who is self-sufficient in vegetables?

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by forest, Oct 30, 2005.

  1. Veggie Boy

    Veggie Boy Junior Member

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    One of the themes here seems to be the value of perenial veggies. At the moment all I have in terms of perenial vegetables are asparagus and artichokes (and some herbs if they count). Of course both of these have relativelly short harvest periods. What other perenials do people have that are useful.

    Oh I forgot - I now have sweet potatoes as well. Also my pumpkins are just about perenial. I pulled them out this year and planted new plants (mainly so I could fully mulch the area to get rid of weeds. But when I pulled them out (August) they already had flowers again and a couple of small fertilised pumpkins. Pumkins are great for all year supply. I pulled my first pumpkin off in about December last year and my last in about May this year. I still have 8 or 9 left from that crop (got about 40 in total) and these are still fine. I am hoping they will last me through till my first pumpkin is ready from new vine. That will mean I have bought no pumpkins for 12 months - and hopefully will never have to again.
     
  2. ejanea

    ejanea Junior Member

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    We are almost self sufficent in vegetables.
    I've written somewhere else here about what I grow, and it's taken me some time to get to have most of what I want.
    I have planted some fruit trees in the past couple of years. Some are producing a bit, but as they grow bigger, it will get easier.

    My first garden patch is in its fifth year. At the moment it has the remains of silver beet, carrots, lots of herbs and a couple of eggplants that have survived the winter. There are some broccoli plants too, and I'm picking the side shoots of some, others have gone to seed. I'll collect the seed but they seem to bring lots of ladybirds and butterflies as well. The celery is going to seed too, but I'm still picking it. It's good to eat. Fennel bulbs are getting less as they go to seed too. I have planted beans (romano and a few scarlet runners) everywhere that I've actually taken out any old plants. Last year it was the tomato patch, so I suppose I have a kind of crop rotation happening. It's modified from the usual because I also hav e big trees and need to look at micro climates too. I have some potatoes in there too. I planted those when they sprouted in the cupboard ages ago and I felt around the bottom of them and got enough for four of us for dinner a couple of days ago. The plants look healthy, so I'll let them for a while yet. I had planned to plant beans there, but they'll have to wait.
    My second patch has garlic and some broccoli and beans (romano again).
    The third patch has the remains of broad beans (which I'll dry for soup and some to plant next year) some onions, broccoli (we must like that) zucchini (which are flowering) and some green peppers that have survived the winter. There are some zucchini plants in here too. They are about to produce the first of the season. When they get mildew, I'll plant some new plants elsewhere.
    The fourth patch is big and odd. It has some perennial stuff which is getting bigger. Artichokes, asparagus, fennel, and in between those, some more beans where there was some space. There are also a few potatoes that I must have missed last year and they have come up around the place. I'll wait til they are "in the way" and then eat them.
    I have a spot under a pepper tree which seems to have beautiful soil so I have planted the most recent sprouting potatoes there. They are looking really healthy as they grow inches daily, it seems.
    The most recent garden spot is a composting pile of lawn clippings that someone gave me. I put a pile of chook poo from the chook yard on top and it is all hot and steamy now (within a week). Once it calms down and I can dig it into the underneath soil with some gypsum (we have very heavy clay here), I'll transplant the cucumbers that I have germinating in a foam box (each separated by a milk carton) outside. I'm not sure what to plant with the cucumbers, but when in doubt I always put some marigolds in. They seem to reduce soil diseases, attract bees, and I think that a lot of pests must dislike the smell because I have the best leafy green stuff near them ( no snail slugs or even earwigs).
    As to whether vegetables are perenial, it's a bt of a mystery. I have one broccoli plant which I have picked side shoots off of for almost three years. I'm letting it go to seed because I think it would be a good one to use for that. It was a sprouting one anyway, but I jsut kept picking it. It produces less in colder weather (slows down) but with several of these plants, we ate green vegetables all winter. I think that people must have always done this... scavenged over the vegetable patch during lean times... when the season was hard. I feel as though I have something in common with generations of people who didn't think that vegetab les came inplastic bags or packs from the supermarket. I just don't pull out plants until I need the space to plant something else. The soil is protected from either hot or cold weather too.

