innovative gardening

I haven't done anything terribly innovative this year, although I did triple my garden square footage. Hard work getting those beds ready with icky red clay soil. I miss the light, fluffy, brown dirt of my PA childhood...

However, my goal this year has been to get as many people gardening as possible. The likelihood of food shortages in the next few years is somewhere between possible and probable IMO. As far as I'm concerned, the more people who can grow at least some of their own food, the better. So I started about four times as many seedlings as I could and gave away the extras. I was really surprised at how many people wanted plants. The exchange usually went like this:
Me: "Do you garden?"
Friend: "No, I never have."
Me: "Well, I have some extra tomato and pepper plants you can have if you want to try."
Friend: "Free? OK, I'll give it a shot."
The only person who refused was my neighbor, who asked what I do with the vegetables I grow. Umm, I eat them. He thought that seemed unsanitary! Huh?

I also bought some fun seeds (purple lima beans, yellow watermelons, red string beans) to give to some friends with kids. Kids love the weird plants. It keeps them interested, hopefully long enough to get some food out of it!

So I guess that's my innovation for the year--increasing the number of gardeners.

reply to post by antar


i did something similar to my flower garden, not my veggies.

I used 1/2 inch chemical tubing, that is used on farm aplicators. i hung it over the flower bed using PVC as the frame. I also used spray tips used on farm applicators as you can change just the tip to control the amount of water going to that particular plant. these tip cost maybe 10cent at any farm supply store. I also used a fitting just in front of the water supply to inject my fertlizers and other such chemicals. it is much like the mirecal grow thing you put on a water hose. i also have shut off valves infront of each fitting so i can shut off the supply to that one flower. I think the whole set up cost maybe $80 us dollars. it was well worth it. it works great. maybe we should start a thread to share ideas such as the PVC to encourage and help new gardeners. anyone is welcome to take that idea and run with it. my threads never get much responces..

Hey Dale Gribble..
I think that the thread is here!!!
Within these postings, we can certainly exchange our pipe line ideas and any other interesting garden constructs.
I love this thread and am in the throws of getting those seeds in the ground now.
This is positive talk aimed at a good universal truth: Feed me Seymour and feed me well.
I'm all for gardening diatribe.

Peace...

reply to post by Gyrochiral


good point. im intrested in knowing what others have done along these lines. i love creating with my hands and plants have always baffeled and awed me. it is why i love them so much and i consider myself lucky to have my experince as a farmer. hopefully others will share their ideas with everyone here.

reply to post by DaleGribble


Yeah I have all the fittings, just have to remember where they are??? Seems like no matter how much info you gather it is always trial and error.

One thing I wanted to share is that when you use your seed, always save back even just a few seeds incase of a problem such as animals eating your new plants or someother disaster...

In doing this it takes some of the stress off if something goes wrong especially for new gardeners. Plus for me it is a safty net just in case sitx happens before next year.

Keeping your seeds organized is another area of importance. This last year I dried the tomato seeds on paper towels and then when I started this year I just tore off the amount of seed for the pot and they did great. I stored them once fully dried in plastic bags and I have enough for ten gardens...

reply to post by antar


Great advice...Thank you very much.
We are on our third year and have, perhaps, too many hands in the seed saving pot.
I am going to recommend this to our group and maybe we will delegate this particular method to the neighbor who also stores our canned and jarred produce.

Peace...

my garden uses mostly homemade hydroponics in my greenhouse, I also have a couple plants I'm trying to grow inside with hydroponics and sunlamps, so we'll see how that works out

hydroponics, it's not just for stoners anymore

I have almost an acre, but my yard is prone to flooding and is very unlevel. Last year, I tilled an area about 20x20 and planted only to have it flooded.
I was thinking about building a 20x20 raised bed, but now am seriously considering 3 or 4 small raised beds, maybe 4x8.

I've been doing a lot of reading on the raised beds lately and have come across some other ways for people who don't have lots of room to garden. One being a childrens plastic pool, and have read of people using old tractor tires. I don't know how safe the tires would be, but some people used them and liked the results.

I've got a couple more weeks to decide whether to go one large, or several smaller raised beds.

I have grown vegetables out of 5 gallon buckets and storage bin's for years and have had great results with 8 foot tall tomato plants, cucumbers and pole beans growing out of storage bins and over cheap garden arches, eggplants, peppers, all my herbs, lettuce and other tender greens in window boxes and so forth.

I have never grown so much as to can my harvest but they definitely help supplement my food bill... I do dry my cayanne and smoke and dry my jalapenos though.

One year I had an abundant garden of about 110 containers counting window boxes and hanging plants in roughly 120 square foot space.

Originally posted by virraszto
I have almost an acre, but my yard is prone to flooding and is very unlevel. Last year, I tilled an area about 20x20 and planted only to have it flooded.
I was thinking about building a 20x20 raised bed, but now am seriously considering 3 or 4 small raised beds, maybe 4x8.

I've been doing a lot of reading on the raised beds lately and have come across some other ways for people who don't have lots of room to garden. One being a childrens plastic pool, and have read of people using old tractor tires. I don't know how safe the tires would be, but some people used them and liked the results.

I've got a couple more weeks to decide whether to go one large, or several smaller raised beds.

Personally, I prefer smaller multiple raised beds. When I first bought my house there were 2 small beds for strawberries..etc. I had always wanted to grow a salsa garden, so they soon became "pepper beds"...well next thing you know... i need tomato beds...so utilizing scrap "trex" material, and locating them on all southern exposures 2 beds became 6...advantages are:
1) ease of care, weeding harvesting etc.
2) you can actually make them look good (made the ex-wife happy) dressing up the beds with marigolds etc. (great natural bug repellents)
3) fall cleanup is a breeze working in the smaller beds...
4) overall soil prep and ph balancing easier to maintain...