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This morning I harvested spinach, while I was picking leaf by leaf thinking to my self a Robin tried to land on my shoulder, I almost peed myself. But in the middle of this Mary Poppins minute I came to the realization that I was only going to get about a gallon of spinach leaves, not enough to blanch and put up.

The question that came to my mind was, if I only had 5 things that I could grow: What would give me the most meals on a Square-Foot of garden-day basis? I would hear everyone's thoughts and I would really love to hear what our friends across the pond in the UK think, after all the Britt's are world renowned for their Victory Gardens.
 
phideaux said:
@Bacpacker ,@bamadeb48 ,
Y'all make me jealous.

Wish I could still garden like y'all.

Hope you have a big harvest.

Jim
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I planted 4 tomato plants, beets, Swiss chard and some amaranth in grow bags. Maybe we can’t garden big but we who aren’t as mobile could still grow ourselves some yummy veggies.
 
It's hard to get significant protein from a garden. Since we eat low-carb, we eat very few potatoes. We do eat beans but tend towards greenbeans, which are more jacket than bean. I guess if we felt "crunched" such that we had to go back to eating more from the garden with other food sources becoming scarce, we may go more towards potatoes again. Beans would be a bigger part. Squash is good now and we definitely already do that.

If a person has the room, raising some chickens and perhaps some of their feed and letting them free range for the rest would give you some really good protein, both meat and eggs. Other animals might also do some conversions of vegetation to meat... goats, sheep, cattle, pigs, that kind of thing.
 
I think @Neb and I got hit with a blast of cold air (dang Canadians!) over the last 2 days, I think I was lucky and only lost a half dozen plants. I hope @elkhound 's garden didn't get hit too hard. These late/early season shifts in temperature can really set us back.
 
Figured I'd share a little...

Upper Garden

Onions, 3 kinds
Red potatoes
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Cabbage
Carrots
Celery
Beets
Eggplant
Peppers
Tomatoes, 5 varieties
Cucumbers, 2 varieties
Squash, 2 varieties

Lower Garden

English peas
Corn
Peanuts (yes, decided to try some!)
Bush green beans
Black eyed peas
Bush lima beans
Running lima beans
Purple hull peas
Okra

Greenhouse

Tomatoes, 5 varieties
Peppers
Eggplant
Squash

Outside beds

Asparagus
Strawberries
Raspberries
Blackberries
Grape vines

Trees

Elderberry
Apple
Sour cherry
Peach

Some stuff is planted and not even up yet, a tiny bit is starting to produce. We've had some asparagus to put in the freezer. We had the first strawberry 2 days ago. And we had our first greenhouse squash for supper last night. :)

Peanuts are new, haven't grown them in 30 years, and never here in Tennessee. But I wanted to try. The ground is cracking and when I was watering the bed yesterday, there are a few peanut sprouts ready to pop through the ground, probably today! :D

There will be some stuff that won't be in for the duration, like the English peas. I'll replant that area when the come off. I still want to put out some neck pumpkins, sunflowers, rutabaga, Brussels sprouts (for fall, not time yet), and maybe a few other things. The garden plots are completely full, I always run out of room before stuff I wanna do...

The risk of frost has been a bit pesky. Covered a BUNCH of stuff last night, just to be safe. Temps only made it down to 41, not quite as cold as forecast, and I didn't see any frost this morning early. Hoping that's over with soon. I'm using black ground cover so it's warming the soil just a bit and also keeping down weeds and grass encroachment. I am indeed trying to push the season in hopes that I'll have stuff to sell at the farmers market this year. Had actually hoped to have more high tunnels going by now, didn't happen with all of the covid crap. So we're busy. And even if the farmers market dreams go up in smoke, perhaps we'll have plenty for us to can / freeze and provide for family and friends, kinda like usual.

Fun, fun. :)
 
UrbanHunter said:
I think @Neb and I got hit with a blast of cold air (dang Canadians!) over the last 2 days, I think I was lucky and only lost a half dozen plants. I hope @elkhound 's garden didn't get hit too hard. These late/early season shifts in temperature can really set us back.
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Those blasts of cold air are no fun. Lots of scrambling to cover stuff here. But, we're still 9 days out from when the last killing frost was last year, at least here in this part of TN. We've been lucky and haven't lost anything due to late frost. I have lost a few plants to high wind damage but not frost.

