Food fresh from the garden

I think there are so many that don't know the taste of real REAL food.

I grew some spring greens in my garden and we had a salad. I was just amazed at how must flavor
even plain ol' spring lettuce has when home grown (organic of course) I threw in some chives, some dandelion leaves and
a sprinkling of various herbs. It was so flavorful.
We are not quite at tomato season yet, but so far they are going nuts here. It might be my biggest season ever. Same with their friends the
pepper plants. Zucchini is a little off this year. There is just something about all those things, grown in good soil, warm sun, lovingly cared for.
When you eat it with appreciation, it is just indescribable how good it can taste. It doesn't just fill your belly, but also your soul.

I'm growing some strawberries too. A couple of different varieties. Last year I bought some from the farmers market and they were terrible!
I can actually taste when pesticides are on berries. I planted those tiny alpine berries. LORD HAVE MERCY, so tiny, but so much flavor! So sad some
may never taste that in their lives!!!

I wish everyone could have a little garden plot and was taught how to grow things. I think we have a serious lack of appreciation for real
food in the US. It is really sad. I did not feel like it is that way in other parts of the world.

When things calm down in my life I may venture into teaching young people interested in gardening for food.

I just got my garden tilled, and the belt went to hell before I got it totally finished. Sixteen bucks for a new belt I ordered, it will be in at the auto store tomorrow morning and I will finish. Got two rows of potatoes planted and also twelve cucumber plants. Frost is finally over now although my brother got a pile of one inch hail today in Palmer Michigan which is about eight miles south of us.

I think going to the farmers market to get stuff is probably better, but I cannot stop putting in a garden, I have had one for thirty years here since I built the house. Tomorrow the green beans and tomatoes get planted.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I miss my grandparent's garden. It's been so long I don't think I can list what they had, but here's what I remember.

White corn, potatoes, yellow onions, green onions, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, watermelon, squash, turnips, mustard greens, sweet potatoes, butter beans, string beans, okra, zucchini, blueberries, scallions, peach plums, strawberries ... I can't remember any more.

And the taste was there. I don't care for some veggies, but what I did eat was on point. My grandma's vegetable soup was the best. All from her garden.

I hope before I expire I can live on my own land, I plan on having a garden. I've never grown anything except for a dozen herb plants. And I smashed them after a few weeks.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I think there are so many that don't know the taste of real REAL food.

Absolutely not wrong there. I've just watched an interview by James Corbett with The Ice age farmer, Christian Westbrook. You can watch it here.. I think you'll appreciate his passion for what he does and find what he says interesting , hopefully.

I wish everyone could have a little garden plot and was taught how to grow things. I think we have a serious lack of appreciation for real food in the US. It is really sad. I did not feel like it is that way in other parts of the world.

Again, I agree, however the conspiratorial side of me tends to agree more with Christian Westbrook.

Personally I have an abundance of pest pine trees across my land and intent to have a crack at hugelkultur. I'm curious to see how efficiently it produces.

Hugelkultur can be read about here.

Lucky you people in the northern hemisphere getting yo have a bountiful summer garden, I'm in the southern hemisphere and am not good at winter gardening. Check a new sustainable gardening book written by the half owners of my dads organic farm. Its called "The abundant garden"

www.allenandunwin.co.nz...

They are organic market gardeners.

Happy growing.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Jag- the city around Detroit has new communities gardens....all well maintained.

There can be a blighted "hood" . But, the community feeding and weeding has begun.

Ill go get a photo and post. Thnx

In my opinion, there is no tomato like a tomato that is brought right in from the garden, sliced and eaten while it is still warm from the sun.
If I get tomato on a sandwich bought at a shop, I generally take it off. Those store bought tomatoes suck.

a reply to: JAGStorm
Not only it's healthy food, it's good for earthing and the children can discover and learn so much. There's a birdsnest near and the mother seems to bicker when we work too close to it but want's to feed. So we sit back and wait and watch silent until she notices she can sneak in. We hear it at the change of singing when she's confident. You don't get these experiences in the supermarket.

My landlord let's me grow vegetables, herbs and potato in his garden. IDK if it's a thing where you live but it's a wood encased 3 foot high box 12 foot long and about 4 foot width. Filled with tree branches, wood chips, compost and mother earth. Easy to reach and no kneeing or bending over needed, brilliant idea. They have four of those and let me use one for starters.

I grow herbs, strawberry, radix, salad, leek, cauliflower and carrots there. In two 60L pots on wheels I am doing potato next year, for this year it's too late for the longlivety storage ones that will be good until next spring. Tomato in wheeled containers so I can rescue them in storm or hail under their balkony. It's not enough to be self sustainable but it's nice to just go outside, grab fresh ingredients for cooking.

originally posted by: myselfaswell
Personally I have an abundance of pest pine trees across my land and intent to have a crack at hugelkultur. I'm curious to see how efficiently it produces.

Hugelkultur can be read about here.

Sorry for double post but I wanted to share this is what we do with the hochbeet. It's the same principle.

Hochbeet Füllung



Add: It's good protection against snails. They don't come up through the earth because of the branches. I never discovered one.

a reply to: JAGStorm My new belt for the tiller came in, it now works like a charm. hopefully the tiller runs for another fifty four years.

a reply to: JAGStorm My farming this year is limited to a few 6-gallon plant bags. I focused on the things I like that I can not stand to purchase from a store. Namely salad stuff. I have some Grand Rapids leaf lettuce going nuts. I thin it out constantly and eat all I can and invite others to take some. The number one reason people give me for not taking some home with them is they say they don't lettuce. I respond to this with "you don't like this lettuce?" They usually respond with a no. I then let them pick what they like and wash it off and eat a leaf. They say this is not the type of lettuce they get in the store. I just say I can not eat that stuff either. I also observe that people not only like their lettuce fresh-picked and when they get to harvest them their selves.

my fresh lettuce.

a reply to: machineintelligence

I dislike lettuce but each their own. Your way however is the only way there are any benefits to lettuce other than it filling the stomach or for taste. It needs to be fresh from the garden, store bought and cut it's degrading in healthy ingredients very fast even if it looks fresh.

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain
I agree of course. I don't like to think of all the money I have wasted buying salads and so-called fresh lettuce and ended up just putting it in the compost or the trash. Lettuce just has to provide me with some lifeforce since it is not really that nutritious but when fresh-picked does give me some life energy.

a reply to: machineintelligence
Everyone has different food needs

Do you like potato?

A nice trick is to plant spruced starters in big pots with drainage but only fill it 1/3 with earth. Later when the stem is growing bigger, you add more as a heap. This makes the future leave stems into roots because they get covered in earth, result is more potato on the same space. They might be smaller but will be more uniform and more in weight overall.

For starters, I use old sprouted ones from winter. Some will sprout and I use those. They made it through the de-sprouting process and still sprout, a good sign for sturdy genetic. Mine aren't treated I think, because I get almost everything local.