Food Growing Mamas

[MamiBeth]

Is there anyone out there that grows their own veggies and fruits and loves gardening, that would like to start a tribe? I just started my garden and am excited about it - tomatoes, peppers, beans, eggplant, basil, thyme, primrose, cucumbers. I'm definitely new to it, and not an expert - but would like to share info with like-minded sister-mamas.

[farmer mama]

Count me in! I love my garden, and I try to grow and put up as much food as possible. I grow lots of veggies, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, goosberries, cherries, plums and apples. We also have chickens, ducks and bees.

[JenLove]

Count me in as well. We have a very small garden, but it fits our needs for right now. We have parsely, mint, tomatoes, and broccoli. We also have flowers (sunflowers and black eyed susans). In the front yard we have rose bushes and virginia creepers. This is my first year growing anything on my own and I'm so excited about it!

[farmer mama]

Do you guys have a particular gardening method you use? I am an organic gardener, I use a lot of ideas and concepts from permaculture, biodynamics and the french biointensive method in how I lay out our landscape, compost, plant, dig beds, etc. I would love to share ideas about methods and what works for you.

[purplegirl]

I am in the process of composting and growing vegetables. Although we had a garden growing up, I feel like a novice. I am particularly interested in how others compost.
Great tribe Beth!

[mshollyk]

i never, ever grew anything before in my life...not even in school. i just planted my first herbs--i'm soooooooo excited to see the little bits of green peeking up out of the dirt!!! i'm surprised it actually happened :LOL and i want to start an organic veggie garden next year

[Leatherette]

This year we are growing strawberries, blueberries, cherries, tomatoes (cherry and roma), basil, corn, raspberries, grapes, asparagus, and pumpkin. And we have three chickens. And we live in the city, with a city-sized backyard. Don't even have to put effort into being organic, it all just grows here. Ahh. Good times.

Hi, growers!

L.

[MamiBeth]

Originally Posted by farmer mama

Do you guys have a particular gardening method you use? .

I don't know much about gardening, but my husband and I want to do this all organic. My mom told me to plant every other row with marigolds, garlic, onions or chives to keep the bugs away. Perhaps you could share some of your methods. I'm really excited to learn what works.

[farmer mama]

Leatherette- good for you for gardening and having chickens in the city.
MamiBeth- for interplanting with marigolds, garlic and onions. I love to put a lot of variety in my beds, and companion planting with lots of flowers to encourage beneficial insects and to discourage the bad ones. I also am big in using compost for mulch to add nutrients, keep down weeds and keep in moisture.

[MamiBeth]

Anybody with any advice on how to grow strawberries successfully??

[cathe]

Hi - I'd like to join. We have a raised bed garden with corn, pumpkins, zucchini, lettuce, kale, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, leeks, potatoes, snap peas, green beans and various herbs. We also have fruit trees and blackberry bushes - made my first blackberry pie last week and it was amazing.

We grow organically. For compost, we feed all our scraps to the chickens and use the poop as fertilizer - we compost weeds with the poop and some dirt.

We had a lot of problems with birds and gophers so this year we enclosed the whole garden - 2 feet down with chicken wire and then built a huge frame which we cover with netting to keep out the birds. We have problems with aphids but I spray them with soapy water.

[CarrieMF]

I planted my garden last week. I have cucumbers, pumpkin, corn, potatoes, peas, beans, onions, lettuce, spinach, radish, garlic chives, raspberries, carrots.

We(I) extended our garden 20feet this year. It is going to be so nice to have more veggies through the winter. I can't wait to get to an acerage and plant huge gardens.

I am trying to go organic. I have sprayed in the past for ants which seems to be our only problem. I have some borax that I'm going to mix with sugar and spread through the garden.

I am trying to get a compost made. I would have it done by now but they(dh and a border) took my pallets and I believe they took them to the dump. I do not know why as they knew I wanted a compost and I told them they'd be perfect. They're going to build one, so unless I do it myself or buy one from the city I'll never have one.

[mom2amelia]

Yippie for gardening. We had a flegling garden last year, and are finally getting more of what we want this year. We've planted 2 prune plum trees, and apple tree (with 4 varieties), raspberries, strawberries, peas, carrots, zucchini, cucumber, pumpkin, gourds, tomatoes, basil, and sweet onions so far. One of these days we'll get the lettuce in- we keep killing the seedlings before we transplant. Oops.

I don't really have any strawberry hints. This is the first year we've done them, and they are going like gangbusters. I picked about 20 berries yesterday, and I'm sure there will be that many today. Of course, we do have 100 plants, tee hee.

I was hoping to do some pole beans and a bean teepee, but we still haven't planted the seeds. I suppose there is still time, but we'll see.

[Throkmorton]

Oooh, me too! This yeah, it is more of an experiment to see what we can grow on soil poisoned by black walnut trees but by next year, I should have it all figured out.
Last year, i worked at a commercial garden, and we used the black plastic and soaker hose method to keep everything watered in the desert. Maybe not the most natural way, but the most sensible. We needed to warm the soil up with the plastic, because otherwise you just don't have enough time to get a crop in zone 3.

[farmer mama]

Strawberries are really easy to grow. I believe they like slightly acidic soil, and they do well with mulch. Straw is really great and it keeps the berries off the soil.

[purplegirl]

Thus far I have planted, tomatoes, peppers, rosemary and basil. i wanna grow some mint too but past experience reminds me that it can get a little outta hand. might do a bit in a container!

[nym]

I'd like to join. We have a big organic garden. I have planted carrots, onions, garlic, beets, radishes, lettuce, arugula, chard, spinach, sweet peas, telephone peas, potatos, zuchini, pie pumpkins, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, cucumbers, red and green cabbages, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, huckleberries, rhubarb, blueberries, mint, dill, oregano, chives, a rosemary bush, thyme, and nastursiums (sp?) and marigolds.

My radishes though are in trouble. They are being eaten by a little yellow worm. It leaves big round holes in the radishes. Anyone have any advice?

[IdentityCrisisMama]

I'm in! I began gardening in Santa Cruz, CA in terrible soil. Since we moved to Heidelberg, Germany, my gardening success has improved greatly.

I like to plant vegetables and flowers together in an "artistic" way. This year, I've got 1 zucchini, 3 tomatoes (2 cherry), peas, pole and bush beans, amaranth, sorrel, ruccola, sunflowers, some herbs and lots of flowers.

I'm struggling with aphids right now because we have a large ant population on the land where we garden.

Anyway, I'm also relatively new to gardening but I learn more every year and absolutely love it.

[purplegirl]

composting

anyone have any suggestions on getting started with composting? i really wanna do this but how do i start? do i need special equipment to contain the compost material? any help is appreciated.

[MamiBeth]

Hey Lisa: I'm getting all my info from my mother because I'm not an experienced gardener. She gave us a composter - (I think that's what it's called). It's a big plastic container we keep outside in the backyard. I have yet to use it - But she said to take all my vegetable peelings, used coffee grounds, and egg shells (make sure you rinse them off). And put them all together in the composter. If anyone has any better info - let us know!!
Peace & Blessings.