Do you grow your own food?

[thisnthat]

I used to really enjoy having a garden. It was a great sense of accomplishment, and it was much easier to make sure we all ate more veggies, when we could just go pick some. I would think it would be even more beneficial for vegetarians and vegans to have their own produce growing nearby.

Do you like to garden? If you have a small space, do you do container gardening? How much of your food do you grow yourself (if any)?

 

[Blaine]

I have a small garden in my home. Right now I am growing a couple of vegetables using pots and some hanging planters. It has become a favorite activity for me and my friends taking care of the garden. We gather around it after and then catch up and most specially we exchange good practices as we are all new to growing our own vegetables.

 

[Alexia]

My parents grow a lot of their own vegetables and it's great; they have beans, carrots, potatoes, spinach, cabbage and lettuce. They have the time to do it now they are retired, but when I was living in the city it wasn't possible as a garden is rare.

I do think if you can grow your own then it's worth it, even if you can manage some herbs. Lettuce is really easy to grow as well and takes little effort, you just have to pick them when the time is right. We used to have an apple tree and that was great as we made apple pies and gave away apples to neighbors and friends.

 

[Michelle]

I live in Florida, and every time I mention that I want to grow my own fruits and vegetables people always say that it's not good to do it here. They say our soil ph is way off and the only suitable things to grow are citrus fruits (which I'm not too fond of). I know there is container gardening and I've been meaning to try that, but I want to do it right so the initial investment might be a little high. Once we get a little more money going it's definitely something I want to do.

 

[Connie]

I used to have a huge garden where we had a similarly large veg plot, a large herb plot, several areas where fruit trees grew and even an area for raspberry canes and various currants grew. I even had an area dedicated to nettles! yes nettles. They have a very good nutrient and mineral contents and are excellent blanched and used in place of spinach or other greens. I also had a greenhouse or two and a couple of cold frames. I was able to grow roughly 3/4 of our veg during the summer and come autumn, all of our fruit and veg, but through the winter it was more restricted to what had lasted the season. Spring was always the hardest, until the nettles started to grow again.

Now I have to make do with a few containers, a herb patch, a few hanging baskets that I grow various cut and come again leaves in and that is about it.

When we own our own home, it will have to have a large garden so that I can get back out and grow our own fruit and veg again. I miss it.

 

[cocolgooh]

I grow my own food at an allotment not far from my house, although I do also have a garden and use that for growing some things too. I keep the garden clearer to use for my dogs though. One of them is particularly well known for stealing all my produce if I don't watch him!

At the little allotment I have I grow beans, potatoes, onions and cabbages typically. I also have blackcurrant, red currant, plum, pear, apple, raspberry and blackberry bushes that were there before I got there. We used to have a gooseberry bush as well although as I didn't use that I let someone else take it.

At home I have tomatoes, courgette/zucchini, cucumber and all manner of herbs.

We have some strawberries growing in a window box as well!

 

[MyDigitalpoint]

I remember myself attending elementary school for the first time, being happy to see there was a huge garden next to the music classroom.

To my surprise, the garden wasn't set to play but to grow vegetables. Teachers taught us how, and the reward was eating fresh salads every end of the month, or more often, depending on the season of the year and the harvesting.

With this memory in mind, and having not a garden or enough room to grow a large amount of vegetables. I have small pots in the kitchen's window line, each of them with different fine herbs, while I have a larger pot in terrace where I grow small tomatoes, potatoes, and onions.

 

[turtledove]

I really want to, but I don't have a lot of space to do so currently. We do grow beans in our back garden, but that's about it, and we do get a few to use in our meals every year. I really would like to grow some fruit in my garden, like strawberries, raspberries or blackberries.

 

[Nekodaiden]

Bump.

A little in the past. Doing more now: currently have over 20 potato plants, several onion, garlic, lettuce and mustard plants. 2 tomato plants and some seedlings, some broccoli, and have seeded some bean plants, capsicum and sage. An immature strawberry plant and an immature grape vine. Most of these are new ventures except for the potatoes, lettuce and onion which I have grown before - and some of it on questionable soil so I expect some failures.

 

[Gaspard]

I planted two Haskap and four hazel trees. Have you ever tasted Haskap berries?

 

[Nekodaiden]

I planted two Haskap and four hazel trees. Have you ever tasted Haskap berries?

Nope, never heard of.

 

[Gaspard]

Nope, never heard of.

I've never eaten Haskap berries but from what I've read they tastes delicious and they have extremely potent anti-oxidants (even stronger than blueberries). They can grow in very cold winters (I live in the mountains). Here we have loads of wild strawberries and blueberries. And so I thought I would try. There aren’t many edible honeysuckles. One of them grow is Siberia and its berries are also extremely beneficial to health. But where I live it would require a lot of care because the summers are hot. So I thought the honeysuckle from Japan (Haskap) would be better.