How to grow your own foods.

[Loop]

Last year I Bought what was supposed to be heirloom tomato plants from a store, "they weren't heirloom", pretty aggrivating cause I paid a little more for them....
This year I went to a different store, and bought heirloom tomato plants again.............. again they lied, they are not...
The tomato plants are over six feet tall... lots of tomato's though..
Lots and lots of cucumber' , My green beans are just now blooming, but they are growing like crazey, and looks to be very full..

[GodsStudent]

I've got tomato that are heirloom and over 6 ft., so I'm pretty sure height might not be the marker for an heirloom product (or not). The biggest marker comes the next year when you grow from seed and they don't flower, or flower very little.

On tomato, once they've achieved a good height, we pinch the very top of the plant to tell the plant to stop growing upward, and start growing outward (or bushing). More important, especially if you aren't able to give lots and lots of water, is to remove the sucker branches on tomato. The suckers are the branches that are green with no flowers. Those will never produce, but it takes energy from the plant to maintain them.

I've got another good trick......willow. Use willow to root.

I have not used much rooting hormone, but heard of a friend whose father used it when he plucked the tops of his tomato. Upon research, we learned that rooting hormone is a carcinogen and should never be used on edibles. If you want to root the tomato tops, here's a good idea:
Clip a few branches from a willow. Cut the stem into smaller pieces and clip the leaves into smaller pieces. Put these in water and make a brew for 24 hours. After 24 hours, remove the willow bark and leaves from the water and put whatever you want to root into the willow. There is a good bit of detail on the internet if you want to know why willow roots so well. As a matter of fact, from what I understand, you don't even have to root willow (in water). You can literally clip a willow and put it into good dirt, and it will root itself.

[daffodyllady]

Tomato varieties are of two categories: determinate, and indeterminate.

The indeterminate grow "indeterminately"; they have no natural termination of the length of the plant. This is how all heirloom varieties grow.

The determinate kinds have a genetically programmed termination point for the size of the plant. The vines stop growing before they reach their usual length. This is a more recent development. Some, but not all, hybrids have the determinate gene.

[Loop]

The biggest marker comes the next year when you grow from seed and they don't flower, or flower very little.

Well last years heirloom didn't even get any tomato's, never got a one. Had to go an buy them , But this years does at least have some, but they don't seem to be ripening very good, usually I have bunch's by now..

Thanks Daf and Godstudent, I didn't know that LOL! These bugger's are deffinately growing, I wish I would have known before they got so big to pinch them back LOL, I've got tomato bush's everywhere...

[GodsStudent]

Hey Loop, another good tomato tip: Assuming you don't sow seed directly to the ground, but put plants from the store or from your greenhouse (or however you raise baby plants).....when you put these plants in the ground in early spring, remove the bottom rows of leaves from your baby tomato plant, then dig your hole down so that you can put the roots and bare stalk down deeper into the dirt. This helps your plant grow more roots, and the results will be bigger, stronger tomato plants. Watch out, though, because you will get some BIG, strong, healthy plants! We are picking off a pint of cherry every day, and that is off 4 cherry plants. We aren't getting as many larger tomatoes, but I lost a few and gave away a few of those plants, so I am down to 3, and they are too crowded.....I'll try to get it right again next year!

[Loop]

Thank you Godstudent, I need all the help I can get LOL!.

[burien1]

I gave up trying to grow stuff here. Possums come every night and dig up everything. Even all my potted flowers. The deer knock over my small fences and eat everything in sight. Guess if worse comes to worse, I'm to be a meat eater.

[daffodyllady]

Burien, meat is a good thing... especially venison.

[xdrifter]

Raw Milk contains 300% more vitamin C, a long with up to 20% more of various other vitamins then pasturized milk. Up until world war 2 was even considered medicine.

Raw Milk is considered a living thing, loaded with Bacteria that helps your body be strong and fight off sickness and disease. Pasturized milk is cooked milk, which contains the same Bacterias, only they are dead from the cooking of the milk.