    I am learning by trial and error. And I have had some pretty dismal crops from some plants that other people swore by. I think you have to try all sorts of things, and spend a lot of time watching it. I know that people think I'm funny going out to check my baby plants early every morning, but it works. It gives me the most amazing satisfaction to see the first bean flowers or whatever or to produce a whole meal from the garden. It's the kind of satisfaction that you can't really explain though , isn't it.
     
  3. baldcat

    baldcat Junior Member

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  4. ejanea

    ejanea Junior Member

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    Grape mark is the stuff that is left after the juice is squeezed out. It looks like black beads of woody stuff. Mostly grape seeds and stems and bits and pieces. The seeds don't grow. It doesn't seem to have much in the way of nutrients, but in our clay soil it alters the texture if you add a lot of it.
     
  5. hedwig

    hedwig Junior Member

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    I didn't read the long post bevore, but of grape mark you can make grappa - mmm!
     
  6. barkhumpy

    barkhumpy Guest

    Re: who is self-sufficient in vegetables?

    I am in the suburbs on the sunshine coast. We have recently had flouride added to our water. I don't particularly want to water my organic vegetables with this industrial waste (includes heavy metals also). Anyone else in the same boat? Anna Bligh is on the corporate/population control bandwagon!
     
  7. JoanVL

    JoanVL Junior Member

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    Re: who is self-sufficient in vegetables?

    We eat from the garden daily, but have to buy stuff too. I am self-sufficient in herbs. Three of my 4 chooks died (snakes I think) but the last chook is a good layer, so the two of us manage.

    I grew up with fluoridated water, and as a kid lived off my Dad's organic garden (they were all organic in those post WW2 days - at least they were for people who were living on a shoestring) I wouldn't worry about the fluoridated water - all I worry about is the lack of it. My poor garden has to make do with mainly grey water.
     
  8. IntensiveGardener

    IntensiveGardener Junior Member

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    Re: who is self-sufficient in vegetables?

    I consider myself more or less self sufficient in vegies. I grow all our vegetable needs all year round. Even with our very cold winters.
    Of course, someone from the household always goes and buys red capsicum, tomatoes etc.. in the middle of winter when they get sick of my caulis, and blandish winter vegies. Nonetheless that is more of a luxury and we could easily live off or own stuff for 12 months if needed.
    I have a medium sized hot house to extend the season and in winter i make hot compost in bins in there to heat it.
    I grow all our own soft fruit (berries, currents etc..) and we have enough jam to make it through the year.
    We grow peas, beans and broadbean through spring and summer and freeze lots of peas and broadbeans. The jaradale pumpkins i grow and spuds normally last us through the cooler, less productive months.
    We also have chooks for eggs most of the year.
    The garden area is about 1 - 2 acres and i sell plenty of salad, herbs and csa vegie boxes throughout summer to pay for fruit trees and garden opperating costs like ag lime, blood & bone and irrigation equiptment.
    I also work 3 days a week off the farm but that money goes to bills etc... and longer term investments in the garden like trees and more hot houses and chook runs.
    I'd very much like to grow enough corn to make massa flour and preserve more produce in autaum for the winter. Besan (chickpea) flour for falafals would also be nice :) but needless to say i'm a bit too busy.
    There are 3 people living here but unfortunately the other 2 are "useless dolebludging hippies" who spend most of their time drunk, playing "music" or making "art". so i guess i do about 95% of the work.
    IG
     
  9. strud

    strud Junior Member

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    Re: who is self-sufficient in vegetables?

    IG, your my hero !

    I'm trying to attain your level of Self sustaining goodness, but working full time makes it hard.

