#grow food

[urbansoulfarmer]

Growing food in a limited amount of space can be challenging. You can put a pot in the house, on your balcony or by your front door if you do not have a backyard 🤔

#containergardening #grow food

[lostevilangel666]

#children #school #grow food

[cottagebff]

Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute

10/15/23

Basalt, CO

#permaculture #crmpi #central rocky mountain permaculture institute #horticulture #organic gardening #colorado #cottagecore #grow food not lawns #grow food #biodiversity #save our earth #naturecore #my photos #rocky mountains #greenhouse

[survival-essentials]

Homesteaders Handbook is a comprehensive guide that provides information, tips, and practical advice on various aspects of homesteading. It is designed to help individuals or families who are interested in starting or improving their homestead to lead a more self-sufficient and sustainable lifestyle. 

I think every person should have this book in their home, next to their emergency foods or in their bug out bags. This knowledge is better at your fingertips now, as you might not be able to get it during crisis or blackouts. ask my anything.

#homesteading #survival tips #off grid #natural disasters #doomsday #preppers #meal prepping #grow food #chicken #farming #farmhouse #eggs #self reliance

[fortheloveofnutrition]

I adore pineapple. It's one of my absolute favorite fruits. Fresh, frozen, grilled, in smoothies or savory dishes; it never disappoints.

Remember pineapples contains an enzyme called bromelain. "Bromelain is promoted as a dietary supplement for reducing pain and swelling, especially of the nose and sinuses, gums, and other body parts after surgery or injury. It is also promoted for osteoarthritis, cancer, digestive problems, and muscle soreness." It also has been shown to help alleviate a cough and loosen mucus.

Summer is so close and so is pineapple season. Get ready for recipes to follow.

#pineapple #food #vegan #foodie #healthy #health #vegetarian #fitness #diet #nutrition #plant based #gardening #grow food #how to grow a pineapple #for the love of nutrition #bromelain #plant medicine #healthy living #healing herbs #healing foods

[stephjacq]

Roasted butternut, garlic and sage from the garden, folded into risotto with feta, toasted pine nuts and pecans.

#cooking #vegetarian #grow food not lawn #grow food #butternut pumpkin #butternut squash #fuck yeah pumpkins #risotto #home cooking #kitchen witch #friday night dinner

[earthkeyper]

Enclosed raised bed garden

More progress on the garden

#nature #garden #raised bed gardening #self sufficiency #food #grow food #constuction

[oldmanbayou]

how to start a garden with no money

Most people who know me know how much a hate spending money on things. I’m reasonably comfortable financially now, but I graduated right at the very start of the recession and was barely making ends meet for the first decade of my adulthood. So thriftiness is sort of embedded in me. Besides wanting to save the planet, I think just being kind of a cheapskate is where my homesteader mindset probably comes from. A commenter on another post gave me this lovely idea for a writing prompt -- Thrifty Gardening! 

Here’s what really pisses me off about gardening -- It’s not the act of gardening but then unbelievably sexist gardening industry that tries to sell us tools and supplies. I mean just look at the ads -- it’s a bunch of ladies and their babies. Even though there are tons of dudes who garden, they are under the impression that gardening is dominated by women and I swear to god, they stick a women’s tax on gardening supplies in response. SO much of what they try to sell us looks aesthetically pleasing on the surface, but then turn out to be overpriced uni-taskers and pure junk! A lot of it is stuff you can find in a hardware store or Tractor Supply that they’ve rehashed as gardening supplies and jacked the price up. (Note for clarification - despite my handle, I happen to be a lady.)

Starting a garden doesn’t need to be an expensive endeavor. You don’t need special tools or equipment to start one. You don’t really need much of anything!

Here are the BAREBONES BASIC essentials you need to start a garden. If you do have a little bit of cash to spend, I’ll put the extras in at the end that will make your life easier and have a higher chance of success. 