We've had wonderfully warm weather for parts of March and April, short sleeve shirt weather. It does that to us here every year. It's to the point where most of the local guys don't bother a whole lot with peach trees as the late frosts nearly always take out the blossoms. For my one little tree, a volunteer, I protected it. I had a section of greenhouse plastic left over from my small high tunnel and put that over it along with a few lights. Looked like a redneck nativity kinda thing and the neighbors probably had a good laugh. But I have peaches on that little tree! :)

With the talk of "grand solar minimum", we may have later frosts in the spring, earlier frosts in the fall, shorter growing season, less light, stuff like that for a bit. Haven't really looked at how long these cycles last but they are definitely nothing new. Have even heard that the fall of the Roman Empire may have been influenced by a grand solar minimum by way of crop failures and food shortages.
 
P.S., as for my little peach tree, I wanna see what kind of peaches it makes. If I like them, I have every intention of grafting some scion onto some dwarf rootstock and seeing if I can plant about a half dozen of them somewhere that I can give even a little protection. I have a spot in mind, maybe. I'm nearly outta room, but I think I can shoehorn them in on the south side of the barn. LOL! I could probably even do them espalier style (flat) up against the side of the barn, which would make it really easy to protect them / cover them for late frosts. Dunno. So many little things to try.
 
Tonight I went out and picked caterpillars, the robin's are following me around, guess they like caterpillars... ;)
My spring planted spinach are all now showing their true leaves :).
I decided to make a vegetable tray using a small concrete mixing pan, spinach, lettuce, and radishes; it will sit on top of the picnic table until it gets warm, then I will move it under the table to keep it cool...

The over winter spinach will need picking again this weekend, it grows so fast now, I am glad we can freeze it for later use.

Other than that just the normal gardening jobs...
 
Meerkat said:
About all we can plant down here now is okra,too hot for summer crops. Wish we'd started some form of inside gardening years ago utside too of course.
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Our daughter in south Louisiana seems to do well with peppers and eggplant.

FWIW, some of the gardeners we saw in the Phoenix, AZ area did two things. 1) They used shade cloth for the hottest part of the year when they were trying to grow stuff. And 2) they tended to treat the mid summer kinda like we northerners treat winter either growing on either side of summer or from fall through spring as their growing season.
 
PopPopT said:
Our daughter in south Louisiana seems to do well with peppers and eggplant.

FWIW, some of the gardeners we saw in the Phoenix, AZ area did two things. 1) They used shade cloth for the hottest part of the year when they were trying to grow stuff. And 2) they tended to treat the mid summer kinda like we northerners treat winter either growing on either side of summer or from fall through spring as their growing season.
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Pop,we tried the greenhouse growing too, did ok when we could keep at it but on real hot days it was a challenge,we used shade clothe too. We like almost all veggies but eggplant. I can eat it but hubby won't. I have some we dried about 4 year ago. Maybe I can make and lasangna recipe with it? I know the lasagna I made with zuccini slices was really good.:welcome:
 
Meerkat said:
Pop,we tried the greenhouse growing too, did ok when we could keep at it but on real hot days it was a challenge,we used shade clothe too. We like almost all veggies but eggplant. I can eat it but hubby won't. I have some we dried about 4 year ago. Maybe I can make and lasangna recipe with it? I know the lasagna I made with zuccini slices was really good.:welcome:
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That is the reason we are keeping a roof on our atrium.

Ben
 
UrbanHunter said:
Tonight I went out and picked caterpillars, the robin's are following me around, guess they like caterpillars... ;)
My spring planted spinach are all now showing their true leaves :).
I decided to make a vegetable tray using a small concrete mixing pan, spinach, lettuce, and radishes; it will sit on top of the picnic table until it gets warm, then I will move it under the table to keep it cool...

The over winter spinach will need picking again this weekend, it grows so fast now, I am glad we can freeze it for later use.

Other than that just the normal gardening jobs...
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I thank God that you are pulling this off in style!

Ben
 
Meerkat said:
We like almost all veggies but eggplant. I can eat it but hubby won't.
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LOL!! I get that. Eggplant isn't one of my favorites either. But some people seem to love it. About the only way I kinda like it is fried and made into eggplant parm.

