Gardening 101

I heard a horrifying little piece of info the other day...Did you know that rinsing the produce you buy from the grocery store is virtually useless for washing away the pesticides that the growers use?  This is because the amount of pesticides used is so high that it actually seeps into the flesh of the fruit or vegetable. The kicker about this though is that experts say the pros of eating healthy still outweigh the cons of ingesting a little poison in the process.

SO, since the whole slogan of the LBDP is "Making do with less so that others can have more." I've decided to show you a few neat things about gardening! I don't know what your grocery bill looks like but I know that for my husband and myself, a big chunk of what we buy at the store is produce. It's great stuff to throw in with your cooking, for a side at supper or lunch time, or something to snack on or eat on the go. I realize that the growing season is quickly coming to a close. I would've written something on home grown veggies sooner if I wasn't such a novice. Nick and I grew our first garden this summer. So now that I have a little wisdom to share, I'll leave it here for y'all to store up ideas come next summer.

First off, you don't need a lot of room. Our yard is quite small and our vegetable patch takes up only a small area of the property. And you don't have to plant everything in rows.  Farms do it because they grow mass amounts of things and harvest it all by machine.  The rows on a farm need to be wide enough to allow the tires of those big old things through.  But in your own yard, you can pick it by hand. So the best way to make the most of your space is to plant  in squares.  For example, we have about a 3x3 foot square patch for our tomatoes, another for strawberries, and another for peppers and lettuce. The only thing you'd still want to plant in rows is corn. Corn likes its space! We made our rows about a hand width apart and a hand width between each seed in the rows. Also, if you decide to plant corn you should think about planting at least two rows. (It will pollinate better, and you'll have a much more successful crop.)

This is our tomato patch. Don't forget to fence it in! There are a lot of Peter Cottontails

who'll have a hay day in your garden if they can. Chicken wire is also decent at keeping

out beagles who have an unnatural love for cherry tomatoes.

Corn--all tidy in their rows.

Some plants grow on vines and need something to climb up. You can buy or invent your own type of trellace. 

Nick broke down an old rickety chair to make these bamboo climbing hoops for our cucumbers.

Another thing to think about is putting down some kind of mulch to make it harder for the weeds to grow up.  We used burlap bags instead. They are biodegradeable and Nick can take them from work for free. 

Here's me, picking a few banana peppers. Sorry, I don't wear the black dress when I garden.

Too dirty. Too sweaty. Too hard on chiffon and tulle fabric! 

Some plants are harder to start from seed than others. With things like tomatoes and peppers, it's better just to buy the starter plants and stick them in the ground. (My mother-in-law told me this and I'd take her advice. Her garden is AMAZING.) If you do start a plant from seed it might be easier to start growing it inside the house. Baby plants are more fragile. Give them a head start out of the elements and they might do better. However, some plants are more hardy than others. If you start a crop from seed, do some quick research on what you want to plant. 

Plants bear their fruits or veggies differently. For example, corn finishes its growing cycle and is ready to be harvested at the end of the summer. So there is no corn until then and when it comes, it comes all at once. Staggering the rows by a week or so will keep you from having too much all at once. Peppers, lettuce, and tomatoes, on the other hand, will bear fruit continuously throughout the summer. When you see things are getting ripe, pick them, and watch others grow in! You can count on a steady stream of fresh produce from these types of plants. 

The bounty.

If you've read all this and are saying, "Well, Lindsey this is all well and good but I live in an apartment." have no fear. Do you have a window? Awesome. Container gardens are great too! Pick up some potting soil and some planting pots and go nuts!  There are a variety of containers for indoor gardens to suit different plants' needs. (Some pots keep the soil more dry or moist.) So do your homework before you go shopping. There are a lot of pluses to this type of garden. Virtually no weeds inside! Not too many bugs either, if that's not your thing. I'd also recommend this type of garden for people who don't enjoy the outdoors so much but still want to save on their grocery bills.   Keep in mind that some plants have to be pollinated by bees or other bugs to produce anything, so if you can't set your plants outside at anytime, make sure you get a plant that does just dandy by itself. 

For anyone who has never gardened before, this may seem like a lot to take in, but it's not that bad, I promise! It's even a lot of fun! Remember, this was my first go at it. And some things might die on you. (like bugs kept eating our cucumbers D: ) but don't let that get you down, no one has a perfect season. We have saved a ton on our grocery bill these past couple of months.  If this really struck your interest I highly recommend picking up a copy of a book called "The Backyard Homestead". It has a wealth of information in an easy to understand format. This book also will tell you how to can your crops to use throughout the colder months, make jam, and how to rotate your crops each growing season and much much more. 

So if you're saving some money, you can pay some extra bills, go on a special date, or maybe give a little of that wealth back to a charity or a good cause like The Little Black Dress Project. ;)
Thanks for reading,

-Lindsey