1. Forget transplants from the gardening shop - Get yourself some seeds! Cost: $0. Hear me out:   • Do a quick google search: “seed library near me”. See if there happens to be one nearby and check it out if there is! • Check out this amazing organization, Free Heirloom Seeds. They have a lengthy list of seeds and you can get 4 packs of whatever you want for free!  • Gardeners LOVE sharing their seeds! We also get super excited about new gardeners and want to help them out and share our wisdom (hi). If you are on Facebook, do a search for local garden groups and join a couple. Post to the group and just tell them you’re starting from nothing and ask if anyone has some extra seeds they want to get rid of! You’ll likely get a few people who would love to help a newbie out. • Butter up some old folks! I am ridiculously shy and have no social skills but nonetheless, I have still unintentionally landed on free seeds and free plants just from casually chatting with locals. Every year, my town has a big townwide tag sale. A lot of these tag sales tend to be from retired folks who are downsizing and moving away. Many of these old folks have big, beautiful, impressive gardens that they’ve developed over many decades. As shy as I am, of course I need to compliment them on their garden! And that gets them going, and then they inevitably end up gifting me seed packets or plants that need a new caretaker. One woman I met really scored me a jackpot when she gifted me the  seeds she’d been harvesting from her garden year after year for generations and are functionally landrace varieties specifically suited for the exact microclimate of my little pocket of the world. I’ve also accidentally gotten a lot of garden supplies for free this way! 2. Next is the garden plot! Cost: $0-$20 • If you have dirt, you don’t need a raised bed. They’re expensive to build, require shipping a giant pile soil, and are so unnecessary. The most overrated gardening ploy of our time! Unless your soil is toxic or you have physical limitations necessitating a raised bed, just use the ground! The ground will be a better insulator than a raised bed, providing better protection to your plants from temperature fluctuations. It also typically has both better water retention and drainage than a raised bed. (If you DO need a raised bed -- try straw bales or finding a used trough and drilling some holes on the bottom.) • Moving on! If you don’t have a pre-existing garden plot or bare patch of dirt to work with, you’ll probably need to dig up a plot, likely involving removing chunks of grass, which is sort of exhausting work. If you aren’t blessed with livestock to do the dirty work for you, a spade or garden fork will serve you well in the garden. You might be able to find one for very little money at a tag sale or on craigslist. But if you need to buy one, they're usually around $20 new.  • If you don’t have ground to work with, container gardening is a perfectly legitimate way to garden! Keep an eye on craigslist/FB marketplace for people giving away planters. You can also make your own out of trash -- Any food container can be a planter. You can poke holes at the bottom for drainage with a screwdriver, nail, awl, or pretty much any sharp object (if you’re truly starting with nothing and don’t even have basic tools at your disposal like a screwdriver, two words - DOLLAR TREE.) Berry containers and those plastic boxes that salad mixes come in make excellent mini greenhouses. 

3. Plant your seeds! Cost: $0-$16.25.  • Option A: Direct sow - If you really want to go the totally free route, you can just stick the seeds in the ground. Refer to the seed packet and/or Farmer’s Almanac to determine timing.  • Option B: Start indoors - All you need for starting seeds indoors is some containers, potting mix, and a window. If you ever buy eggs again, egg cartons can make terrific seed starting trays. If you ever buy transplants at a store, start hoarding those little containers they come in because those are ideal for starting seeds and will last years! As I stated above about container gardening, any food containers can be reused as planters if you just poke some drainage holes at the bottom with a sharp object. For soil, any potting mix will suffice, which a bag will run you about $5-$15 depending on bag size (note: don’t use dirt from the outdoors for container plants). Once they are ready to go outside, make sure to harden them off first by gradually acclimating them to the outdoors over the course of a week. When you’re ready to transplant them, all you need is a trowel to dig a hole, which can be found at Dollar Tree for $1.25.  **Free and simple watering can on a pinch: Try a soda bottle!

Non-essentials but a good idea: • If starting seeds indoors, a seed starting potting mix will give you a much better germination rate and the seedlings a better start at life. This runs about $6-$8 for a small bag (I only use this stuff in seed starting trays because of the expense. Once the seedlings outgrow their trays, I either stick them in the ground or upgrade them to a larger container with regular potting mix.)  • If starting seeds indoors, investing in a grow light will result in an easier time and prevent leggy seedlings. A regular lightbulb isn’t really going to cut it, but you can find a basic grow light easily enough on Amazon for less than $20.  • Fencing. Unless you live in a very urban area with no concerns about wildlife, something is most likely going to want to eat your garden! Honestly, I just use this fairly inexpensive wire fencing ziptied to some garden stakes and the only critters I’ve had issues with are chipmunks. It’s $45 and a roll goes a long way. You can find even cheaper options for $30. Garden stakes usually run $2 each and Dollar Tree carries packs of zipties. (You can also buy a bulk pack of zipties with various sizes for $6 on Amazon.) I also don’t have a door on my fence--I just have a cinder block on both sides of the fence that I use to step over it ($2 per block = $4). A door could be nice for occasional wheelbarrow loads but eh....doors are an overrated added expense!  • Soil test. A soil test will reveal what nutrients are already in your soil and your soil’s pH level. If you base what you plant off of your pre-existing soil conditions, you’ll have a higher chance of success. If you’re growing food and suspect there might be a chance your soil might not be safe for that, you may need to send it to a lab for testing. Costs on this can vary wildly depending on where you live and what resources you have for this kind of thing. Otherwise, the at-home kits are perfectly sufficient. I use the Luster Leaf rapid tests, which are $17.  • For weeds, I just use a garden cultivator (it’s the size of a trowel and looks like a claw), and guess where you can get one for practically nothing? That’s right - Dollar Tree! $1.25

Don’t be fooled by aesthetics in the garden catalogs. This is my thrifty garden (taken in July--it’s of course covered in snow right now). It’s substantially larger than it was when I first started off about 5 years ago, but I’ve not really made many upgrades!

The squash trellis is a new addition that I paid nothing for. I built it out of scrapwood and some leftover fencing. Trellises are the most obnoxiously and pointlessly overpriced of all garden things - Another post for another day!

