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Spongiform
Some Cow


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Need some ideas or inspiration for gardening 1
#14406641 - 05/05/11 06:21 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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I finally made the move. I went from living in a huge city full of people to living out in the woods up in the mountains in ultra-rural Ohio.
My goal is to live off the land as much as possible. (both in terms of growing my own and financial income).
The possibilities are endless but here's a few of the ideas I've come up with.
1: Gardening Grow tomatoes, onions, garlic, cucumbers, a variety of squash/zucchini, hot peppers. Planning some herb & spice gardens as well.
Using heirloom variety seeds so I only have to purchase them once. After that I can collect seeds and save for next year.
1b: Perennial Gardening. Setting up a big plot for asparagus. I figure starting with 100 roots spaced well apart should be good, as it will spread on its own.
Grape vines, blueberry bushes.
1c: Fruit & Nut trees. I'm sticking with trees that are native to the area so they don't require a ton of maintenance to get to fruit properly.
I have access to unlimited amounts of horse manure and have already started some compost piles for next year. Using a composting toilet as well, that gets added to the compost pile in between layers of horse manure.
2: Mushroom farming. I'll be setting up some logs inoculated with plug spawn asap. Oysters, Shiitake, Lions Mane, Maitake and a few others. They all grow wild here so it should work out well.
3: Chickens & Turkeys. Definitely getting chickens for eggs and plan to raise 1 or 2 turkeys at a time for some extra meat.
4: Ginseng. Been reading up on ginseng. Looks like I have about 5 acres that is suitable wild ginseng so I'm gonna order some seeds in the fall and seed the fark out of that area.
5: Tree Farming. I have up to an acre I could devout to tree farming. I don't know squat about tree farming though. :/
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Larrythescaryrex
teardrop on the fire



Registered: 07/19/00
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Re: Need some ideas or inspiration for gardening [Re: Spongiform] 1
#14407653 - 05/05/11 09:45 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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contact me via pms,
I can help you with some tree seeds, give you chicken advice, and help you with some decorative planting suggestions.
I was in four h for ten years, worked in landscaping for a while, and love gardening myself.
-------------------- RIP Acidic_Sloth Sunset_Mission said: "larry the scary rex verily scary when thoroughly vexed invoke the shadows and dust, cast a hex mercifully massacring memories masterfully relocate from Ur to 8th density and become a cosmic bully mulder and scully couldn't decipher his glyphs invoke the shadows and dust, smoke infernal spliffs" April 24th 2011
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Spongiform
Some Cow


Registered: 08/22/07
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Re: Need some ideas or inspiration for gardening [Re: Larrythescaryrex] 1
#14410424 - 05/06/11 01:57 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Sure thing.
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bcblackout

Registered: 06/14/10
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Re: Need some ideas or inspiration for gardening [Re: Spongiform] 1
#14425660 - 05/09/11 05:07 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Congrats on the move, that's awesome.
If you want to live off the land, you'll need more than tomatoes and onions. You can't live of those! You'll need veg you can store or preserve. Add beans, dry beans, winter squash, potatoes and other roots.
Check out Eliot Coleman's winter gardening book for ideas on how to protect winter crops.
Best of luck!
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Prisoner#1
Even Dumber ThanAdvertized!


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Re: Need some ideas or inspiration for gardening [Re: Spongiform] 1
#14427578 - 05/09/11 11:31 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Spongiform said: Setting up a big plot for asparagus. I figure starting with 100 roots spaced well apart should be good, as it will spread on its own.
Grape vines, blueberry bushes.
start asparagus from seed, the plants you buy are all male and you'll purchase them over and over again, with the blueberries you need to check your soil PH, they like acid, around 5.5 or so, for that you may need to add sulfur to the soil, any treatment whether it's making it acid, alkaline or neutral can take around a year
Quote:
1c: Fruit & Nut trees. I'm sticking with trees that are native to the area so they don't require a ton of maintenance to get to fruit properly.
dont fool yourself, there's a lot of work involved in farming fruit and nuts, the very least is proper pruning and training to get a reasonable crop, regular inspection and pulling excess fruits so the others can develop properly are essential
Quote:
5: Tree Farming. I have up to an acre I could devout to tree farming. I don't know squat about tree farming though. :/
just trees in general or specific trees like Christmas trees?
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Shins
Fun guy



Registered: 09/15/04
Posts: 16,337
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Re: Need some ideas or inspiration for gardening [Re: Larrythescaryrex] 1
#14427864 - 05/10/11 01:24 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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One sustenance growing tech I'm into right now is the traditional first nations "3 sisters" method.
First you make a hill and plant a few stalks of corn. Once they are a foot or more tall you plant pole beans and squash.

The beans add nitrogen to the soil for the corn and help support it from the wind, the corn makes a pole for the beans, and the spiny squash shades the ground and keeps the moisture in, and weeds/pests out.
The "3 sisters" were referred to by the natives as "the sustainers of life" and when eaten together give a nearly nutritionally complete meal.
The plants also help to compost the soil after they die off and leave the soil in better condition than before.
I have plans to do several 3 sister "guerrilla grows" around my neighborhood on common grounds.
I think it's and interesting way to grow, and maybe you could try it if you want.

