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Post by castanea on Feb 27, 2011 14:16:56 GMT -5
I found Jerusalem Artichokes at the Farmer's Market last year. $3.00 for a whole berry basket of them (quart?). I took them home and simply tasted one, and planted all the rest. The next week, I went back for more. And told the farmer that I planted it and planned on planting another basket. He about fainted, said I would have Jerusalem Artichokes reaching to the moon. I am a bit nervous now. Since Egyptian Onions think they own the place, already! Do they really spread that easily? Not out here. The summers are too hot and dry. But in your area they would probably spread quite easily. |
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Post by ottawagardener on Feb 27, 2011 14:23:52 GMT -5
Silverseeds: Yeah, food forest type thing.
Ozarklady: Ours only spread clonally as far as I'm aware as I don't think we have a long enough season for most to set seed and I only have one variety though I would like another one. My understanding is that neglected Jeruselum Artichokes can create quite the stand or if they self seed, you can get lots. I have always found them easy enough to contain (she says now). Someone did point out to me that the shoots are easy to recognize if you wanted to pull them.
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Post by garnetmoth on Feb 27, 2011 15:03:48 GMT -5
Im nursing a sore wrist today, but I got 3 more very-in-the-way rose of sharon stumps out yesterday! Im gonna try to get the cold frame up and running this week.
Atash and Joseph: I am going to be doing a CSA work-share this year. My friend is the garden manager for the greens and vegs (and they have a few acres of wheat, beans, rye, and bunches of beehives!) Ill get more experience this way and get a better idea how much room Ill need. Have you ever tried putting out local work calls for planting or harvesting?
Telsing: I am very excited to get the Good King Henry going (guess I should get on that!)
Heidi: awesome! foraging totally counts. theve been poor the last few years, but we have scads of mulberries around and made gallons of jam one year. Our neighbors have an ornamental plum in the front and I asked if I could taste them and she looked at me like Im nuts. they were SO good.
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Post by bunkie on Feb 27, 2011 15:25:23 GMT -5
great thread all! we are experimenting with lots of different grains. i like the diversity of using them for flour, cereals, sprouts, etc... i do bet as they get more expensive, they will be more popular to sell at the farmers market. i know our customers love new ideas and ways to eat things, as well as test tasting new varieties of veggies, fruits, etc...
we're planting more berry nushes and nut trees this year. trying to establish a larger asparagus patch and horseradish patch. we're experimenting with all kinds of different veggies and fruits. really going for the colors puple, red, blue, orange.
am reading up a lot of the food forest idea and hope to be getting some plans together to get one started this spring.
there's lots more, but time is short at the moment. am enjoying reading all your posts and am getting more ideas from them!
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 27, 2011 16:17:36 GMT -5
Have you ever tried putting out local work calls for planting or harvesting? My family understands planting schedules, and emergency frost harvest since we have been living that way for 150 years in our village. We watch the signs for fall frost and go into emergency harvest mode dropping whatever else is happening in order to save what we can of the crop. I don't even have to call, they just show up. The community doesn't understand. I can't get gleaners to come out from the food pantry. If I drop prices 70% in the week before frost is expected I can get a lot of people to come out and harvest for their own use. This year I am already advertising a "Friends and Family Day" at my garden to plant tomatoes and peppers. Saturday June 4th. I'll provide great food. I expect there will be green onions, mint, and seeds to take home. That's the only planting day that help is critical. With an Earthway seeder I can plant an acre in a couple hours. It's also nice to have help on about May 5th for su corn planting day, because I am planting many small patches for breeding and it's easier to plant small patches with a hoe than a seeder. Work-shares have been hard for me to manage because I have only been farming in the mornings, and most people that want to participate have to come after work or school, so I never know if it's a fair trade. (I suspect that most people don't take enough home with them.) This year I am expecting to spend mornings and evenings in the garden. This summer I am going to try a u-pick arrangement in which vegetables are free if they leave half of what they pick for me, or half price if they take everything they pick. Planting and harvest are relatively easy... It's the ongoing weeding that I really like help with. |
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Post by ozarklady on Feb 27, 2011 16:46:35 GMT -5
I have a friend, who has dug up some heartnut trees, bamboo, and muscadine grapes that he is sending to me while they are still dormant. Then, I also have the English walnuts that Joseph sent to me and they are now about 18" tall to get transplanted to a permanent location. I container raised them last year. I have many different seeds in my fridge getting their cold treatment, and soon to go into pots. I found several different grain vendors, and at least two sources for rice seeds. Since, Arkansas is a rice state, it should grow here really well. I am eyeballing a bit of levee to my pond that is cut to allow water into it... I could easily close that for flooding, and open it for draining, as long as, nature does not overflow my attempts. I also found one company that offers all kinds of seed mixes. I assume this is similar to a landrace. www.bountifulgardens.org/products.asp?dept=7&pagenumber=2&sort_on=&sort_by=It seemed interesting and inexpensive to me. |
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Post by synergy on Feb 27, 2011 22:52:53 GMT -5
I am somehow seeing the challenge but not really that it is fun or a personal challenge issued by Atash. It seems to me this is lifes next challenge . 20 years ago I read Robert Rodales book 'The Next Frontier' and it stressed the need to live more harmoniously and raise food crops in a harmonious fashion, and it seems this is coming 20 years late and only by handfuls of people.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Feb 28, 2011 11:30:08 GMT -5
Well, that is sort of the idea. That most of the human population will be extinguished and only those with the skill and knowledge to do so will survive. Not a pretty picture. So, I'm grateful to Atash for putting a bright face on the task at hand because for me at least, it keeps me from dwelling on what will probably be a grueling existence for a very long time.
Consider, most of us here on the board a preparing for "catastrophe". Well, what kind of catastrophe? Disease? War? Famine? Plague? Some sort of combination? Unless someone here has the ability to move forward in time somehow, the best anyone can do is guess based on available data.
I have only 1 historical reference to key on and that is the black plague in Europe that destroyed what, something like 1/3 of the population? So, maybe a million people at best? If I get time, and anyone is interested I'll try to verify this but I bet someone else has the correct information in their heads and can correct me before I get it done.
Anyway, the point is that what we are waiting for will be world wide event rather than a single, relatively small location. The loss of life will number into the billions not the millions or less, and the environmental impacts can only be guessed at.
Anyone that survives it and be able to laugh, tell jokes, sing songs, and play a tune on a fiddle will be a braver soul than I.
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Post by ozarklady on Feb 28, 2011 11:53:06 GMT -5
There is always the "hope" that if more folks start meeting their own food needs, then perhaps less folks will be lost to famines.
And with healthier, more abundant fresh foods, folks will be healthier and better able to resist illnesses.
If a government can only guarantee enough food to feed 100 people and sees the amount going down that they can provide, and if 25 people start to grow their own and feed themself, that really takes the load off of governments, and improves life for all. Then, if there is a failure in the governments food chain, those 25 might be able to help in the shortfall.
It would seem that all governments would encourage folks to grow their own food. But, controlling the food is the easiest way to have control over the masses. So it is a trade-off for governments who really prefer sheeple.
So, we prepare for the worst and hope for the best. And if nothing at all happens... we have our own food supply, and simply have more free money to spend as we see fit. And we get more variety, and better quality, better tasting food. Looks like a win/win scenario if nothing happens and a survival hope if things go seriously wrong.
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Post by synergy on Feb 28, 2011 13:39:02 GMT -5
I think as well the benefit is exercise too. If people see priorities shift, the meme changing , some will begin to follow the herd after thougthful pause and some mindlessly . Its good for us and the environment. That is how I feel about getting my ample backside on a bicycle too, maybe more people subconciously take note and think about doing it themselves. Yes it gives me exercise and saves money and doesn't pollute but maybe it does more, maybe it turns on a lightbulb : )
"This summer I am going to try a u-pick arrangement in which vegetables are free if they leave half of what they pick for me, or half price if they take everything they pick."
Joseph, that is a novel thought , I am thinking maybe even a little too generous as you undertake risks and losses and should not only recover your investment but make a profit for your venture. I would reckon people would be willing and even happy to keep 1/4 of what they pick in return for their labour, especially if they are not paying tax on their product they keep. And you don't deal with conventional paperwork I would hope. I like that idea a lot from the perspective of the grower and the consumer. Lots of famillies will be looking to make ends meet and I think giving a quarter of what they pick might be fair and appreciated as you are cutting them in for 25% of your profit and you still have to take the risk on any loss in marketing the other 75% but you also stand to gain some profit whereas 50% I have to wonder if you are underestimating your investment and risk . Remember , you take a risk over many years of an entire season of crop loss, whereas your consumers gaining 25% of that days picking don't.
Hmm, we need low growth, not very competitive edible weeds !
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Post by ozarklady on Feb 28, 2011 13:54:43 GMT -5
I think that you are over estimating the number of folks who will actually go pick!
There is a local U pick here... I have never picked there, I just wait for it to be in the little sales shed. And these folks are my friends, I go visit them, but not to pick. ? dumb huh?
But, lots of folks just won't be comfortable to pick it. I know, I feel that I might step on something or somehow offend them, so I don't try it.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 28, 2011 14:19:15 GMT -5
I have only contemplated u-pick on very hard to pick items: green beans, peas, strawberries, tiny cucumbers. Things that I wouldn't ordinarily grow for market due to the labor being way out of line with the price I can get for them. Half of the crop seems like a fair exchange on those items.... Without help I'd only grow them in small amounts for my family baskets. They are also the highest priced items that I grow so even if I give half of them away I still make more per pound on them than on anything else I grow
I'm not willing to let most things go for that price though. But there might be other crops I'd let go for 1/4 of the harvest. I'll keep records this summer, and come up with a u-pick rate for other vegetables... 1/8 of the harvest for corn, 1/4 of the harvest for potatoes, etc.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 28, 2011 14:33:49 GMT -5
I think that you are over estimating the number of folks who will actually go pick! I figure that I'll plant snap beans every 10 days all summer long, and if they don't get picked as green beans then I'll pick them at my leisure as dry beans. Same thing with peas, except the season is shorter. I giggle at all the people that think their kids are going to harm the garden. Ha! I'm the oldest of 13 kids. I love kids in the garden, even when they are picking the squash flowers or sitting in the tomatoes. |
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Post by ozarklady on Feb 28, 2011 15:29:45 GMT -5
The local u Pick is strawberries and blueberries. They also have corn, but I don't think that is a u-pick item.
I can imagine, it takes alot of time to pick the strawberries and blueberries.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Feb 28, 2011 16:31:02 GMT -5
LOL, nope, you can pick a LOT of strawberries in no time flat! Last year we went to the local UPick, me, hubby, 8 and 10, a friend and her 5 yr old. We picked 60 pounds of berries in 45 minutes. When the lady told us to pony up 120 bucks I nearly fell over dead! I thought we had 30 lbs. MAYbe 40... but 60 POUNDS? YIKES! Top it all off, I picked most of 'em! ok, so that part made me feel good ;o)
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