mikes in the garden at lunchtime segment

our peas have exceeded expectations this year.  they have now grown a foot taller than the trellis which stands about 6 feet tall. how are your peas doing?

Home Vegetable Gardening: The “High Production” Gateway to Self-Sustainability

When you hear the word “high production” the first thought that may come to mind is some type of assembly line work, but what I am referring to is something far more important, especially if you are trying to achieve, or at least get closer to, self-sustainability.

I once heard a quote, from which I honestly have no idea who the original author of said quote is, “If one can not feed oneself without help from outside sources, then one won’t survive for very long.” It got me thinking. Is it true? How many things in our lives are we dependent upon from outside sources? Food, energy, water and other basic needs? About the only thing we are not charged for, or told we have to buy from someone else these days is the air we breathe. I better not say that too loud though.

But it is very true. Many of us rely upon many of our basic needs from outside sources out of our control. If you are not one of them, kudos to you and please share with us how you did it! Home vegetable gardening is a start along that path to self sustainability.

Maintaining a home vegetable garden gives you the chance to learn how you can rely on your own ability and talents, no matter how big or small the garden may be, to supply some of the food your family needs.

Over time as you perfect your skills of home vegetable gardening, you start expanding into other areas. For me, it has been a many year progression from simply growing tomatoes, to today, growing everything from tomatoes to grapes, raspberries, dozens of other veggies, fruits and herbs and so much more. This year I added an apple and almond tree (among other things) to my repertoire in the hopes that they provide fresh fruit and nuts for many years.

This brings me back to my original point and that is high production. Like some of you, my space is limited. I have only a finite amount of land in which to grow on. So what I have been able to do, by learning over the years is to maximize the space that I have with various techniques to ensure that I am getting the most out of that space.

The first of which is planting high producing veggies. In other words, plants that will yield larger volume per plant. Examples would be, cherry or grape tomatoes, zucchini, blackberry and raspberry bushes and so on. This is not to say that you shouldn’t include smaller producing crops such as carrots, beets or turnips. But you can grow them in deep containers, such as pots or window boxes, in areas where the previously mentioned varieties would not fair so well.

A second example would be to use vertical gardening methods. The use of a trellis for many varieties will go a long way. Pole beans, sugar snap peas, indeterminate vining cucumbers are just a few that you can choose from. They satisfy both the use of growing vertically as well as producing large quantities. Double score!

Finally, be sure to include high producing perennials such as asparagus,everbearing raspberries, blueberries, or fruit and nut bearing trees to name a few. You can buy a self pollinating apple tree for as little as $20, and although you may have to wait a couple of years before production, once it gets going, you will have apples for decades!

Of course if you are new to home vegetable gardening, you would not thrust yourself into doing everything in your first year. Start small and keep your garden simple. Expand on it every season, and it won’t be long before you are supplying not only enough fruits and veggies for your family with loads of fresh tasting goodies, but your neighbors as well.

My next conquest is raising chickens. I am told that you need two per each family member in the household to produce ample amounts of eggs. We shall see. self-sustainability here I come!

About the Author

Mike Podlesny is the author of Vegetable Gardening for the Average Person: A Guide to Vegetable Gardening for the rest of us, the moderator for the largest vegetable gardening page on Facebook and creator of the monthly Seeds Club.

Watch the video below to learn more about Mike`s Seeds of the Month Club:

Vegetable Seeds for Life!

We are giving away a lifetime subscription to our

Seeds of the Month Club!

• Simply visit: https://www.facebook.com/SeedsOfTheMonthClub/app_228910107186452
• Answer a few questions and you will be entered. 
• Contest ends midnight June 30th EST and is void where prohibited by law.

Good Luck!

Inflation Won’t Hit Your Home Vegetable Garden

We are in precarious times, not only here in the United States but in many places, or should I say most places, around the world. Debts and deficits, turmoil, bad weather, and political bickering is abound everywhere and nobody is immune. Unless, of course, you sit 24 hours a day in a closet, shielding yourself from the great outdoors, family, friends … you get the idea.

Same as many of you, we (my wife and two kids) go to the grocery store to stock the fridge and shelves. What we are noticing, as many of you have noticed as well is that “hidden” inflation.

Inflation right in front of your eyes is the easiest to spot. We have all seen that as well. You go to buy a gallon of milk that was $3.00 last week and this week it is $3.20. You get the idea. However, hidden inflation, may not be that obvious … at first.

I read a fascinating article called the “Oreo Cookie Inflation”. In this article, the author writes about how he previously purchased a package of Oreo cookies and it contained three rows of fifteen cookies each for a total of forty-five cookies. Fast forward to a few weeks after that and the same package of Oreo cookies that cost the same three dollars or so, now had three rows of thirteen cookies each for a total of thirty-nine cookies. Six less than what the author previously received.