#gardening #thrifty #cheap #grow food

[wildrungarden]

3/3/24 ~ started some onion sets! First time growing these. Hopefully they will do well 😅 I have a ton leftover so I guess I’ll plant random onions throughout my landscape 👐🏻

#container gardening #onion #green onions #onion sets #sustainable gardening #vegetable gardening #starting seeds #veganuary #indoor garden #growing food #grow organic #grow your own food #organic gardening #edible gardening #edible garden #grow food #food not lawns

[invoke-parlay]

My lettuce bolted, but I’ll have plenty of seeds for next year! :)

#lettuce #seeds #bolted #flowers #flowering #yellow #garden #gone to seed #alternative #nature #green #greens #food #grow food #too hot #pagan #goddess #pale #travel #love #aesthetic #grunge

[urbansoulfarmer]

Radish harvest from our plot at Fremont Community Garden and Wellness Center.

#urbansoulfarmer #growing from seed #grow food #radish #red

[bethany-sensei]

Would it be helpful to people if I made a “gardening with executive dysfunction” sideblog?

#gardening #gardeningwithadhd #adhd #executive dysfunction #grow food #growing food

[snowleopardcatdragon]

My ginger plant is getting so big! I grew this guy from a piece of ginger root I bought at Walmart!

#plants #houseplants #grow food #garden

[bumblebeeappletree]

You don't always need a farm to grow your own food. Edible landscapes and food forests can be grown and enjoyed right in your own backyard. With a little knowledge, trial and error, and continued practice, you can learn to grow all sorts of wonderful fruits and vegetables even in the middle of the suburbs.

Start growing your own food forest with a pack of heirloom seeds: https://amzn.to/3HSnT7z

Watch more from Justin: / herballyfstyl

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What is a food forest?

A food forest is an edible landscape that is modeled after a natural forest ecosystem.

A food forest is an excellent way to produce a large quantity of food with minimal effort. Once established, a food forest will require little to no maintenance and will provide an abundance of fresh fruits, nuts, and vegetables throughout the growing season.

A food forest can be created on any size piece of land, from a small urban backyard to a large rural property. The key to success is to design and plant the food forest in such a way that mimics the structure and function of a natural forest ecosystem.

The benefits of establishing a food forest are many. In addition to providing an abundance of fresh, healthy food, a well-designed food forest can help to improve soil quality, increase biodiversity, and provide habitat for wildlife.

Where can you grow a food forest?

A food forest can be grown in any backyard, regardless of size. The key to success is starting with a plan and design that takes into account the specific conditions of your yard.

The first step is to perform a site analysis, which will help you understand the microclimates, sunlight, soil type and drainage in your yard. With this information, you can select the right plants for your food forest.

Once you have a plan, the next step is to prepare the soil. This may involve adding amendments to improve drainage or adjusting the pH level. Then, it's time to start planting!

When selecting plants for your food forest, consider both annual and perennial crops. Annuals will provide a quick harvest, while perennials will provide a longer-term food source. Be sure to include a mix of fruits, vegetables, nuts and herbs in your planting scheme.

As your food forest grows, it's important to keep an eye on weeds and pests. Hand-pulling or using mulch can help control these problems naturally. With a little care and attention, your backyard food forest will thrive!

Assuming you have the space, there's nothing more gratifying than growing your own food. And, while a traditional vegetable garden has its merits, why not go big and plan for a food forest? With a little bit of planning (and some hard work), you can create a backyard oasis that will provide you with an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables for years to come.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Choose the right location. Make sure you pick a spot that gets plenty of sunlight and has well-drained soil.

2. Select a variety of plants. When it comes to fruit and vegetables, the more the merrier! Plant everything from berries and grapes to tomatoes and potatoes.

3. Give them room to grow. Remember, most fruits and vegetables need room to spread out so don't plant them too close together.

4. Be patient! It takes time for a food forest to reach its full potential but it will be worth the wait!

Growing your own fruit and nuts can save you money at the grocery store, and it’s a great way to get outdoors and enjoy some fresh air while you’re tending to your garden. Food forests can also provide habitat for wildlife, and can help to purify the air and water in urban areas.

• • • • • • • •

ABOUT PARAGRAPHIC:

Handcrafted documentaries featuring artisans of all trades. We are filmmakers who tell the stories of creators, makers, entrepreneurs, and artists. The ones who have committed everything to their craft. From garage bakeries and mushroom farms to backyard aquaponics and innovative fabricators, these stories will take you behind the brand and show an inside look at the people who make it happen.

-Of the earth, from the plough

#foodforest #ediblelandscape #garden

#PARAGRAPHIC #solarpunk #food forest #garden #gardening #food #plants #edible landscaping #urban gardening #food not lawns #grow food #Youtube

[shopwithmemama]

#grow tent #garden #gardening #gardeners #gardener #plants #plant #planting #flowers #flower #grow your own #growing food #grow food #grow #plant life #house plant #checklist #printable

[georgehopkins]

Grow plants without soil

#Hydroponics #gardening #grow food