I'm in a Master Gardener class here in TN. Learning some interesting things but mainly the thing I like is that it's geared specifically for right here. We're too far north to be a southern state, too far south to be a norther state, and we can kinda grow stuff from either north or south and have ALL of the problems of both. At least that's the way it seems. And to be honest, we can grow most stuff. A few things, though, really just don't tend to do well here, one of which is peaches and to some extent, cherries, both of which I love. Late frosts kill blossoms. But, heading towards NC or AL, we never have to go all that far to find a bit different of a climate where they can grow those things very well.

Don't know if you have a Master Gardener class near you or not. You might find it fun to interact with others in your area who also are dealing with exactly the same challenges. I find it's good to be around others of similar interests.
 
@PopPopT I didn't think my peanutbutter plants were growing but I do have some. They are a funny looking critter. I reseeded so am hoping for more. With the first planting, I didn't water well enough and we had horrendous winds that kept drying things out faster than I could water. Also, usually Mother Nature helps water in the spring. So far we have had 2 light rains :confused: so I have been watering for over a month now. So far this year, it's my pole beans that are iffy. I have some sprouted, but the germination rate on them is low. I will just keep poking more in the ground until the holes are filled.
Can't grow squash (winter) here. I tried growing spaghetti squash 2 years ago. Noticed they grew huge! Opened and cooked and realized they crossed with a neighbor's giant pumpkins so they tasted like pumpkin too - that's not the right flavor for spaghetti! I was hoping that the neighbors wouldn't plant them again, but evidently giant pumpkins are their thing.
 
LadyLocust said:
@PopPopT I didn't think my peanutbutter plants were growing but I do have some. They are a funny looking critter. I reseeded so am hoping for more. With the first planting, I didn't water well enough and we had horrendous winds that kept drying things out faster than I could water. Also, usually Mother Nature helps water in the spring. So far we have had 2 light rains :confused: so I have been watering for over a month now. So far this year, it's my pole beans that are iffy. I have some sprouted, but the germination rate on them is low. I will just keep poking more in the ground until the holes are filled.
Can't grow squash (winter) here. I tried growing spaghetti squash 2 years ago. Noticed they grew huge! Opened and cooked and realized they crossed with a neighbor's giant pumpkins so they tasted like pumpkin too - that's not the right flavor for spaghetti! I was hoping that the neighbors wouldn't plant them again, but evidently giant pumpkins are their thing.
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I sometimes wonder if its not the seeds? Seems like crops don't do as good,if we have any old seeds maybe we need to save them by letting plants go to seed?
 
Meerkat said:
I sometimes wonder if its not the seeds? Seems like crops don't do as good,if we have any old seeds maybe we need to save them by letting plants go to seed?
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That's what I am suspicious of. These are just bean seeds from last year, but who knows how old they really are when we purchase them. Also, a different kind than just KY pole beans so different varieties might not be as strong as others. I will save some seeds this year assuming they grow to that extent, then I will know for sure the age of the beans. My good ol' contenders sprouted right up and are 4-5" tall now. I guess that's one of the fun things about a garden, you just never know:)
 
LadyLocust said:
I didn't think my peanutbutter plants were growing but I do have some.
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LOL!! "Peanutbutter plants", I like that. :) Honestly, that's what I would love to do with the peanuts because we eat quite a lot of peanut butter.

Ours are just starting to pop through the surface. They look kinda like a lima bean sprouting, kinda ugly, but I won't hold that against them. ;)

Our bigger garden is really showing life. We have a lot of beans planted in that one and there are very few empty holes. Mostly it's covered in black woven ground cover but for the English peas and the peanuts, I didn't think I could do those with the cover. Maybe the English peas, if I'd make each tiny hole for a pea plant. Maybe some day next winter when the OCD kicks in and I have nothing better to do, I'll take a 100' piece of the ground cover and carefully put in 1200 little 3/4" holes. Or not. LOL!! One thing about the ground cover, it's keeping me honest about spacing. I tend to want to pack way more into a space then should be and overcrowd. So, when I laid out things so that they're 1' apart, the holes in the cover are 1' apart, not 8" because I had extra seed. First year doing that and the plants seem to be loving it so far. We are, too.
 
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