Creating a Three Sisters Garden; Discovering A Native Trio
Edited by Shins (05/10/11 03:58 AM)
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Spongiform
Some Cow


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Re: Need some ideas or inspiration for gardening [Re: Shins] 1
#14439856 - 05/12/11 11:59 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
One sustenance growing tech I'm into right now is the traditional first nations "3 sisters" method.
That is pretty cool. Inspired me to do a similar method.
For my primary garden I'm tilling up 4, 30 foot lengths. It's virgin soil and high in clay so I'm adding in a 5 gallon bucket full of compost for every 5 feet or so.
Once that's done I'm building 5 or 6 foot tall tripods out of saplings. I'll use these as tomato cages. Then connect each tripod in a line using more sticks.
Between each cage I'll run a couple strands of twine.
Between the tomatoes I'll plant cucumbers, potatoes, onions, green beans and soy beans.
The cucumbers and beans I'll train along the twine and up around the cross-supports.
For my melon and gord type plants I'll build little mounds around the edge of the garden and let them go wild.
Quote:
start asparagus from seed, the plants you buy are all male and you'll purchase them over and over again, with the blueberries you need to check your soil PH, they like acid, around 5.5 or so, for that you may need to add sulfur to the soil, any treatment whether it's making it acid, alkaline or neutral can take around a year
Would that still apply if I bought the asparagus roots right off an asparagus farm? I wasn't planning on buying them in a store.
Quote:
just trees in general or specific trees like Christmas trees?
I've done a little research. Seems like my best bet is to go with oak. What I'm looking for are trees that will eventually be valuable as timber but also support some of the hard to grow mycorrhizal mushroom species. Narrowed it down to Green Ash/American Elm for Morels and Oak for Porcini(Boletus edulis) & Chanterelles. I know morels can grow on other species but all the morels I found here locally were all growing on either green ash or american elm.


However with the emerald ash borer making it's way through Ohio and killing off all the old elm and ash trees it's unlikely that for an elm or ash grove to survive to maturity.
I haven't narrowed down which species of oak is best for Chanterelles and/or Porcini. Red and White oak are common here and there's a couple impressive oaks here.
I have a couple elm cuttings I'm attempting to root now. If it's successful I'm going to start a small elm grove and seed it with morel spore water solution from my locally collected specimens. Then each year I can kill a couple of the trees while planting more of them. I was thinking I'd start with maybe 25 and each year kill 5 while planting 10 more in a wider radius.
Once I narrow down the oak species I'll try rooting from cuttings first. If that doesn't work I'll collect acorns this fall and start a seed bed. I have room to plant around 100 without significantly altering the property.
I know it takes a long ass time for them to mature enough to harvest - 20 years minimum. But this is more of a long term investment and by doing them myself without buying anything it only costs me time, not money. Plus being able to have a steady supply of edible mushrooms will be awesome :-D
Quote:
dont fool yourself, there's a lot of work involved in farming fruit and nuts, the very least is proper pruning and training to get a reasonable crop, regular inspection and pulling excess fruits so the others can develop properly are essential
My grandparents had a big hickory tree in their yard. Every year that big SOB would drop buckets and buckets of nuts. We'd collect them after they had sat for a bit and most of the shells had come off naturally. Then they'd sit in the garage for a month or two. After that you could crack them open and eat them. Very little work or maintenance involved. They had a couple apple trees too. All we did was trim off any dead branches and water it during droughts. It would dump hundreds of medium sized apples on us every year. Weren't as big as store bought, but tasted great and made awesome pies and applesauce.
I've read that a lot of fruit trees are more suited to southern climates and will often only fruit every couple years in the more northern areas. So I was thinking I'd focus my efforts on trees that already grow here naturally and are adapted to the climate.
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Spongiform
Some Cow


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Re: Need some ideas or inspiration for gardening [Re: Spongiform] 1
#14545764 - 06/01/11 01:35 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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Update: So, I went to pick up my 2 dozen tomatoes and they had started quite a few for more and didn't charge me any extra. I ended up with 90 tomato plants, 63 red bell peppers and 18 chile peppers.
I cut saplings for stakes, and planted 4 tomatoes around each stake in a + shape. I dug out each hole as deep as I could, about a 5 gallon bucket worth of dirt, all clay. Then refilled each hole with compost. I put peppers randomly between tomatoes and planted 4 cucumbers at the base of almost each stake.
I used the extra dirt to start mounds, which I'll be planting melons and squash type stuff in, and took some old tires and filled up with dirt/compost layers and am planting my herbs in those.
I also use the tiller to dig up a couple rows then I removed about half the clay dirt and mixed in compost and planted various green beans/soy beans.
Then my neighbor came by with his tractor and plow and offered to do our gardens for $20 and I was like, fuck I wish I knew you were gonna do that a couple days ago :/
So he plowed up a 20x80 or so section for me and I built a trellis on it out of saplings and twine and planted more cucumbers and a few pole beans around it.
Then the rest of my bell peppers, 3 rows of seed potatoes, 3 rows of onions, and 6 rows of corn.
So I have 90 tomatoes, 130ish cucumbers, 125 or so green beans, 81 peppers and however many potatoes/onions/corn. Didn't see any point in counting those.
I realize that my peppers will probably hybridize, and after thinking about it, I realized I don't give a shit :-D I would kinda like some spicy bell peppers, or some relatively mild chile peppers.
I've got sage, oregano, basil, chives and rosemary to plant tomorrow and watermelons, pumpkins, squash and 3 or 4 types of sweet cantelope type melons.
Here's a few pics. Surprised that my cucumbers came up so quickly. Half of them sprouted in 3 days.
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Spongiform
Some Cow


