LMPrepper - Member - The Prepared

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Reply to: If you just started gardening or raising chickens/rabbits, how has it gone? Posted June 18, 2020

That’s good info. I have had good luck with overwintering kale too. Do you know if parsnips will overwinter? I have a friend who overwinters her potatoes (regular potatoes, not sweet potatoes) as a kind of perennial. She just harvests what she wants and then leaves the rest to sprout next year. She has kept this potato bed for many years, which flies in the face of crop rotation principles. I guess this is an Irish tradition of doing fall planting of potatoes. Need to read more about it. I will check out the Jerusalem artichokes. Thanks!

Reply to: If you just started gardening or raising chickens/rabbits, how has it gone? Posted June 17, 2020

I have been gardening for about ten years but still don’t consider myself an expert as it was somewhat casually. Lack of cooperation from hubby means he would go out and buy lettuce even when there was plenty in the garden, so that was kind of discouraging to me. He couldn’t get in the mindset. But the current situation finally converted him and we greatly expanded our small suburban garden to about 500 sq feet this year. I am thinking of building a small hoop house by the fall to try to harvest through the fall and into the winter. I have always prioritized growing things that are easy to grow, don’t need a lot of babying and will provide more calories. That means we will probably harvest between 100-200 pounds of potatoes this year from our small garden, plus some sweet potatoes. Have to figure out how to store the potatoes and if in our mild climate I can overwinter them in the ground, as an experiment. For the first time I am growing butternut squash and acorn squash. I have learned to keep plants that are sensitive to pests like brassica and squash covered with floating row covers until they grow big and start to flower. At that point they can resist pests better. I am also covering out blueberry bushes with floating row covers now in an effort to thwart the birds. We will see how it works. It turns out 2 people can’t eat a million different heads/varieties of lettuce, so I really need to learn both how much to plant and how to stagger them so they don’t get ripe all at once. I have recently begun canning and I was looking up canning green beans and the recipe called for ten pounds of green beans! There is no way my little garden will produce enough to can unless the squash go crazy. It’s all a learning curve.

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Reply to: If you just started gardening or raising chickens/rabbits, how has it gone? Posted June 18, 2020

That’s good info. I have had good luck with overwintering kale too. Do you know if parsnips will overwinter? I have a friend who overwinters her potatoes (regular potatoes, not sweet potatoes) as a kind of perennial. She just harvests what she wants and then leaves the rest to sprout next year. She has kept this potato bed for many years, which flies in the face of crop rotation principles. I guess this is an Irish tradition of doing fall planting of potatoes. Need to read more about it. I will check out the Jerusalem artichokes. Thanks!

Reply to: If you just started gardening or raising chickens/rabbits, how has it gone? Posted June 17, 2020

I have been gardening for about ten years but still don’t consider myself an expert as it was somewhat casually. Lack of cooperation from hubby means he would go out and buy lettuce even when there was plenty in the garden, so that was kind of discouraging to me. He couldn’t get in the mindset. But the current situation finally converted him and we greatly expanded our small suburban garden to about 500 sq feet this year. I am thinking of building a small hoop house by the fall to try to harvest through the fall and into the winter. I have always prioritized growing things that are easy to grow, don’t need a lot of babying and will provide more calories. That means we will probably harvest between 100-200 pounds of potatoes this year from our small garden, plus some sweet potatoes. Have to figure out how to store the potatoes and if in our mild climate I can overwinter them in the ground, as an experiment. For the first time I am growing butternut squash and acorn squash. I have learned to keep plants that are sensitive to pests like brassica and squash covered with floating row covers until they grow big and start to flower. At that point they can resist pests better. I am also covering out blueberry bushes with floating row covers now in an effort to thwart the birds. We will see how it works. It turns out 2 people can’t eat a million different heads/varieties of lettuce, so I really need to learn both how much to plant and how to stagger them so they don’t get ripe all at once. I have recently begun canning and I was looking up canning green beans and the recipe called for ten pounds of green beans! There is no way my little garden will produce enough to can unless the squash go crazy. It’s all a learning curve.