Skip to main content

Ramblings on container gardening.

   

     Recently I went out to eat with friends and I order a vegetarian option.   After getting playfully teased about eating rabbit food, the conversation turned to eating healthy, and the expenses of trying to maintain a healthy diet.

    We also talked about gardening, canning, and the fact that they felt things were going to get much, much worse with the American economy.

    While I am far from being a survivalist, I can honestly say that one of the reasons I want to learn to garden, to forage and store my own food is because I don't like where we as a country and as a planet are going.   No, this isn't a political blog, my concerns are more food availability and environmentally based then they are political.  

    If the pandemic showed us anything, it's that the supply chain can be interrupted and supplies can become diminished rather quickly.   Plus when costs raise, a common reaction is to save money where and how you can.   In this case, I'm in the perfect place to do that through gardening, canning and other means.  

    A little self sufficiency never hurts.  

    Generally speaking the average garden will run roughly $70 to start for things like seeds, fertilizer, tools, fencing, etc and bring a return of roughly $600 in food production.   No wonder roughly one out of every four people in the US grows some sort of food at home.   I never realized that many people gardened.  

May be an image of flower and nature
We considered releasing the cat on them

 

    It will probably run us a little more because I know that we will need some deer fencing. We have had as many as a dozen within 25 feet of the back porch, and they have eaten from my bird feeders. 

    Sue and myself plan on keeping it simple.   We want to plant tomato's, onions, potato's, zucchini, some herbs and maybe salad greens.    Since there is only the two of us planting anything more than one or two plants is getting to ambitious (so no Lovage this year)!  One tomato plant for example can yield up to 20 pounds in tomato's.  More than enough for two people.

    Last year the season got away from us as a variety of issues kept us from starting a garden.  This year, we are getting it done come hell or high water.   Our garden will be mostly containers, and with the exception of two dogwoods and some native flowers, that is all I'm planting this year.  We have done small gardens in the past, this should be easy right?

Something like this be perfect

     Again doing some research it appears that the average small garden for two people only requires about five hours of work per week.   Something that we can certainly squeeze into our busy lives.  I think that was the problem last year, poor planning and wanting to do to much....and before you knew it the growing season was over.

    I still don't feel prepared for the coming year.  It's nearly April as I write this and I don't have seeds.  I have no compost or mulch.  Despite knowing that I should have started this long before this.

    I have to ask for help.  I can't relay on myself and the internet all the time.    I need to get off my ass.

    It's not that I can't do better, I've surprised myself in the fact that I've already eating a bit healthier and have lost weight.   I did this by sticking to a plan, and having a passion for experimentation.   Maybe I have to look at planting a garden as less work or something that I have to do...and more of an experiment?

    Is that the secret of success for me?

    In some long term nebulous future I would love to have native edible plants growing throughout the yard and  a small contained garden.  Something that will provide food for people long after I'm gone.  A legacy.

    That's the way to look at it.  

     

  


Labels:
Location: Stoneboro, PA 16153, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

What all the cool kids are reading.

Honoring the past - Thinking more about "invasive" plant species.

 Recently I've been giving some thought to invasive species.  I had received both positive and negative feedback on the blog post concerning kudzu and recently I came across a very well hidden, and very small, wild cherry tree while doing some yard work.  Since it's against the house it would have to be removed since the root systems could damage my foundation.   A buddy of mine at work was asking if I was going to transfer it, his logic being that it was a fruiting tree that would not only attract a variety of pollinator's but that the deer would eat the bark and cherries, keeping them away from the garden (which Sue and I swore we were not going to do this year).  It occurred to me that I was going to have to do a slightly better job of identification, since black cherries are native to America , where as other types of cherries are not.  Being able to make a precise identification would be helpful.   I used to be able to identify all these tre...
Post a Comment
Read more

A sense of time in place - traveling in Central PA

One of the first items that Sue and I bought as a couple all those years ago was a grandfather clock.  We used to snuggle under the blanket and listen to the chimes on the hour, the sound filling our house with a warmth and resonance.   That clock is nothing special, being simple in its design and technology.  It's accurate because of the beauty of physics and math...and is a lost art form in its own right. I thought a lot about time and place as we traveled this week.  I thought a lot about place.   Sue and I finally took a brief vacation recently.  Due to circumstances beyond our control, every plan we had made to get away earlier in the year came to naught.  My father became ill and ended up in the hospital which we decided to stay home "just in case."  He ended up in the hospital at least three times this past year, and I decided to spend what time I could with him. Family, after all, is what brought us back to Pennsylvania. We had p...
3 comments
Read more

Maybe we need to rethink invasive species???

Hi. As the writer of the post and feel that I need to clarify something. I do not advocate the planting of invasive species. The point that I'm trying to make, and clearly didn't, is that perhaps we should be thinking about an invasive species in a different light. Apples, figs and other crops are clearly non native to America and Europe but are widely cultivated because they have use to humans as a food source, animal feed, etc. Kudzu is an edible plant and although it is clearly harmful can it be used someway by humans? It's a food source, it's been used as a cloth and is showing some use as a building material. All I'm trying to do is to create discussion on how we can use invasive plants in new ways.   It's mid April here in Western Pennsylvania and so far it's been warm and wet.  The buzz of lawnmowers fill the air as I gallivant through my back yard collecting dandelions to make some tea and bread with them.  I had always known that they w...
Post a Comment
Read more