Edible Estates. Someone had the same idea as me.

Isn't that a great idea? Mine's in the back, mostly, because that's where the sunshine is. There's still some...uh...discussion on the food/flowers ratio, but the lawn's steadily getting smaller.
There may well be some people who will always think that food only comes in packages from the store, but I think interest in home food production is growing.

 

Laudable, but there'd be way too much dog poop and cat pee in mine.

 

I've found the best way to get rid of weeds is by using a shovel. Chopping their heads off only encourages the roots - you've got to remove the whole plant. Then, they go in a separate compost pile.

 

ThanX for the link .... good stuff there!

I have a "garden" of hanging baskets on my side porch. I have 11 plants consisting of a variety of peppers, tomatos and cucumbers. This is my 1st year doing this, and the rewards have been tremendous!

I've already harvested 459 tomatos from just 1 tumbling tom tomato plant! I would estimate there to be at least another 150-200 or so yet to mature on this plant alone. The rest of the plants have also done very well. My side porch gets only the morning sun which seems to be what these plants like the most.

... Brad

 

OOOO! What a tremendous idea for those lacking land area! I receive 5-6 hours of sun per day but the entire area has been converted to native restoration. I'm wondering how hanging veggie baskets would look on the side of my garage. I've been meaning to get some decorative garden art for this area but hanging veggie baskets may look kinda neat. I saw a "container" garden at the Botanic Garden a few weeks ago and it looked nice. Mostly they had herbs growing in the containers. The baskets were hanging from a pergola type structure. On the side of my garage, this would add a nice vertical element for the eye as well.

Questions:

Are all your hanging container crops producing healthy yields?

Do you have pictures?

Have you had to do anything special or different with a container garden than you would with a land garden?

What crops can you grow in hanging baskets? I'm guessing crops like squash would be too large.

 

I eat veggies mostly. I do eat strawberries and will try these. There's actually a native strawberry plant to my area. Spreads by runners so putting it in a basket is a great idea. Otherwise it can be very aggressive.

I want to grow squash, broccoli, carrots, kale, collards, sweet peppers, lettuces, cauliflower, cabbage. These are the main components of my veggie diet. How do you think these would fair in a closed environment and do you think there's enough in a hanging basket to keep the plants happy?

 

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/container/container.html\

Great link on veggie container gardening. I think I just found a new project.

 

Yep, that's the link that I had seen. Didn't clip and paste correctly. This project is a go. Just need to make sure I hang the baskets so as not to tear the shakes off my house. I'll need to find studs, I'm assuming. Hopefully they're spaced typically so that my hanging garden has some symmetry. Looking forward to this.

I went to my first farmer's market last week. I found one located on the way to our land. We will now bring the cooler and ice to keep the produce fresh until we get home any time we go there. I roasted a bunch of different squashes and made an arugula salad. Huge difference in flavor.

 

This sounds similar to Freedom Gardens.

Turning your lawn into a garden isn't entirely a new concept... Back in WWII, there were Victory Gardens

From this site:

I wish I could remember the site, but once I found a site of a regular family in a regular standard lot somewhere in the Los Angeles area, who steadily (over the course of several years) converted every plantable inch of land into food gardening, including removing a cement patio, building a pergola to support perennial vines like grapes, installing trellises on fences and vertical garage walls for climbers, etc. They started out supplying just their own food needs, but eventually grew so much (and organically, too) that they began supplying local restaurants with fresh produce. It was a terrific site, had pictures of each year's garden layout... wonderful for ideas and very inspirational. I think it was like a 5500 sq. ft. lot.

 

Weedwacking and Rototilling will only encourage the weeds by spreading their regenerative parts around. And bare ground will only encourage the faster growing varieties to colonise your yard first. I've learned by experience that weeding is more successful when it's soon followed by planting the species you want, and watering only those plants, not the whole area. I'm now experimenting with planting grass temporarily in certain areas I know I won't be sowing crops in just yet, with the sole purpose of keeping the weeds out. "Nature abhors a vacuum" applies very well to gardening.

 

Here's what I've harvested to date from planting in early June:

Red Tum Tom = 476
Yellow Tum Tom = just planted 3 weeks ago
Hot wax pepper = 10 (many on the plant now ... trying to grow them BIG)
Gypsy Pepper = 11
Yellow Pear Tom = 171
Red Grape Tom = 243
Seedless Cuc 1 = 12
Seedless Cuc 2 = 13
Straight 8 Cuc = 24
Sweet Pepper = 6
Jalapeno = 35

All the plants are still going strong. However, you can tell that the toms are heading toward the end of their life cycle. I'll harvest much more before the year is done! Four of my plants (all peppers) are in 5 gal buckets on the ground below the hanging plants.

I'll snap a pic with my phone:

I'll have to confess that I've not done a regular garden. The only thing I've done to these plants is to water them 2x/day, and do a Miracle Grow plant mix 1x/week.

Again .... I'm still learning. However, I can attest to toms, peppers and cucumbers!

Try it ............... you'll like it!!

... Brad

 

hanging plants sounds like a good idea on many levels.

i do live in a housing gestapo, so gardening options are limited. i do have a very very small patch of ground on the side of the garage (walkway really) i can do what i want, but its fenced and very limited sun.

but i can hang plants on the back patio. plus when hung i can recapture the water runoff and recycle that.

 

Hyo is right. Get something in there asap or you'll be fighting the weeds forever. And cease the roto tilling 'cause all this does is dredge up old seed bank and expose them to germinating conditions. If you're growing your veggies from seed, you may want to start the seed in pots until mature and in that way they can compete with the weeds that are already established. Trouble is, the weeds will be harder to control from going to flower and then seed as you won't be able to weed whack it without damaging your desired plantings.

Seems like you've got a really good weed seed bank going now. I'm struggling with the very same situation in my restoration work. In my neck of the woods, they sell cover crop to sow that out competes weeds and once under control, you can plant your desired crop. Not sure it would work where you are.

The life span of the weeds and the potential seeds bank will probably dictate how you tackle your problem.

Oh, I just thought of something. I'm still in a trial and error phase of this but I use corn gluten on my remaining lawn. What this stuff does is inhibit moisture uptake by young weeds seeds but it let's the mature plantings survive. Obviously this is a problem if you're using seeds to grow your veggies but if not, it may be a good solution. It's au naturale so you doggie won't get sick from it. And the storm water run off won't pollute your local waters with chemicals. (hopefully they don't find out in 10 years that it impairs wildlife. yikes.) It takes about three years to accrue in the soil and become effective. I'm on year two. The dandelion field in my front yard has reduced. You'll still have to control mature weeds with this stuff as it only works on seedlings.