Because of the workings of our food cycle, and because Dairys recieve milk from many farms, and cannot guarentee the well being and safe keeping of every animal they are recieving milk from, their answer is to sanitize all of the milk by cooking it. The problem with this is that you loose most of the nutrition value!

For example if a cow is not free-ranged on fresh grasses and is cooped up only being fed grain, the raw milk from this animal would be dangerous for consumption.... but rather then eliminate the risk of dangerous milk, the answer was to consider it all dangerous, which benefits large corporations who hold monopolys (which are more and more prevelent in todays FOOD industy)

Raw milk sales are illegal in most of North America, but what many have organized in rural areas is MILK SHARES, since you can legally consume the raw milk of your own cow, some farmers will sell you a share in a cow, meaning you own a small part of that cow and can now drink fresh, raw milk!

A better solution for those with some land, is to get a cow and have her knocked up every spring, this will give you calf meat, a long with fresh milk every morning and night.

For those with out land, there are many farmers out there, who free range their animals, and love to deal directly with people like yourself and you will certainly find a difference eating fresh beef, chicken, and pork, milk, eggs and produce from your local farmers free ranged animals... you will avoid all of the danger of growth hormones, and in my opinion greater risk of contamination since the meat you are consuming is not traveling and being handled so much.

The key is to understanding how healthy animals ought to be kept, and having a walk around the farm you plan to purchase from to decide for youself if you want to consume this food... (a luxury you lose dealing with a grocery store)\\\


you are what you eat

[xdrifter]

I gave up trying to grow stuff here. Possums come every night and dig up everything. Even all my potted flowers. The deer knock over my small fences and eat everything in sight. Guess if worse comes to worse, I'm to be a meat eater.

we had coons eat all of our corn, know it was coons cause they were polite enough to pile all of the husks in neat little piles after eating all the corn... also had a little ground hog camped out under the chicken coop who would eat all the broccoli and cauliflower... he must have figured that was a dream home, living under an insulated coop, with all the food he could eat just a few feet away!

the solution is to get a dog. dogs with jobs are the happiest dogs ! you can imagine why, they'll make a career out of chasing posums everynight

with a dog you will not loose anything in your garden to varments or deer or at least it seems that way out my way, the only downside is that you won't see as much wild life around your property, which is the only reason i can think of that those without dogs out here dont have them.

[Loop]

with a dog you will not loose anything in your garden to varments or deer or at least it seems that way out my way, the only downside is that you won't see as much wild life around your property, which is the only reason i can think of that those without dogs out here dont have them.

Our deer must be different from yours LOL!

I had a Norwegion Elkhound, the deer had him so scared he wouldn't even hardly go up into the woods, then we got a German Shephard (what I was raised with) "So I'm thinking: He's gonna get rid of those pesky deer!",

He beat the Norwegion off the mountain, with the deer in high persuit!...

And he ain't no small Shephard, Go's about 120 course he's now getting up in age a little bit but our deer trained him good LOL! They come right up to the porch and he sits close to the door and growls and barks at them ....

The horses and pony's does him the same way, they seem to love to tease him.. Poor fella..

[xdrifter]

if that sort of thing happens here you take photos and video of that, and of the trouble they are causing you to cover your butt, after you have proof of them being trouble and damaging your farming you get a license to cartwheel them as a neusience animal

which is great if you like eating venison

[xdrifter]

you guys got mule deer??? we got white tails, cowardly ones

[Loop]

Ours are whitetails, only not cowardly LOL! They have lost their fear they are so plentiful..

Hubby has had to get rid of several because they were getting too dangerous, even threatening us, when they come torward you stomping and with no fear, it really doesn't make you feel to good , one of our friends came up and was outside the barn in behind our truck, was going to show us how well he sounded like a baby deer, by calling one in, she chased him into the barn, scared him good LOL..

[burien1]

We have White tail here as well. The wild life is one of the reasons I fell in love with this place, but it seems for everything good, there is something bad. There 's nothing like walking out on your porch and being startled by a family of racoons.

