Artist: Grow Food, Not Grass

Wisconsin State Journal ^ | February 20, 2009 | Susan Troller

[familyop]

"Apparently this artiste isn’t aware of run-ins with home owners associations."

From the article:
"He has chosen communities where making a garden front yard out of lawn creates some tension and controversy, issuing a deliberate challenge to the notion that our idealized home should be viewed in an empty, park-like setting. Those conformist ideas are reinforced in many places by long-ingrained habits, or even by community covenants or ordinances."

People like him and us have a common enemy now: those who appose their own neighbors' private property activities by pushing pretenses about property values and false environmentalism in order to keep competition down for their relatives' international corporations and corporate agriculture/store rackets. Working class greenies are moving politically in our direction, as they begin to mature. They're even joining conservative survivalist organizations.

Growing gardens is a very conservative undertaking, and the global mercantilism must be starved down a little.

[mplsconservative]

Neefer,

Are you winter sowing green peppers? You must be in a fairly warm climate. I’m jealous. :)

I have to start my ‘maters and peppers indoors here in MN. I’m eyeballing all of the perennial seed I collected last year though. I think most of them would be great candidates for the WS route.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

What I would like to see is an intelligent hydroponic system that is optimized for food production, not marijuana. The technology just kind of halted at marijuana, and all the promised vegetable goodness never materialized in a big sort of way.

That being said, a practical vegetable garden should grow staple foods, like potatoes, beans, carrots and onions, not “accessory vegetables”, with limited nutritional value.

Just because you replace your grass with a garden doesn’t mean you grow vegetables in the soil. A greenhouse with several tiers of plants saves a great deal of aggravation from insects and birds.

If someone could invent a standard system, optimized for a suburban back yard in a given climate, it would put the old victory gardens to shame.

[Niuhuru]

MOther Nature is mocking us, toying with our minds.

[neefer]

No, I wish. Started peppers indoors. Also over wintering some hot peppers from last season. I don't transplant peppers and tomatoes until first of June.

I did winter sow some tomato seeds. Folks on GW swear they catch up and then surpass indoor transplants. But I'm not willing to try all of my tomatoes that way. I participated in a tomato seed exchange with Canadians and have used many of those seeds for a winter sowing experiment since many are early, cold tolerant varieties. Most of the winter sown stuff are annual flowers.

I have plenty of tomato seeds left. If you want to try winter sowing tomatoes, email me your address and I can send you some seeds.

That pic of your flower bed is lovely. My flower beds get less attention now that I'm growing more veggies.

[mplsconservative]

Wow! I didn’t know peppers could be overwintered. You just gave me another “pampering” project for next year. It makes sense as I know people that grow those ornamental type peppers year round.

Thanks for your kind offer of tomato seeds. I’m enlisting one of my friend’s husband who has a great growing set-up to start the tomatoes this year. He’s stocked up with Brandywine seed and some other heirlooms. I’ll probably pick up a couple of hybrids as seedlings. Like you, our warm season crops can’t go in until June 1st.

Thanks for the nice compliment on the flowers. They do have to kind of duke it out themselves because I’m also growing a lot more veggies than I used to. I tried sweet corn last year (Kandy Korn) and what a big disappointment that was. Then I slapped myself in the forehead and went ‘D’oh.’ Our backyard abuts a cornfield and I think my sweet corn cross-pollinated with the field corn. Live and learn. *Sigh*

[Marie]

I’m getting ready to put in raspberry and blackberry bushes soon. I find myself looking out the window to the spot where they’ll be planted with longing many times throughout the day! :-)

Tomatoes and other veggies go in this spring. The fence to keep the animals out goes up next month!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

The Madison area has a ton of community gardens with waiting lists years long to get a plot. I have a lot of Mung and Peruvian customers; it’s a little hard to communicate, and everyone seems to have the SAME last name, but we manage. ;)

I have a small farm and am always looking for ways to make extra cash from it. So far I have laying hens for egg sales, but I am considering raising hens to sell because that’s ‘all the rage’ these days; to have a few hens in town. A family can have 4 of them, no roosters.

