Edible gardens

[Janne]

I have always disliked gardening with useless flowers and ornamental trees. Even grass, the sterile, green stuff that need fertilizing, raking, cutting, de-mossing......not for me!

I love gardens with stuff you can eat. When young I lived in apartments. So pots with salad onion ( just planted the root end) herbs, radishes.
In every house I owned in my life, be it in Sweden, UK or here, the first thing I did was to uproot ornamental trees and plant fruit trees. Then establishing growing areas for radishes, ghurkins, carrots, stuff like that.
Herbs in pots.

Here on Cayman we bought an empty lot, full of weeds and Australian Pine (Casuarina)
No decent soil as it is a lot on old mangrove, filled in with stones and gravel.

First thing - a rough garden design. Where the future house will be. Where the cabana will be. Then get some strong guys with sharp machetes, chainsaws and a digger. Clean out everything.
Did some big holes in the predesigned areas.
Then the fun started.
For the two years before we started with the gardening, I have been saving sprouting coconuts of different sorts. As soon as we started with the garden, I used to drive around the island and collected various banana varieties. I managed to find 8 different ones, including the on island rare ‘Jamaican Black’.
I have tried to use seeds to grow trees and fruit bushes. More fun

Planted some bought Mango trees. Mango trees are like Apple, you can easily plant a seed, but the result is uncertain.
I have now also a Lemon tree, Lime trees, Starfruit. 9 years after the initial planting we have a mature garden. Self sufficient for Limes, Lemons for 6 months. Starfruit, bananas, coconuts year round.
As an experiment I planted some Deglet date seeds. The Organic ones sprouted, the normal ones not.
Plus I have now ( with son’s help) an area where we have just planted various tomato plants I taused from seed from various supermarket tomatoes.
And this week he finished an area beside a high fence for gherkins. We want to pickle them.

Next will be to source some green coffee beans and see if I can grow that.
( idea stolen from our favourite Canuck, Robson V)

What about you good people, do you grow something eatable?

 

[Hbc]

That sounds like a very impressive garden
Not any more because my little house doesn't have anything resembling soil near it but have grown or tried to grow most of the different types of veg that will grow here in the UK. Now my the only food I grow is for the livestock on a field scale. Turnips mostly and i soon get tired of turnips
Will start a garden again when I move house Im really looking forward to it
Edit: just in case you can't understand why I don't have a garden at the farm. I tried it's too far from my house to be tending it in the evening after work and have a young family at home I'd rather be spending more time with them than at work more than I already am.

 

[Janne]

Gardening is tiring, hard work. And, as veg and fruit is cheap to buy, not economic really. I do it for fun, plus I know the produce is not sprayed, or modified, or preserved over long periods.

The only thing that is mature so we can eat now it is an Apple Banana, but a small bunch ( maybe 25 bananas).

Next will be in about a months time, this time a large Apple Banana bunch, I estimate about 50 bananas.
The tomato plants and gherkin plants are growing nicely, but no flowers. Might be still to hot, I do not know!

 

[Robson Valley]

I have apples, several berry and cherry bushes and lots of grapes that I barter for meat and vegetables.
Edible, ornamental and they thrive on neglect. I don't mind the annual pruning, the gardener can gather the twigs.
Then I use the best from the grape vines, start new vines and sell those.

Janne: you might want to consider planting the coffee in partial shade, they get sun scald pretty easily.

 

[snappingturtle]

pud's, some herb's and compost all food left over's.

 

[Janne]

If I could root out the whole garden and change it to a couple of apple trees, I would. Apples are my favourite fruit.
Nothing beats eating an apple, an old cultivar, that you have just picked (and wiped the bird poo off on your trousers) before you bite into it.....

I planted a handful of green coffee beans weeks ago, but none have sprouted yet. If nothing happens for another month, I will get another handful.

I planted another handful of organic Deglet Dates ( stones) at the start of the wet season, have now 11 sprouting.