[daffodyllady]

My grown children are calling me crazy.

At 49 and 1/2, I went out and fenced in 1/3 of an acre with 4-foot-high 2"x4" woven wire, on T-posts I drove in with a pipe driver. I am covered with poison ivy and blackberry scratches. But I am a little lighter weight, a little stronger, and very contented.

Because now I have three beautiful white milk goats to tend every morning and evening.

I get about a gallon of milk every day. I know, it's waaaay too much milk for us. But I am learning to make ... CHEESE! (And the price of feed, translated into milk, comes to less than $1 a gallon!)

First experiment was with Ricotta. That is easy. All you do is heat the milk to 188*F. While heating it, add 1/2 cup vinegar per gallon of milk. Stir while heating. When it reaches 188, cut off the heat, and slide the pot off the burner. Cover and let rest for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, line a colander with muslin. Not cheesecloth: ricotta grains are too tiny; they will escape thru cheesecloth. Pour the curds and whey through the cloth, and then hang to drain for a few hours. Voila! Perfect spreadable goat cheese. I love the flavor if I stir in a few Tbsp of sour cream! Serve with pureed strawberries over top. OOooooo. Another idea: layer it on a burger and top with spaghetti sauce. Yum.

Second experiment: I had way too much to do this weekend, so I tried a very old-fashioned way of making cheese: allow it to ripen naturally. I poured each day's fresh milk into a 3-gallon pot on the back of the stove. After 5 milkings, (2 & 1/2 days) it had a lovely tang to it! So, this evening, I warmed it to 80* and stirred in half a rennet tablet, dissolved in cool water. It set up nicely in an hour. So, I cut the curd into squares, and set the pot over onto my wood stove. It slowly warmed to about 100*F. I ladled the shrunken, firmed curds into a cloth-lined colander, pressed the whey out of it slightly, and then stirred in some salt. (Those squeaky curds were so tasty at this point!)

I had a 2-quart can that I took the bottom and top out of, and found a jar that fit down inside it. So I used that for a cheese ring. I put a dinner plate upside-down in my big kettle, and set the can on it. After lining it with the cloth, I poured in my salted curds, and followed it with the jar. A block of wood on top brought the height up to the bottom of my top cupboards. So a long thin board leveraged under the counter on one end, over the top of the "cheese press" in the middle, and then counterbalanced by hanging a gallon of water on the other end, is now at work pressing the cheese overnight. I don't want to wait as long as I'm supposed to, to taste that cheese!

Next will be mozzarella. I have done that before, with cow's milk. It is fairly easy, requiring only citric acid and rennet. And it doesn't take a long time to do, either.

Now, I need a few cheese customers.

[GodsStudent]

I LOVE IT, Daffodyllady. Goat cheese is something wonderful!!! I served it at my brother's "bridal shower" (we do couples showers in our family....the males and females all come and its a party for everyone to enjoy). Anyway, there is a farm in Aiken, SC that raises goats and sells their cheese and milk (butter???, too) at the Farmer's Market as well as at the Whaley St. Market. They put spices in their cheeses, offering about ?10? kinds....such as Rosemary with sea salt, etc.....You can sample the cheeses and pick what you want to buy. I bought quite a bit for this party and EVERYONE WENT CRAZY FOR IT!!!!

I would not hesitate to go there and buy more if I were having another party. I think I paid around $45.00 for a pound of the flavored cheeses (they're soft cheeses), and it was $ well spent, as everyone loved it.

[Mr Baldy]

Ok,

I'm trying my hand(s) at gardening. I've read through a few of the posts - but can anyone please tell me how to get started? Please forgive me if you have mentioned the basics, as I may have overlooked it.

I have had a small garden for - well this is going on my 3rd year. I know absolutely nothing about "how to grow your own foods". Initially I purchased a tiller, ground up the ground, made my rows and threw some seeds in it. Well, it takes more than that!