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Re: Need some ideas or inspiration for gardening [Re: Spongiform] 1
#19907663 - 04/27/14 02:43 PM (9 years, 9 months ago) |
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Figured I'd toss in an update here.
It's taken a lot longer then I originally expected to really dive into this stuff and learn how to do it in ways that make sense for me.
That being said I've made a ton of progress. Learned a lot of self-sustainability. I make my own compost, own fertilizer. Don't bother with herbicides, insecticides, etc. Really about the only thing I ever buy is seeds but not very much.
For the most part I build permanent small raised beds out of used tires by cutting the sidewalls out. Then filling them with rich compost and topsoil. Then mulch the ever loving shit in and around them.
Keeps weeds down and also keeps moisture in. Bare soil is the devil. With good mulching you shouldn't have to water at all, ever, except when you first plant and maybe the first week if it doesn't rain. Once they have roots established you're good to go! I didn't need to water tomatoes through a 6 week drought with temps in the 90-102 range :-D
I have some fruit/nut trees started. I've been learning to ID local wild native plants and have started transplanting them into areas more suitable for me to harvest/maintain. Things like hazelnut for example. Lots of wild herbs to play with too. Goldenseal, black cohosh etc.
I decided at some point I didn't give a shit about growing "all my own food" but rather am focusing on growing enough "value". It's very easy to trade/sell extra stuff so focusing on stuff that's valuable and that I seem to have an affinity for is working well. Each season I expand the beds. I'm up to about 115 beds at the moment but should be up to 200 by the end of the fall. Not all plants are very suitable for the small round beds, so I've been harvesting/collecting large logs to build bigger beds for them. They won't be permanent like the tires but they'll still last for up to a decade depending on what logs I use. Good enough for now and I probably won't do very many of those anyhow.
Garlic is epic. So ridiculously easy to grow and has a high value around here. Cucumbers too. Jalapenos are nice. Any sort of berry works well too. Mmm, blueberries.
Anyway, thought I'd share that, thanks for the help guys :-D
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applesmasher420
CGI and Visual Effects Artist




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Re: Need some ideas or inspiration for gardening [Re: Spongiform] 1
#19914552 - 04/28/14 10:48 PM (9 years, 8 months ago) |
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Awesome! Im glad to hear, do you plan to continue updating this thread with your current endeavors? 
Right now im just saving money to buy my big plot of land, however I currently have %30 of an acre all to myself and want to be as sustainable as possible in the mean time. I have learned lots over the last 2 years living here. Now Ive got really good feelings about this 2014 season!
Ive begun raising Rabbits, and all my new free time gives me lots of opportunities to carry out my ideas for the yard.
Check out my thread if you get the chance, Maybe youl have some advice for me! 
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/19859966
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LordHuron
Browncoat



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Re: Need some ideas or inspiration for gardening [Re: applesmasher420] 1
#19954070 - 05/07/14 01:25 PM (9 years, 8 months ago) |
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A great thing that I did last year for the first time if you want a good grain producer is quinoa. they are surprisingly easy to grow, the only thing to watch is they HATE weeds, I couldnt figure out why mine werent shooting up to full height (about 7 feet) then I read on a forum they hate weeds and VIOLA within about a week after a heavy weeding they shot up almost 3 feet. I grew 3 plants and ended up with roughly 4 8 ounce ball jars full and next year I think I am going to let them go a little longer so they bulk out a little more.
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Spongiform
Some Cow


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Re: Need some ideas or inspiration for gardening [Re: LordHuron] 1
#19986857 - 05/14/14 12:27 PM (9 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Check out my thread if you get the chance, Maybe youl have some advice for me!
That looks pretty awesome man. I don't have much experience with succulents or the type of environment you seem to live in. Seems like southern coastal area to me.
The one thing that popped out at me was this picture. That bare soil is horrifying to me now. Mulch that shit! :-D
I've added a few new things to my future plans. A combination of forestry (planting trees) combined with shade loving herbs that have a significant value. Stuff like ginseng, black cohosh, goldenseal, blood root and so on.
I haven't decided which species of trees yet but am working on a list and prioritizing based on timber value, food value and any secondary values (or downsides) they might have.
Like black walnut is one of the highest value trees in the US AND it produces edible nuts but on the downside it doesn't play well with a lot of other species and likes to kill them with a natural herbicide it produces.
I'd like to keep it varied as well. No giant monocultures for me. Just about any tree has some sort of bug or disease that affects it or might affect it so I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket.
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