Homesteader Depot

Tag: beginning gardening

  • Crops I Don’t Recommend and Why

    Crops I Don’t Recommend and Why

    I’m sure that I will get people who disagree, but that’s why the article is titled “crops I don’t recommend” instead of “crops you shouldn’t grow”.  Everyone has access to different resources and has different levels of experience and time they are willing and able to put into their garden.  If you have a lot of money, and a lot of time, and you don’t mind putting a lot of work into growing a certain crop because you enjoy the satisfaction of overcoming the inherent difficulties in doing so, then great, grow whatever crops you want to.  But for the rest of us, these are a few crops that I, personally, would recommend that you don’t waste your time with.

     

    Asparagus

    Don’t get me wrong, I love asparagus, and I know that it is difficult and expensive to get tasty young asparagus in the store.  But I personally take a utilitarian approach to gardening and if I can get similar nutrition from a crop that is easier to grow, then I will.  Asparagus takes years to produce, requires a lot of space once it does, and will eat more fertilizer than green I have ever grown.   If you aren’t going to be deterred by my warnings then at least do yourself a favor and buy asparagus roots and not seeds, you will never get anything from the seeds.

    Strawberries

    The low sprawling nature of strawberries make them difficult to mulch.  Any crop that is difficult to mulch is also going to be difficult to water and to keep weeded.  Add to these difficulties the fact that mice and rats love to beat me to my strawberries and I give up.  From my experience you need to grow strawberries in a raised bed with store bought top soil, water them on a timer, and cover them with wire to protect them from pests.  That is too much work for so little reward.

    Head Lettuce

    I have nothing against head lettuce varieties, but I have never experienced the same level of success that I have with leaf lettuces.  I always end up having some level of rot of pest damage in a head lettuce, and even if it is minimal, some of the lettuce ends up in the compost anyway because I didn’t eat it fast enough.  On the other hand, leaf lettuce is much less likely to rot or be bothered by pests, and I can harvest as much or as little as I need for each meal, so it is as fresh as ever each time I eat it.

     

    If you have had success with these crops, then continue growing them.  But if you haven’t tried them yet and are considering growing them this season, you have been warned.

     

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  • Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a Garden

    Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a Garden

    Most gardeners don’t live in the tropics or have acres of land to spare, so choosing the right crops and materials to start a garden with is something you aren’t going to want to take lightly.  It could be a third of the way through your growing season before you realize that you wasted all of that time, energy, money, and space in your garden just to grow crops that you aren’t going to benefit from.

    Over-enthusiastic seed purchases

    One thing to avoid is getting your ideas of what crops you are going to grow from a seed catalog.  Seed sellers don’t make most of their money off serious gardeners that have mature gardens already in place. Gardeners with a garden that is several years, or even decades old, are going to be able to get the bulk of their seeds for the following year from the crops they are already growing.  Beginner gardeners who don’t have a seed stock of their own and in many cases don’t know what crops to grow are most likely seed catalog’s biggest customers.

    If you are, as most beginning gardeners are, working with limited space and resources, then you don’t need to grow 15 different types of basil and kohlrabi (which you probably didn’t know existed anyway until you saw it in the seed catalog).  Try to grow crops that represent the nutrients you need and are already eating.

    Extravagant soil 

    Another thing to avoid is buying good soil to start your garden and then buying an expensive rotating compost bin as well.  If you are starting out in poor soil and adding amendments like potting soil or bagged compost to your existing ground, then you are probably going to need to add more long before you are going to be able to harvest any from your rotating compost bin and your money would be better spent little by little on bags of compost.  If you are buying soil to start raised beds, then you are going to have enough nutrients in the soil already and be spending plenty of money to start out with.

    Your money will go further if you simply buy compost to start your garden and at the same time make a compost bin out of chicken wire and two stakes which will cost you less than $15 compared to over $100 for a rotating bin with much less capacity.

    Gardens should be, among other things, a means to save money, not an added expense.  And there is no reason for them to be.

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