I plan to replace the palms I planted against the drive and road, as they are 'just palms' and have no edible fruits. Green waste of space.

I also grow some herbs, plus Lemon Grass ( which I have never used to cook with, but it sounded cool, to grow your own Lemon Grass.... )
One day I ditch the ready mixed Thai sauces and make my own....

 

[Robson Valley]

I started with Medjool dates from the grocery store, figured out how to germinate the seeds.
Got about 95% germination success. A hedge of those along a driveway would have been nice.

 

[Woody girl]

Look at permaculture in your area. That will give you a lot of local knowledge to tap into. I compost all food waste and use it to top dress my raised beds each year. I started on awful compacted clay now have lovely deep beds that produce tons of veg every year. Never use any fertiliser. All organic. Had to add a couple of bags of bought compost the first year to get going, since then it's all home made stuff. So this years food waste peelings bean stalks etc make soil for next year's veg. I dig a bean trench in autumn? Line with newspaper and just chuck in the veg waste all winter till a nice layer about 6 inches deep then cover with a bit of soil early spring
Plant beans into trench. Away they go!

 

[Janne]

Permaculture... SciFi... here at least.

Here the agriculture is very non existent. I think 2 farms with aquaculture, producing some salat, herbs, cucumbers.
The rest of the farming is really, really crap. Nobody wants to do it.

We import 99% minimum.

We compost everything too, but not meat. Too hot, risk for flies and smell.
I have one of those plastic drums you can turn to aereate, but it is standing upright under a young mango tree, so the nutrients that leach out are not wasted.

Mangoes, tree ripe and eaten in the pool, are almost as goid as an apple!

Also nice to eat in the sea, and dip it in the sea between bites.
Salt increases the flavour. Nice to eat a ripe one in the water, as the juice drips everywhere!

 

[Woody girl]

Permaculture... SciFi... here at least.

Here the agriculture is very non existent. I think 2 farms with aquaculture, producing some salat, herbs, cucumbers.
The rest of the farming is really, really crap. Nobody wants to do it.

We import 99% minimum.

We compost everything too, but not meat. Too hot, risk for flies and smell.
I have one of those plastic drums you can turn to aereate, but it is standing upright under a young mango tree, so the nutrients that leach out are not wasted.

Mangoes, tree ripe and eaten in the pool, are almost as goid as an apple!

Also nice to eat in the sea, and dip it in the sea between bites.
Salt increases the flavour. Nice to eat a ripe one in the water, as the juice drips everywhere!

Mmmm mm mangoes. I wish we could grow them here. I've always dreamed of picking fresh mangos and dates and lemons. Mango juice is the best. I got plenty of apples. Wouldn't miss them a bit. Strange that people always want what they haven't got. I can see why you'd want to grow stuff if 99%of food is imported. Crazy!

 

[Janne]

Apart from Mangoes and bananas, the other fruits here are to be frank not so interesting. June plums, papaya, soursop, sweetsop, a handful of others.
I planted some of them, but after a couple of fruiting season removed them.
There is a reason importation of those is very limited into Europe!
Planted more mango trees, plus one lemon tree.

 

[Janne]

What is nice here is that everything grows fast, and bears fruit in 3-4 years.

 

[Woody girl]

Do you grow much veg? If so what do you grow? I think I would be having a go with yams and sweet potatoes if I had a warm climate. Can you grow. Oranges and limes? Peanuts? I do a three sisters garden.. sweetcorn beans and sqash. Plus onions potato beetroot carrots parsnips salads and herbs. Quite enough in two 2x1metre beds and a few pots. There is plenty to forage within yards of my home at certain times of year and rarely have to go more than a couple of miles for other things.. apart from chestnuts.

