We have been growing a good portion of our own food for many years now. I have had a garden of some sort, even when living in the barracks in West Berlin, almost my entire life.
I don't generally plant any seed or plant that is not an “heirloom” variety, capable (with care) of producing next year’s seed. There are techniques to keep pollination more of a sure thing rather than a genetic crap-shoot, and I have used them quite successfully for a long time. (My camel-hair pollenation brush is almost forty years old now….)
So, in response to a, “What’s For Dinner” diary entry about gardening, here’s my current list of seeds and plants in pots, beds, or germinating in potting soil and compost on the back deck:
Currently several lettuce varieties, romaines and buttercrunch and oak-leaf, maybe a couple of others, in tubs. We've had a lot of salads out of that tub all winter, including some for tonight’s supper.
I dug (broad-fork, not rototiller) the raised beds some weeks ago, and solarized it with recycled, repurposed, black plastic construction film. We have used the same plastic for a lot of years already, and should get a bunch more years from it. Once the ground under the plastic was hot (8 days), most of the weeds and unwanted stuff was either cooked from the heat of the sun or else had sprouted and was easy pickings for the wheel-hoe. Some hand-weeding, and most of the hard work was done. I have planted, mainly in the 5-row wide, 18-meter long bed, but also scattered around in various spots of opportunity:
Amish Acorn Squash
Black Zucchini
Radishes, 2 sorts I can’t identify exactly
Poblano Peppers
Poblano Peppers
Cayenne Peppers
Anaheim Peppers
Old-Fashioned Gourd-Type Pumpkins
Amish Baby Watermelons
Indian Heirloom Canteloupe
Sweet Banana Peppers
Sweet Bell Peppers
"Big Jim" Heirloom Hot Chili Peppers
An old variety of Bush Cucumbers
Charleston Grey Watermelons
Black Turtle Beans (For drying)
Missouri Wonder (NOT Kentucky) Snap Beans (For freezing)
Long-neck Scallions
Walla-walla Onions
Yukon Gold Potatoes
Red Potatoes
Korean Sweet Potatoes (yellow-fleshed)
Yams (some African variety, orange-fleshed)
French Round Carrots (NOT an heirloom)
Danvers Half-Long Carrots (Also NOT an heirloom)
Parsnips, variety unknown
Cow-horn African Okra
Cherokee Purple Tomatoes
Siberian Black Prince Tomatoes
Rutgers Tomatoes
Some cherry-type tomato I can't identify
which has re-seeded itself every year for at least the last 20. This is the one which the grandkids ate right off the plant, by the fists-full, standing barefooted in the garden every year since they were tiny babies in diapers. (We have eight grands. One of the primary seed-spreaders is in college now, his older sister and partner in crime and impromptu seed planting has already graduated college.)
I have a 2-meter square block of Early Golden Bantam corn, which I work like the dickens to keep from getting pollinated by that never-sufficiently-DAMNED Monsanto “round-up-ready” GMO crap that is grown all around here by the thousands of acres. Small quantities of corn grow better in blocks rather than in rows. Keeps the plants happier, and it’s a lot easier to de-tassel and then hand-pollinate when the time comes.
We keep several herbs growing, in pots or under cloches in the back herb bed for the winter, out in the open beds in warmer weather. Rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme, dill, savory, chives, sorrel, chervil, maybe some others I can't think of right now.
There is some dandelion flower jam in the pantry at the moment, so you can bet there are plenty of those growing around here. (Just not in my garden!)
We have Concord grapes,
an OLD Black Winesap apple tree,
a huge crab apple which I use to make pectin for making jams,
two young cherry trees for which I have high hopes in the future,
some sugar maples from which I extract just a little sap.
We don’t bother with a pear tree, since there are loads of them growing randomly around here. People bought places which already had them growing, and since they have no use for them (The Idiots), they allow me to harvest all I can use any year I decide I want some pears. (I have a small press! Every few years, it’s time for perry!!)
We pick blackberries and raspberries from the neighbours’ bushes, since they have enough for six or seven families to gorge themselves all sick on berries, and share our garden produce with them in return. Some get frozen, most get put up as jam or conserve. But there are always more than can be used.
Since they have so many berries, we give the excess to the local food pantry. (We give ALL the excess, sometimes half of a pickup truck bed full at a go, to the pantry. They in turn sometimes give us seeds…. Outdated, usually, and mostly hybrids, which I pass on to others since I generally don’t want them.)
I spend as much time as I can gardening. The local restaurant where I was doing occasional maintenance work is going to have to find some other sucker to grub in their drains and fix the ovens and such-like. They got to be more time than they were worth, to the detriment of the garden and our old (1890-Something) house, so I told them that I quit. I’d rather have dirt on my hands from a row of plants and fresh vegetables on my plate than the pittance of money they were paying anyway.