    I'm just beginning to learn to plant enough to supply our bulk needs, and a large batch of Broad Beans last year really was the first time I provided a very worthwhile load of food for us that lasted for months.

    In Spring & summer we are typically self sufficient in salads, potatoes, tomatoes, beans & corn.

    In winter '08 we planted our first fruit trees so in the years to come, hopefully we will be getting apples, oranges, plums, mandarins & lemons.

    Typical Autumn & Winter crops are Cabbage, Spinach, peas, broadbeans, swedes, cauliflower & broccoli.

    I need to work more on bridging the gaps between the seasons so we don't have to go and buy any fruit or veges in the future, but we are getting close.

    Nearly forgot to mention the wonderful chooks who give us a great source of eggs. I've got sorghum, pigeon pea & sunflowers in for them and they of course get all of our leftovers. Have discovered that they absolutely love cabbage leaves !
     
  10. trishandpete

    trishandpete Junior Member

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    Re:


    Frosty, any thoughts on why your plums and oranges don't fruit? I have always thought of plums, particularly, as foolproof because of years of living with ones that grew practically feral when I was growing up. Same with nectarines and apricots (these in Tassie, plums in Latrobe Valley vic). I have planted 4 varieties of plum this year, two different nectarines and a peach. I read somewhere than if an almond is planted too close to a peach it can affect the fruit set, and that plums do better with a combination of varieties of european for european and asian for asian cross-pollination. The oranges I have no clue, but was told if the water isn't forthcoming in required amounts in the first couple of years they might never be good producers. Again, have seen these almost feral up near Mildura. What are your thoughts? Regards, Trish
     
  11. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    Re: who is self-sufficient in vegetables?

    Hi Trish

    Thanks for the info.

    this is an old thread from 2005.

    This year one of the plum trees finally produced about a dozen plums - Satsumas. The other tree looks different an could well be a different type. Last year we nearly ripped them out thinking it was just too hot here !

    last year 1 orange tree finally produced an orange and currently had quite a few flowers but seems like it may be 1 orange again. The older tree still has not produced and yes it didnt get regular watering when it was very young. We also used to water them with greywater until we found out early last year that citrus dont like alkaline water. Our lemon tree is doing well but then it has never had greywater

    The peach also had a good crop last year.

    The apple trees have had bumper crops for the last 3 years and we are actually a bit at a loss to explain why ! People further south than us say they cant grow apples because it is too hot ! They are under 50% shade cloth but we do get pretty hot.

    Almonds are struggling along - one of the original 2 died and we bought 2 more in 2007. One of those now has some almonds ripening. They arent very near the peach - probably 30 or 40m hopefully far enough. We also germinated a paper shell almond from some we bought and will plant that out next autumn

    regards
    frosty
     
  12. sampsms

    sampsms Junior Member

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    Re: growing veges and self sufficiency

    one place to find free advice is to go to the 60 free pages of info on permaculturevisions.com
    you could email them to find an answer to your specific tomatoe and 9mth cycle problem. [email protected] the climate there is simiar to yours.



     
  13. chryssy

    chryssy Junior Member

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    Re: who is self-sufficient in vegetables?

    hi all,
    you could say i'm a newbie.
    we've been on our 4acre property for 2yrs now,
    we made a vegie garden big enough for us,
    tomato,capsicum,beans,leek,parsnip,spinach,celery,carrott,zuccini,pumpkin,bok choy,robarb
    well that was before i found ebay & all the rare & unusual fruit,veg.
    nearly all is in seed form,so i'm starting from scratch.
    another garden is on the cards.also i need to build a chook house & get some chooks.
    if anyone has any ideas or lives near & has something i could use for chook house.
    i live near rockhampton,qld.
    all is welcome,i'm glad i found this site.i found it when i was looking for info on a icecream bean plant i just bought.lucky me!
    peace to all
    chryssy
     
  14. sindhooram

    sindhooram Junior Member

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    Re: who is self-sufficient in vegetables?

    Hello - I'm not a permculture expert at all - I've just started but am just writing this in case it helps.
    I was reading on your post the thing about tomatoes not setting fruit when it gets to 32 C. In my expereince they do still set although maybe not at such a high rate.I have plum tomatoes going - I dont know the variety but they are setting fine and I have high humidity and day temperatures. I also have another type growing well which self seeded .
    I ordered some moneymaker tomato seeds - and also another one - thai turtle egg tomato.
    The plants are still young and not producing yet but anyway they are advertised as being tolerant of heat and humidity so maybe you could try them?. I ordered them to see if they have a sweeter flavour than the ones I have at the moment.
     
  15. Noz

    Noz Junior Member

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    Re: who is self-sufficient in vegetables?

    I'm definitely not self sufficient in vegies yet. I'm finding Diggers a very good resource because they actually show you an example of how to do it - exactly... in 40 square metres https://www.diggers.com.au/pdf/MiniPlotHarvestPlan.pdf . This could mean approx 4 beds... which I can easily fit at my place - mostly in the front yard which is west facing.

    These last few months we've been very nearly self-sufficient in tomatoes, but they got done by disease and insects. So we mostly just used the cherry tomatoes for everything.
    Also, we are 'self-sufficient' in eggs, although the way I see it, we are converting chicken food into eggs - so really I'm very dependent on the bought food - but I do get to give them a lot of scraps and weeds - which increases my feeling that we are doing something worthwhile in comparison to buying eggs. I'd like to grow them some of their food - which will happen over time. And okra - but I don't really like it! :lol:

    One thing I'm convinced we could all do is grow plenty of legumes/beans, which are very easy to grow! I am so impressed with the 'snake beans' - I'd been hanging onto the seeds for literally years and decided I'd better grow them out to ensure that I didn't lose their viability - they all sprouted and we have had plenty of beans for the both of us (husband and I) from approx 1 square metre!

    So in hot Western Australia, I'm going to suggest that we could all be 'self-sufficient' with legumes and tomatoes while they are in season.

    I'm going for broke with my cool season stuff & hope to be more or less self-sufficient for each of these crops. Oh, and of course herbs - we haven't bought any basil, oregano, mint, thyme or lemon-grass for ages - they are extremely easy and very good for you - with the result that you eat more of them because they are readily available in zone 1.

    Crops I have my eyes on are:
    1. potatoes - high productivity which can go vertical using old car tyres
    2. lettuce - so easy and so quick - pot direct sown under patio.
    3. sunflowers - good essential fatty acids and protein, easy to grow, don't use much space and look cool.
    4. asparagus - easy, tasty... unlikely to die during summer :D
    5. Figs - easy easy easy! tasty and hard to get cheap otherwise.
    6. Lemons/Limes - easy!
    7. Sweet potato - easy!! permanent
    8. Mushrooms, easy or hard depending on how much you do yourself! good source of B12 etc. Doing it the hard way you should be able to convert scrap material like paper and manure etc into food.

    Example of a cool meal for us from our garden would be a omlette filled with herbs and olives (scavenged and prepared by me) (cheese from shop), side salad of lettuce, cherry tomatoes.. olive oil from shop.
    also, I will make pasta with chicken eggs occassionally... grain is definitely something that Bill Mollison thinks is completely unsustainable - have to consider whether I could handle doing without it.
     
  16. ekampe

    ekampe Junior Member

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    Re: who is self-sufficient in vegetables?

    I've heard that Mollison changed his mind about grains after meeting Masanobu Fukuoka. I would recommend his book 'One Straw Revolution' to anyone, it's a quick read and very inspiring.

    Even if growing rice or using Fukuoka's method isn't appropriate to your climate. I'd bet there are grains that can be grown sustainabily at a small scale. Amaranth may be a winner since it grows so easily (like a weed) and can handle very dry conditions. Or consider the native american three sisters garden that planted corn, beans, and squash together in very dry conditions. Corn served as a sustainabily grown grain.

    just my 2cents
     

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