 

[Janne]

So far, I have only grown tomatoes and ocra Have now started cucumbers/ghurkins too. I plan ( have seeds and will plant later this month) some root brassicas and leaf brassicas, between the tomatoes

The ocra was not space efficient, so no more.
Citrus does not do fantastically here, the leaves are atracked by various funguses, and pests.
I have two different Lime varieties in pots, one Lemon tree, and one sour mandarin tree.
The yield is not fantastic due to the pests and stuff. Enough for the odd drink, food and tea!
I do not spray.

My enclosed growing bed is about 2.5m x 4m. Plus one narrow bed about 3 meters against a fence, that is where the cucumbers are.

It is difficult to grow stuff here, it is eather to hot, sunny and dry, or the rain pours down with huge force.

 

[Woody girl]

Easy and cheap pest control. Get some tabbaco I use American spirit as it's additive free. Soak in water to extract the essence and spray that on the bugs. As effective as most commercial pest control. Be carefully not to spray on the fruit. It is natural but if your a non smoker I can understand why you might not want to use it. I have used it and it works but I tend to suffer more from the dreaded slug problem. Beer traps and collection with slow death by salt for them little b*****s.

 

[Janne]

I smoked (tobacco) for close to 40 years, so no problem here!
That is a good idea.

We do not have many slugs here, but quite a few snails.
Every night, I go out with a flashlight and collect thrm in a bucket, then feed the fish in the canal.
A version of death by salt (water) !

We just came home from the Saturday shopping.
I bought some Organic Ginger root. I tried several times to p,ant the nirman Ginger roit, but never managed to get it to grow decently, was always stunted and weird.
I think it was the chemicals they use making it last longer without rotting or getting mouldy, maybe drying out too.

First time I see it being Organic, so I will see how it grows!

As with the Lemon grass, we do not use ginger in the cooking, but the plant is cool looking!

 

[Janne]

I forgot to mention my most flavoursome fruits, the lovely Scotch Bonnet!

I have two pots, one with the hot version ( here called Scotch Bonnet) and one with the mild one, one the locals call ‘seasoning pepper’

The local scotch bonnet peppers and seasoning peppers are from a very primitive stock, so each plant have a slightly differeny look, flavour and strength/heat.
I have grown them now for 12 years, and sometimes I throw away 2 out of three plants. As soon as I taste the first pepper, I decide if I want to keep it.
The S. Bonnet has all sort of combinations between no flavour to lots, and between ultra mild to ultra hot.
I like medium flavour and quite hot.
The seasoning pepper varies between medium flavour to lots of flavour, very mild to a bit of heat. There I prefer lots of flavour and no heat.

We make our own hot sauce too.
Scotch bonnet, sliced and de seeded, a couple of seasoning peppers, apple cider vinegar ( my version), white vinegar ( son’s version), a little bit of sugar, salt.
Store in patent jars, start using after a couple of weeks, but gets better and better with aging.

A thicker hot sauce - roast de seeded bell peppers and tomato, cool, whizz in mixer until smooth with de seeded S. Bonnet, salt and sugar to taste.

Rhum is nice in, or honey, or roasted garlic.
Your fantasy is what limits it.

I used to be a Tabasco lover, but once you try home made, you never go bsck....

 

[John Fenna]

Mangoes!
I would love to grow them!
But we do have three varieties of apple in our garden....
and raspberries, blackcurrants, hazel nuts, spuds, onions, nasturtiums, various herbs, runner beans, wild strawberries and nettles and dandelions which also get consumed
At the farm I work at I can get various salad plants, brassica, eggs (from rescue chickens) and apple juice (pressed on the farm), while the hedges give me acorns, blackberries, rosehips, wall-pennywort, limeleaf and other nibbles.

 

[Janne]

Acorns? You make your own erzats coffee?

 

[Robson Valley]

How do you all preserve the foods which are excess to your immediate needs?
I can understand making stuff like hot sauce, plum sauce, marmalades & chutneys.

I'm trying to dry everything this winter, sort of paleo First Nations style, even if I have to buy the fruit like apples.