Gardening to feed the Family?

[TanksHill]

Veggie PAK,

First off your grand daughter is just adorable. I love getting the little ones involved in the garden.

Second you pole beans look wonderful. I am curious, do your rows run North and South?

This is my first year with pole beans, I usually do bush. I am very impressed.

I usually try to plant in secession as well. This year I experimented with 3 garden peas and two pole beans. Then replanted several weeks later with the one that was thriving.

My fruit trees reach toward the west. They grow heavy up hill toward the sun.

Funny things.

g

 

[farmerlor]

We planted with an eye on things that are going up in price at the grocery store. So with that in mind animal feed was a priority. We planted a whole row of pumpkins (I usually plant one hill for the kids to play with) as animal feed. We planted extra kale for the turkeys, pigs and goaties. I have extra beets planted this year. Beets are my own special food just for me since most of the kids don't like them but they make wonderful animal feed especially the tops that I don't use.
Lots of potatoes (hey, I'm Irish!), lots of lettuce/spinach mixes, beans, mostly stuff I KNOW that everyone will eat either fresh or canned or dried. We have a permanent bed of onions, garlic, asparagus and strawberries and it looks as though this damnable wind has taken any chance of getting apples AGAIN this year.
With a hundred tomato plants I plan to can ketchup, chili, bbq sauce, tomato juice, heinz 57 sauce, salsa, spaghetti sauce, plain, tomato sauce, and diced tomatoes.
When the garden is done I plan to sow the whole thing with alfalfa which we'll cut down in the spring and parcel out to animals and then till under to nourish the soil with the manure compost.

 

[KevsFarm]

Chickensducks&agoose...Sounds like a great idea, really going for it in the garden this yr. I was just wondering what garden pest you have to contend with in your area..? Zone 3 probabley has alot of deer..? Seems it more work fencing(and expensive) to stop damage then it is to actually grow some crops.! I'm always trying to grow more and expand, but that includes deer fencing, etc. or they do serious damage.How do you protect your crops...? Raccoons trash my corn, deer eat my raspberry plants, tomatoes, i'd have nothing much left without some kinda fencing...just curious ...

 

[lwheelr]

Kale dries very well, so do beet tops and other greens. So if you have surplus beyond what the animals use, get them on a screen in the sun. They can eat crispy chips in the winter.

You can do the same with sunflower leaves, squash leaves, the outer cabbage leaves, lettuce, etc.

 

[freemotion]

If you are planting for your critters, consider storage. Plant some hard winter squash that keeps well like hubbard and the baby pumpkins...bot keep a long time, but pumpkins don't. I use the field pumpkins up first, then go to the baby pumpkins and the squashes. Root veggies store a long time, so mangels and such are a good choice, too.

 

[farmerlor]

If you are planting for your critters, consider storage. Plant some hard winter squash that keeps well like hubbard and the baby pumpkins...bot keep a long time, but pumpkins don't. I use the field pumpkins up first, then go to the baby pumpkins and the squashes. Root veggies store a long time, so mangels and such are a good choice, too.

Oh yes, we do have squash, turnips, the beets of course, lots of carrots, sweet potatoes, etc.... I'll just dry some of it for the critters and us and store some too. LOVE dried kale both for us and the animals.

 

[Veggie PAK]

TanksHill,

Thanks for the grandaughter compliment and you are correct!

Getting the little ones involved assures their gardening success later on in life, I think. They'll be comfortable with knowing about it, and it won't be something brand new to them. They remember more about it than we give them credit for.

The storms we get here are nor'easters. The winds blast us from the Chesapeake Bay which is north east to the whole metropolitan area, hence the name nor'easter. They can cause as much damage as a small hurricane but in much less time. Especially if it arrives on a high tide. Anyway, in the beginning when we had a storm it would always lay my crops down because it would blow across the rows. Now I make my rows in the direction of the wind, so the damage is usually minor if any. (northeast to southwest) It works pretty good this way.