Learning to grow food

[rs]

Hi folks,

I'll be upfront and say I have never had any interest in gardening whatsoever other than watering plants, mowing the lawn and cutting back hedges!

However with PO, I am increasingly concerned about my reliance on others providing food.

We have a reasonably sized garden (140ft x 50). What would you recommend to get me started?

Should I create a vegetable patch, install a greenhouse, what plants should I start off with ?

I am a complete novice, so be gentle !

[Andy Hunt]

I too am a complete novice really, just doing my second year of growing food in my small back garden - it's a fair bit smaller than yours, I live in a terraced house, but I've still managed to cram a fair bit in.

I have some raised veg beds with potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, onions, peas, beans, sweetcorn and stuff in, which seem to have done OK. I have a mini-greenhouse which I've tried to grow peppers in, but those have failed dismally this year.

Apart from the storage space I've set aside for logs for my wood burner, most of the rest of the garden is given over to herbs and fruit trees - I have an apple tree and a pear tree. I also have a few non-edible bushes and flowers and the like, for a bit of biodiversity. You need flowers in any case, in order to get the bees in, to pollinate your fruits etc.

The only other things I have are a blueberry bush, a raspberry cane and a grape vine. I like the idea of low-maintenance fruiting plants, which just produce food every year without effort like planting and harvesting vegetables.

I'm currently digging a small pond too - I'm hoping to get some toadspawn in the spring. I desperately need an organic remedy for the thousands of slugs and snails which I get every year, especially when it gets wet! Toads would be the ideal answer.

Hope this helps . . .

[PowerswitchClive]

Wow Andy, doesn't sound like you are a novice at all! Excellent tips! Something I really need to start looking at.......

[Koba]

To get rid of your slug problem, just put a small bowl close to your vegtables that you want to protect and fill it with beer. The slugs will be attracted to it and will drown happy. This is the best method I have found for protecting my plants so far.

[rs]

thanks for the reply Andy, perhaps you should offer training courses

How did you start? What were the first things you did?

[mikepepler]

I've used the "beer traps" for slugs and they've been very effective. My method was to sink a small yoghurt pot so it is level with the soil surface, fill it with beer, and then put three small sitcks in the ground next to it. Then, you can put a roof over it to keep the rain from diluting the beer. I used a old jam-jar lid as the roof.

[Andy Hunt]

Thanks for the beer trap tips for slugs and snails! I might just try that one, it's a huge problem where I am.

I actually started off by collecting some old tyres which were littering a road near me, leading down to a local scrap yard. A lot of people with terraced houses only have yards, not gardens, but old tyres make huge and watertight plant pots that you can grow just about anything in!

One thing my food-growing exercise has taught me so far though, is that for townsfolk it is absolutely NOT possible to grow enough food to support yourself and your family. I think that what will have to happen post-peak is that we try to grow AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE of our own food, but it will have to be supplemented by local community farms and local farmers.

I suppose the idea is to take responsibility for as many of our own needs as possible. Like getting solar, wood fuel or wind power at home, it won't provide all our needs, but if we all do it then it will take a huge burden from the grid and local farmers.

If we can take that burden, then the local grid and farming system are much more likely to be able to cope and continue working with the smaller load, than if they were completely overloaded, when they might break down completely.

Had my first apple the other week from my apple tree, which I planted last year. Can't tell you how delicious it was!!!

[theeggman]

Should I create a vegetable patch, install a greenhouse, what plants should I start off with ?

I am a complete novice, so be gentle !

I have found that we have managed to produce much more since we got our polytunnel. You can get quite small ones quite cheaply, they are not as expensive as you might think. Another option is to make one from plastic bottles. It is possible to make a greenhouse or lean-to and you can buy the plans to do it. Let me know if you are interested and I'll try to find you the link, or search for plastic bottle greenhouse, Scotland.

I do wish, though, that we could have had some kind of lean-to greenhouse. If you can rig one up that can use your grey water as it leaves the house it can be very beneficial. The warmth from the water and the nutrients it contains can help to grow bumper crops apparently.

It is a good idea to have at least an area of perennials that don't need much looking after and that can produce new plants year after year too, like strawberries, rasberries, rhubarb, etc. etc.

Forest gardening is my main interest, and I tend to grow in that way, together with "Future Foods" (like Oca, Yacon, etc.) rather than growing annual vegetables in neat rows. Having said that, I've had some wonderful crops of oriental vegetables like Pak Choi, vitamin greens and mizuna. They are very fast growing, grow more as you pick more and can be grown all year round inside and out. I've just let a few go into flower to see whether I can save the seed or not.

[DamianB]

My first tip would be to read an organic gardening book (Geoff Hamilton's is good) and find out about permaculture.

Also make a sun map of your garden by observing, at hourly intervals, which parts are in full sun. The area that gets at least six hours per day at this time of year is the only area (for the moment) that you should think of planting. Now ask yourself whether you'd be happy to dig up some or all of this area - if not, you'll need to investigate allotments.

[Ballard]

Hey Tess,

I guess you'll read this, so I'll suggest a solution to your Yearning and Longing etc.

GET AN ALLOTMENT

Following my bouts of PO induced depression I decided that the number one priority (even above debt) was to learn to grow some godd*m food. If you feel that you can grow food, A LOT of the fear is removed from PO. I considered growing food to be an education for the future, almost the only thing that really matters. As with all degree level subjects I expect to be at it for three years before I learn anything much. I started four months ago, and with the help of all the old boys (and girls) at the allotment I have already gained an immense amount of knowledge. Don?t give me any rubbish about not having enough time, I work full time in a stressful competitive Job, I have two young kids under four years old, jeez if I can do it anyone can.

It really will help, just being in contact with reality once in a while, just digging planting and picking is absolutely fantastic. I?ve grown more blo*dy courgettes than I, all my friends and work colleges can eat. I?ve got carrots coming out of my ears, cabbage elbow and leak breath.

It doesn?t matter if the SHTF and all the chavs pinch my crops, I will know how to do it, and believe me there are LOADS of things that are not in the books. The only way to learn this subject is to get your hands dirty, (for backup, a copy of ?Food from your garden (1973)? is great).

Just get out there and do it, you still have time to grow beetroot, rocket, heck all sorts of things, and at the very least your mind will be at ease four hours a week. You?ll meet some of the most interesting and friendly people around and you?ll learn loads of really important stuff.

Ed

[DamianB]

I?ve grown more blo*dy courgettes than I, all my friends and work colleges can eat.

I have the same 'problem'; a friend of mine in the US told me that there is a tradition in there whereby on a given night each year, everyone in the town sneaks into their neighbours porches and leaves their excess zucchini!

[RevdTess]

Hey Tess,

I guess you'll read this

Yup

Definitely the next thing to do - will put myself down for one of the allotment 'tubs'.

[Joe]

Hi all.

This might be the link for the plastic bottle greenhouses: http://www.sci-scotland.org.uk/greenhouse.html

I'm feeling quite pleased with myself today as I've just sorted myself out with an allotment

Not only that, but the plot is run by a self-managed allotment committee with a difference: they've established themselves as an organic growers co-operative with links to local schools, universities and the council's re-cycling initiative. They run a "community crop" scheme where volunteers can come in to help out, learn about organic growing and take a share of the produce away with them.

It gets even better: they're looking to install PV panels & a wind turbine to heat their polytunnels too

Anyone else ever come accross similar co-operatives or is this a bit of a one off?

Anyway, I told the main administrator type dude about the plastic bottle greenhouses and he seemed pretty interested, so (after I've done my introduction to carpentry & joinery course in the new year) I'll have a crack at building one and let you know how I get on.

On a similar note, I was in the initial stages of building a model wind generator according to these instructions: http://www.re-energy.ca/t-i_windbuild-1.shtml and the thought struck me that 2L plastic bottles with the tops & bottoms chopped off, and then cut lengthways could be easily flattened out to to make panes for cold frame covers...

[newmac]

I spotted last week that my neighbours were having their sash windows replaced. On inquiry I found that the old windows were being thrown into a dump. Oh no, I'll take them.

The frame for the first lean to cold frame is built and is pretty cool - ?12 of wood, some nails and some hinges.

I suspect these will greatly improve my growing this year and extend the season.

[MaxWahlter]

I saw a post on a site about local food systems. This is where you get together with others rather like the cooperative ideas someone mentioned earlier.

What might be possible is to create a local currency system around the local food system.
Read about it on http://www.postcarbon.org/node/1235