That is hidden inflation. It’s paying the same price for a product that you perceive to be equal to what you received previously, when in fact, as is the case with this author’s story, six cookies less.

The veggies section of your local grocery store is no different. Even though many veggies do not come in packages (although some do), you can be hit with inflation. Whether it be the hidden variety or the price per pound increasing ever so slightly.

If you grow your own, though, you really are immune to the price increase. Your tomato, cucumber, pepper, and other plants will produce (varying natural factors a side i.e. insects, weather etc), regardless of the rising cost of fuel or political bantering.

A study conducted by the USDA claimed that one tomato plant can produce as much as $50 in tomatoes. Do you believe that number? I certainly do! Last year my neighbor picked more than fifty pounds of Roma tomatoes from two plants. That’s a lot of tomatoes. Other varieties such as grape or cherry produce in high volume as well.

While inflation may make that cost of your seed packet to rise a few pennies, or becomes victim to “hidden” inflation via receiving less seeds for the price you paid before, the cost per seed is still, literally hundredths of a cent per seed. If you can start your entire vegetable garden from seed, select varieties that are high volume producers, learn some canning techniques, you can literally shield yourself from the rising costs of veggies.

About the Author
Mike Podlesny is the author of Vegetable Gardening for the Average Person: A Guide to Vegetable Gardening for the rest of us, the moderator for the largest vegetable gardening page on Facebook and creator of the monthly Seeds Club.

Watch the video below to learn more about Mike`s Seeds of the Month Club:

My Experience Teaching Kids Gardening, Part 2

In my previous article I started writing about the wonderful experience I had conducting a gardening class at my son’s school. To give a brief recap, the first part of the class included reading a book on gardening to the kids, whose ages were 4 & 5 year olds, then we moved on to an actual gardening activity.

The gardening activity consisted of showing the kids how the expanding seed pellets work by adding warm water, then they planted a sunflower seed in each individual pellet. They were allowed to take this project home them so they could watch the sunflower grow.

As an update. My son’s own sunflower, he was a part of this class, now is about ten inches tall. When completely grown, his Mammoth Grey Sunflower can be as tall as twelve feet, although eight or nine is more common. He enjoys watching it everyday.

The second part of the gardening class was the outdoor portion. My son is fortunate as his school has an outdoor garden area that is well maintained. After speaking with the person in charge, the kids were given their own raised bed in the center of the garden courtyard which happens to receive the most sunlight, so I was pretty excited about that.

I originally had the idea of having each child plant tomatillos. I thought it was different and would be a lot of fun. After much debate though (debate with myself that is), I decided to go with the old reliable tomato. I changed my mind, because tomatoes are easy to grow, and by the time the school year ends, the plants will be big enough and should have some young tomatoes on it so the kids can actually see what they planted. Not saying tomatillos won’t, but tomatoes ended being a lot easier to explain.

I had germinated three different varieties from seeds. They were beefsteak, cherry and roma. I described each of the varieties to the children as follows, big and juicy (beefsteaks), small but tasty (cherry) and shaped like a football (romas). I am sure I could have come up with better descriptions, but felt these hit the point home with the age group I was working with. Can you guess which variety the kids chose the most? Post a comment with your answer.

The kids came over one by one and chose the variety they wanted to plant. Working with each child, one at a time, they dug a small hole and planted their tomato. I think what was just as fun was watching some of the other kids, simply play in the dirt while they waited their turn. One young man even dug a hole about 2 feet, in record time, mind you, until the teacher asked him to stop. Of course by then he had found a worm or two, and lets just say the “chasing the girls with worms” then ensued.

We planted a total of 16 altogether. Each plant was marked with a garden marker in which they wrote their names on previously. The teacher’s plan was to bring the students back out into the garden before the school year ends so that each child can check on the progress of their plant. Of course the school garden is open even when the school is not (on Saturday’s only), so parents and students are welcome to come back and harvest what they grew.

It was a rewarding experience. Before I had left, the kids put together a little thank you for me for coming in, by placing their thumbprints on a piece of construction paper, with their first names written underneath each print, and then giving their prints some eyes so as they looked like little bugs. I have that picture hanging on my office wall. A gift so simple, yet it means so much.

If you ever have the chance of doing something similar for your own child’s class, I say do it. It’s a lot of fun and rewarding.

About the Author
Mike Podlesny is the author of Vegetable Gardening for the Average Person: A Guide to Vegetable Gardening for the rest of us, the moderator for the largest vegetable gardening page on Facebook and creator of the monthly Seeds Club.

Watch the video below to learn more about Mike`s Seeds of the Month Club: