Vegetable Garden

[tarnalberry]

Why in coping with? Not "anything but celiac"?

Because growing my own vegetable garden is one of the ways to help me stick to naturally gluten free foods, and have them fresh and organic.

We started the garden (first planting, we've been clearing it for a little while) at the end of April. We added more to it today. I look forward to the first harvest!

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It's also relaxing, getting out in the garden (except when you're paranoid about walking on a plant! the ground slopes a lot around there ) and growing your own food. Oh, the independence!

[Guest j_mommy]

Great garden!!!!!

I've lived in the country all my life and for the last year I have lived in town. It really sucks not to be able to have a garden...it is relaxing!!!!

[burdee]

Why in coping with? Not "anything but celiac"?

Because growing my own vegetable garden is one of the ways to help me stick to naturally gluten free foods, and have them fresh and organic.

We started the garden (first planting, we've been clearing it for a little while) at the end of April. We added more to it today. I look forward to the first harvest!

Open Original Shared Link

It's also relaxing, getting out in the garden (except when you're paranoid about walking on a plant! the ground slopes a lot around there ) and growing your own food. Oh, the independence!

Hi Tiffany:

I also love gardening! We've been raising our own fruits and vegies for years, but I especially appreciate homegrown, organic produce now. This year we're growing snap peas, assorted lettuces, chard, spinach, dinosaur and purple stem kale, carrots, green beans, tomatoes, broccolli and leeks in our vegie gardens. Our 'fruit' includes strawberries (currently abundant), raspberries (just starting to ripen), blueberries (also just starting) and grapes (usually ready by late September). In previous years we grew squashes. We're still eating frozen zucchini and crookneck squash from a few years ago. Last year we had a bumper crop of spaghetti squash. We still have some in our garage.

I try to freeze as much produce as possible every year, but fresh lettuce pretty much requires that we eat regular entree salad dinners. We joke that we're on the 'harvest diet', because we eat what is ripe. All that wonderful fresh produce makes staying gluten, dairy, soy, egg and cane sugar free much easier.

By the way, we raise all that on a very small lot in the Greenlake area of Seattle. We're considering ripping out the grass to provide more garden space in the future. I love flowers, but value 'food' even more. If it's not a flower or food, I don't want to waste space growing it. I guess that means our grass has a limited future. LOL

BURDEE

[tarnalberry]

(un?)fortunately, we have blackberries growing out the wazoo behind our house, so I can pick pounds of them come late summer. but trying to keep them *out* of the yard is the challenge.

we have two cherry trees (that we can't harvest cherries from, because it's too tall and the birds get them first), and in theory four plum trees, but I haven't seen them bear fruit yet.

[Felidae]

I love it. I planted my first herbs and tomatoes in pots this year. I only have a balcony, not a yard. But in the future I will own a house not a condo. I love the idea of growing my own food, albeit currently just a little.

Your garden looks great.

[burdee]

Felidae: I raise my tomatoes in a pot on our postage stamp sized deck. My husband doesn't really like tomatoes. So 2-3 tomato plants in a patio pot grow enough tomatoes for my nightly salads and several bags for the freezer. I use frozen tomatoes in spaghetti and tomato sauce dishes during the rest of the year.

Tiffany: I'll trade you some lettuce or other greens or even raspberries for some of those blackberries. My hubby LOVES blackberries. I'd love to make some blackberry jam or at least add some to peanut butter on my breakfast gluten-free toast.

Maybe you could prune those cherry trees down to a size you could cover with nets. We cover my blueberry bushes to prevent the birds from eating all the berries. Twisted silver tape 'flapping' in the wind will also scare away birds. We had to remove all our bird feeders to get rid of pigeons this year. They ate all my bok choi last year. This year they pulled up every little lettuce and green bean sprout. We had to replant twice, before we finally decided to take down all the bird seed feeders. The pigeons would eat seeds which the smaller birds dropped. Then they would head to my vegie garden to round out their seedy diet. Their balanced diet was my loss. Now we have a lush vegie garden but no birds except in the bird bath. Fortunately pigeons don't care about bathing.

BURDEE

[SunnyDyRain]

I am so Jellous of you! All the time when I was growing up we had a huge garden with lots of Veggies and yummy stuff. I have moved out and now I'm really starting to miss all the vine ripe tomatoes that I had all those years. We live in a tiny apartment, we can't have anything outside so not grill, no veggies. We were going to try some herbs on our window sill, but we decided against it being that our neighbors like to stand right out side our windows when they talk on the cell phones and if we opened the shade to let light in they could look right in!

We have found a few farmers markets though to get fresher stuff and support the little guy.

[UR Groovy]

Oh, gardening has saved my life this year (talk about coping!). Your veggies look so fun. Last year, we started 2 compost areas for our flower gardens because we were eating so may veggies. We decided to plop our starter tomatoes right into the compost pits about a month ago instead of using them for garden compost. They're growing like weeds - beautiful ! They grow about 1 foot taller every week - no bull$#!t - so thick we can't even count all the tomatoes on them. They're so big & lucious that we don't know how we're going to stake them - they've outgrown the 3' tall wire rings in a matter of a few weeks. The other compost pit has grown volunteer eggplant - a pleasant surprise (if you're good with nightshades). Next year: just try & stop me - it'll be wild. We started gardening a few years ago with wildflowers & annuals. Next stop: Veggie wonderland.

If you're gardening organic, plant plenty extra for all the critters so there's some left over for you ! Have fun in your garden !

[UR Groovy]

Oh, one more thing.

If you're into organic gardening, you must check out the "Manic Organic". This guy is the biggest nutcase, you've got to love it. He'll tell you all about the critters, soil conditions, and cheffing up some good stuff! It's on one of the discovery channels.

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[bluejeangirl]

Tiffany your swiss chard looks gorgeous! We eat it all the time. My brother has a farm about 20 min. away so I just helped him put in the garden about a month ago. He does all the hard work I just showed up during the planting. And of course when the veggies start coming in.

I spent half my years growing up on this farm and we always had a hugh garden. I don't think there's a vegetable I haven't tried. The worse part was picking cucumbers as a little kid for a canning factory that made pickles out of them. It was our way of earning money to buy our school clothes for the school year.

I'm glad your having fun with it. It does have a certain satisfaction eating something that you grew.

Gail