit bearing for awhile, but I'm excited!  My neighbors also have choke cherries and trees that grow smaller plums [I forgot the right name] that they share with us.