I told a friend at work that I wanted to start a garden. And I'm no farmer by any means. He gave me about five 5 gallon buckets of compost that he made himself, with leaves, home scraps; manure...etc. I did as he instructed and tilled the compost into the soil, and WOW! When I planted the seeds last year, (squash; tomatoes; egg plants; and various melons) they just absolutely took off.

This year not so good. In San Antonio, Texas the soil is terrible. I can see this as millions of rocks have crept into my small garden. I tilled the ground again, made my rows, and removed as much as the rocks as possible. I have planted seeds I had left over from 2 years ago - some have come up, some have not. The squash have grown, but not as fast or as hearty as they did when my friend provided compost.

I want to know more about doing my own compost; how long do seeds last; and how to make my soil fertile - despite those darn rocks!

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me with information!

[GodsStudent]

Hi Mr. Baldy: I am a little limited right now on time, but I will work on part of your question now and try to add more in the coming days....or perhaps someone else will chime in, too???

I want to know more about doing my own compost; how long do seeds last; and how to make my soil fertile - despite those darn rocks!

Compost pile:

This is by far the best thing you can do for natural soil, we commonly refer to as "black gold." There are two ways to compost. One is to make a small pile, wet it and turn it frequently, and the things in it will break down fast, but you will have limited compost. I do not use this method for two reasons, first....time....I don't have the time to stay with it and second....I like to add compost once, which means about a month before setting my plants, I put the compost where I'll need it, hoe it in (or till it in) and it's all better.

The method I use is called "slow cook." In the slow cook method, you add throughout the year and turn only occasionally. I let the rain wet it over the winter months, and in the summer months, I wet it, completely cover it with a tarp (so that it will get hotter, killing all bacteria and causing the composting materials to break down faster). Since it's covered, you will get some greenhouse effect (your water will stay), but you will need to wet it every few weeks while it's covered.

Slow compost piles do best with 2 parts dead material and 1 part live. Dead are leaves that have fallen and tea bags/coffee bags, white paper....live are green things (trimmed shrub leaves...as long as you dont use chemicals on them, and spent plants you pull from the ground like annuals in the fall, etc).

What to put on it:

All fruit and vegetable trimmings from the kitchen (peels from onion, lemon, oranges.....rotted cucumbers that sat in the fridge too long....that sort of thing).

Shred white paper or newspaper. This is fantastic for your compost pile. Nothing shiny....only dull white paper....no ink coloring aside from black and white. White paper and newspaper add a TON of nitrogen to your soil....your veggies love nitrogen!

Fireplace ashes....burn the wood, put the ashes in your compost bin. If all you burn is artificial logs, don't put that in your compost pile....probably full of chemicals. (this is my opinion, I don't know what the "science" position is on this)

tea bags and coffee grinds.

Raked leaves from the yard....pinecones and sticks are fine, but they will take more than a year to break down, which is fine. I put these in, as pine is great for compost, but I have to pick the half composted sticks and cones out of my compost and put them back on the pile....they'll be ready next year.

egg shells.....they're fantastic. Actually, through the growing season, I break these up and put them around my tomato plants...tomato loves egg shells.

paper towels....(no grease, only towels you've wiped your clean hands with or used to clean up fruit and vegetable messes...)

Cardboard boxes

No chemicals in your compost, no oil in your compost, no meat in your compost.....

Here's an article I cut and pasted from the internet...I hope it will come through:

http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/~mclarke ... ompost.htm

[daffodyllady]

However, once after butchering, I had a lot of uncooked fat I wasn't sure what to do with... so I took it to the garden and buried it. One year later, that spot had been turned into the most fantastic place--full of worms and black dirt! The worms were drawn to digest the fat, and turned it into castings.

[Mr Baldy]

The method I use is called "slow cook." In the slow cook method, you add throughout the year and turn only occasionally. I let the rain wet it over the winter months, and in the summer months, I wet it, completely cover it with a tarp (so that it will get hotter, killing all bacteria and causing the composting materials to break down faster). Since it's covered, you will get some greenhouse effect (your water will stay), but you will need to wet it every few weeks while it's covered.

Thank you so much GodsStudent! This is the method that I will use.