A new member from Connecticut

BunnyGal

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Hi Everybody!

A big thank you to all the warm welcomes. This seems like such a friendly group; I'll fit right in :)
@ Denim Deb - I live in central CT, practically dead center of the state. Fairfield is 45 minutes southwest from me.

My neighbors had nicknamed me "gopher" because I was digging (and planting) so much LOL. Now that I'm disabled, my methods have changed drastically. No more digging holes and squatting down for me. I have a vegetable garden that is about..... 15' wide x 25' long.
Half of it is dedicated to both red and yellow raspberry bushes. The other half is veggies.
This past year I had tomatoes, various peppers, basil and oregano, and eggplant.

I also have a perennial flower bed up against the chain link fence that seperates my side yard from the back (hard to explain) and on that fence I planted a bunch of butternut squash and sugar baby melons. The squash did great; i'm still eating it, but watermelon did awful!

Hidden behind my fence I have 4 raised bed gardens (this is where my meat rabbits are kept). 2 of them to are used to vermicompost all my rabbit manure (poop + worms = black gold) and the other two are for planting. Last summer was my first year of raised bed gardening and I dont think I utilized the space as well as a could have/should have. One was dedicated mostly to herbs. I'm a totally bland and boring cook and I hoped that planting the herbs would motivate me to look up new recipes on how to use them, but that never happened and instead they were all fed to the rabbits (lucky rabbits). Hopefully, next year I'll actually use some! The other had sugar snap peas, pole beans, strawberries, lettuce and cucumbers. I planted scallions/bunching onions but they didn't come up??? I fed the snap peas and pole beans to my rabbits and my neighbor, let the lettuce grow too long - it bolted and became bitter and ate a couple cucumbers but gave most away. I'm BORING in the kitchen and could use some real inspiration (and a kick in the butt :) )

This state is horribly expensive. I want to move so badly but dont have a single dime to set aside each month toward every being able to do so.
Not to mention - when I became disabled I had a tremendous amount of medical bills (which I'm still *trying* to pay). Most are in collections which put my credit rating in the toilet. Trying to rent or buy a home anywhere would be nearly impossible because everything is based on credit, regardless of why things got that way..... Someday i'll move... Someday (hopefully).

I'd be happy to post some photos of my gardens and furry critters if someone could point me to the right direction.

Again, thank you for the kind welcome, it really made me happy. Oh, one more thing - I had no idea I had any replies to my initial post until I signed in today (I was sad thinking I had none :( ) I did click "subscribe to this topic" thinking I would get an email notification when someone replied, but i haven't gotten any. Help?
 

Henrietta23

Yard Farmer
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Hi there and welcome! I'm in the Windham area but grew up in Middletown, so I know that middle part of the state quite well!
 

Dawn419

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BunnyGal said:
Oh, one more thing - I had no idea I had any replies to my initial post until I signed in today (I was sad thinking I had none ) I did click "subscribe to this topic" thinking I would get an email notification when someone replied, but i haven't gotten any. Help?
Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner about this but I wasn't sure of the answer and was waiting for one from the Admin.

Sounds like an issue with their spam filters on their email program or email service provider.

They may need to check their spam folders and/or "whitelist" (approve) the email address: support@sufficientself.com
Hope this is some help, and if it isn't, don't hesitate to ask more questions! ;)
 

hqueen13

<Insert Snazzy Title Here
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Welcome from Maryland!!

You might want to check out Edible Landscaping, I think there is a book called Edible Front Yard or something like that, I gave it to my sister for Christmas, and now I can't remember the name, LOL. It is a good resource for being able to landscape with things that are useful and edible.

If you don't already use it, Freecycle could be a good resource for you. Check out www.freecycle.org and find your city/area, and then watch the lists. People give away all sorts of things on there that are so useful. I have a free loveseat because of freecycle, along with 6 pots and pans that I'll be able to use for my lotion bars and such.

If you don't make your own laundry detergent, check out the Roll Your Own section, there are some great resources, and I have found that with my homemade soap I am now paying pennies per load, and 5 gallons lasts the 2 of us a whole year for a fraction of what we were paying before!!

Somewhere else someone mentioned that a certain variety of quail can be kept indoors in cages, and their eggs are very valuable, and they can be processed for meat as well. That might be a great way to expand what you have without anyone noticing :)

Best of luck, most of us are in some sort of a financial crimp... some worse than others, but I think we're all feeling the economy in some way or another.

Best of luck to you!
 

stubbornhillfarm

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Welcome Lisa! That is what I find so great about this site and the sister sites. Real people, living real lives that aren't "real perfect" all the time! :D People from all over, sharing their ideas, suggestions, joys and dissapointments. We all learn from each other. Glad you have joined us.
 

BunnyGal

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hqueen13 said:
You might want to check out Edible Landscaping, I think there is a book called Edible Front Yard or something like that, I gave it to my sister for Christmas, and now I can't remember the name, LOL. It is a good resource for being able to landscape with things that are useful and edible.
Thanks for the info and suggestion of other areas to check out. So much useful info :) Do you know the variety of the quail that can be kept indoors? That would be great.

I'll definately look for the laundry soap formula, that costs me a fortune and would be a great area to save.

I've heard of the "edible front yard" book you mentioned, but have never read it.

The sad thing is, even though I own my own home and pay lots of $$$ in taxes, zoning is so strict that I'm not allowed to plant anything edible in my front yard. Yup - it's that bad.

Did you read about the Michigan woman who had the same problem this past July? She constructed some very nice raised beds in her front yard and planted tomato plants as well as a few companion plants and was arrested and was facing 93 days in jail because of it.
I tried to post a link to the story, but when I send my message it was rejected because it contained a link. Do a google search for Michigan woman arrested for tomato plants and you'll get many results. Or, you can take the spaces out of this link and use it.
Here is a link to the story: http: // reason.com/blog/2011/07/08/plant-a-vegetable-garden-in-yo

I find it rather pathetic that the level of control we are under has come to the point where we have regulations about garden sizes, regulations about what can be planted and regulations about where it can be planted. Fortunately, the area where my raised beds are is totally concealed and i'm free to plant as many tomatoes as I choose!!!

Again, thanks for the warm welcome; it's nice.

Lisa L
 

Denim Deb

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There's a thread on here somewhere about that. And I agree, it's nuts. The trick is to plant things that people don't know are edible. If you have clover growing in your front yard, that's edible. If you have a pine tree growing on your property, that's edible. If you have violets growing in your yard, they're edible. The list goes on and on.
 

Dawn419

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BunnyGal said:
I tried to post a link to the story, but when I send my message it was rejected because it contained a link.
Do to some problems with spammers, new members have to have atleast 10 posts before they can posts links or pictures.

Hope this is some help! :)
 
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