Garden

General Data

• Last Frost Date: May 13
• First Frost Date: Sept. 30
• Zone: 6
• Garden Calendar

Resources

• http://www.therustedgarden.blogspot.com/
• http://www.familyhandyman.com/DIY-Projects/Outdoor-Projects/Yard/Planters---Containers/build-your-own-self-watering-planter/View-All

Logs

• 2020 Garden Log
• 2019 Garden Log
• 2018 Garden Log
• 2016 Garden Log
• 2015 Garden Log
• 2014 Garden Log
• 2013 Garden Log
• 2012 Garden Log
• 2011 Garden Log
• 2010 Garden Log

Plants

• 5/5 Roma Tomatoes: The classic garden plant for a reason. Canned tomatoes have bpa, fresh tomatoes are expensive. Growing is easy.
• 2/5 Onions: I haven't had good luck, but if I could grow them I might bump this up to a 3 or 4. Problem is they are cheap to buy and they keep well.
• 4/5 Soybeans: These are cheap to buy dried. But when I grow them, they are delicious as edamame and they're pretty easy to grow.
• 2/5 Garlic: almost the same as onion
• 2/5 Rutabaga: same as onion, though I would like to figure out how to make saurkraut from the leaves
• 4/5 Carrots: Once they're established, they grow easily if they don't have worms. And they're delicious.
• ??? Raspberries
• ??? Apples

Long term

The objective long term is to be growing a great deal of our own food, >50%. The real trick here is going to be figuring out some of the more complex staples like flour, cornmeal, rice, vegetable oil and tofu. I’m concerned that the ROI after 50% may be minimal because I’m not going to start raising cows or open an olive orchard to get olive oil. A lot of food will simply not be feasible for me to grow.

One way of looking at this problem is that one square foot is roughly one meal. For a family of 4 this means 365*3*4*.5 = 2737.5 or rough 3000 sq ft of garden space. This means a garden about 50ft to a side with rolling beds, or 5250 sq ft with walk-ways, about 70 ft per side.

Potatoes may also curb this a bit. The trash can method looks like it can produce quite a few potatoes in a very compact space (< 4 sq ft) if I could be growing 50lbs of potatoes in that area, I would be way out ahead in terms of nutrients and calories per sq ft. Also, potatoes can be stored for a long time.

Try making seed tape.

Unresearched

• wheat
• oats
• rice
• corn
• tea
• nuts(?)
• blueberries
• raspberries
• apples
• lettuces
• legumes
  • garbanzo
  • kidney
  • pinto
  • peas
  • red lentils
• herbs
  • basil
  • dill
• peppers
  • cayenne
  • chili
  • bell

Related

• Garden Automation