In some years I’ve done a small market stand at the end of the driveway and it’s been quite successful. In past years I’ve worked on my in-laws farm selling potted trees, picking raspberries...just about anything else that needed doing.

One year I sold cut flowers; gladiolus. It was a HUGE success.

Right now I’m working full time, but as soon as we can afford for me to be home again, I’ll get right on all the ideas I have for making money right at home, here on the farm. :)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Check these out. Lots of ideas here for efficient urban gardening:

‘The Square Foot Garden’ - Mel Bartholomew
‘How to Grow More Food on Less Land...’ - John Jeavons
‘Lasagna Gardening’ - Patricia Lanza

And if you’ve never met THESE people, you’re in for a treat. They do it all on a 1/4 acre lot in suburban CA:

http://www.pathtofreedom.com

[mplsconservative]

Mmmmm, fresh raspberries. I love them, especially in dark chocolate brownies! Our plants are getting so overgrown I’m going to have to get in there and cut out the old canes. Scratchy, scratchy job - ouch!

I daydream out the window too. It’s an interesting time of year. So close to spring, yet so far.

[neefer]

I gave up on corn years ago. Too much work.

Took this yankee years to realize peppers are perennials! Couldn't let old man winter kill this ornamental Black Pearl (grown from seed by yours truly). Kept a few Pablano plants for the hubby.

[mplsconservative]

That is one gorgeous plant! I love plants with unusual leaves. What are the peppers themselves like?

[neefer]

Thanks. It's my favorite. The peppers turn a deep red when mature and look really amazing against the foliage. They're supposedly edible if you like hot food. So I decided to cut one and place it on my tongue. AH! What a mistake! Had to rub topical Benadryl on my lips and nose. Then took an oral Benadryl and chased it with a gallon of milk. Took hours for the heat to subside. LOL. Live and learn.

[mplsconservative]

Whew. Sounds like it’s hotter than an habanero.

I really like spicy food, but this pepper sounds almost dangerous. Now, I wear contact lenses and I could sure tell some stories from my less-informed days. Wowza!

[KansasGirl]

Yep, that’s it! Unfortunately, I don’t have any pics to post right now. I just started my garden a couple years ago when we moved into our new home. It is a work in progress! I like using low, maintenance perennials and reseeding annuals—prairie. One of my favorite reseeding annuals is verbena bonarienis. It is a tall, leggy, lavender verbena.

Any suggestions? That purple flower is gorgeous!

[neefer]

Wow. That Path to Freedom site is inspiring. Thanks for sharing.

[who knows what evil?]

Took this yankee years to realize peppers are perennials!

Grow them in containers, and bring them in when the weather turns cold...habaneros and scotch bonnets in January...yum!

[mplsconservative]

Believe it or not, when I took those pics our garden was only three years old. I’m a crazy garden nut and when we moved it took two truckloads to just bring the perennials. Then we discovered our soil was hard clay and had to dig them all up three times to amend the soil so they weren’t drowning. Yes - I am crazy when it comes to gardens. :>/

I’ve heard great things about verbena bonariensis. It’s marginally hardy here in zone 4 but I think I’ll have to give it a try this year.

I love the purples too. The delphiniums came from gracefulgardens.com as live plants. I was highly skeptical of ordering live plants online but they arrived perfectly and came back the past two years very strong. Color me impressed.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I sell a ton of those at my garden center each season. Hot little buggers, but really pretty when mixed in with blue and white annuals in a porch pot. :)

I think a habanero plant is one of the prettiest peppers around. We never use THAT many of them, but even one plant is so prolific that we take a bagful to our local Mexican restaurant each summer.

[mplsconservative]

As far as suggestions, I've always had good luck with the wildflower mix in a can, silly as it may sound. The toadflax, poppies, bachelor buttons, flax and others always come back reliably. Ignore the nasturtiums and dahlias, they're two flowers I can't live without. Here's a pic of the wildflowers in their second year: