Self Sufficient Organic Gardening

[Delima]

Excellent point about sunshine HG.

If I am honest I am not ethically against sourcing food from other supplies. However I don't like current commercial chemical farming method and organic food is not easily available locally.

I guess - I will just see what can I do with the whatever garden I will have eventually, play around and learn.

I will certainly come back to this forum again when I have acquired the property and the garden (a few months time) - and learn from all the experts.

[rainbowgardener]

I am by no means an expert - with only one year of gardening experience I am just shy of a newbie myself! However I can tell you that if it is just you that you are gardening for, you will not need nearly as much space as you might think. I had a small plot (12*12) with only 4 rows and had much more produce that I needed. And it being my first time gardening I was not very space efficient.

That's kind of amazing. What all did you grow in your 4 rows? Do you mean that you had more of some things than you could use, but there were other vegetables you still bought from the market or you literally ate nothing veggie but what came out of your garden, all season? What about now, getting through the winter, are you still eating from your garden? (I.e. did you can, freeze, dry, etc any of your garden produce so that it still feeds you?)

[kimbledawn]

Hi,

I am a newbe also. I have this past season under my belt and I agree with another post about starting small and learning as you go. We began with three 12X6' raised beds and a 4X4' plot of ground. I planted seven tomato plants, eight okra, ten cucumber, two squash, three zuccini,twelve pepper plants, and four eggplants. I didn't know enough about pests so we lost all of the squash and zucks to vine borers. we lost four of our twelve peppers to blight. we didn't get any bell peppers although all three plants survived. I didn't know enough about soil amendments or watering so the plants that did survive didn't grow very fast.
I think that yoy can accomplish your goal but you need to research more and test your findings with your climate, soil and pests. Goodluck!

[rainbowgardener]

Thanks for the post, kimbledawn, and being willing to report results even though they weren't all positive! I struggle with the squash vine borers too, and also lost all my zucchini plants to them this year. Next year I will try wapping the stems in foil (to "foil" the borers! ) and maybe also keeping floating row cover over them til mid summer.

My tomato plants got some kind of blight this year, but since I knew about the milk treatment (try the search), it slowed them down for awhile, but they recovered and did well later in the season. Next year I will just jump on it a little sooner! You can even do the milk treatment preventatively instead of waiting til they are suffering.

But this is how we all learn. Sounds like you learned a lot and are better prepared for next year. Gardeners always say "Next year will be a better year" (and it's frequently true! since we do keep learning and getting better at it).

[Homesteader]

Rainbowgardener; In your post you mention a milk treatment for late blight. This is new to me. May I ask how this is done? We lost almost all our tomato plants this last season to late blight and I would be thankful for any help in this area.

[Homesteader]

I tried the search funtion but didn`t come up with anything using "milk treatment".

[cynthia_h]

Sorry you had trouble; the magic search-term combination seems to be

milk fungus

I just got about 70 hits here at THG with this combination of terms. The theory is to use the bacteria in milk against the fungus.

Dilution is necessary; timing is useful. The discussions will give specifics. (Sorry, I'm not feeling well tonight and am almost to bed--before 9:00 p.m.)

Cynthia

[Homesteader]

Cynthia H; Thank you very much for the info on milk fungus treatment. We grow a lot of tomato, peppers and potatoes so this information is greatly appreciated.

[The Helpful Gardener]

HS, this is [url=https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf2004/fpl_2004_yang001.pdf]scientifically supported[/url] home grown fungicide you always have in the fridge. Three to one with water can actually be curative on low level fungii, but best use at ten to one preventitively to establish colonies on the leaves (called anatagonistic biological counterculture). I just used milk on the powdery mildew on ny indoor rosemary this very morning! It's my favorite fungicide!

HG

[Sage Hermit]

I sprayed neem oil on my pineapple sage to cure from spider mites and thought of you. Your solution is what I was actually experimenting with. Milk lol you are awesome.

Can you add rosemary leaves as mulch to increase your soils ability to kill bacterias? For a while I have been adding the leaves of herbs that have antibecterial agents as mulch but this could be detrimental to 'good bacteria', true or false?

If false must explain why not.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Not sure about the antibacterial side of rosemary, but certain plants (garlic and onions, mint,) CAN be set backs for compost (not long term though). Rosemary I haven't had issue with, but I eat most of mine, so am not 100% sure on this one... it does seem to have effects on arthropods (mites and such) and THAT could be somewhat limiting (knocking a link out of the poop loop), but not as crucial as antibacterials (that knock out the mast food source for the soil food web, bacteria).

Dontcha think neem's kind of strong scented for a food crop, Sage? Doesn't it change the flavor?

HG

[Sage Hermit]

yeah its heavy on the stinky side. I wash the leaves for a long time after treating and I think thats why I started expirimenting with milk. It actually started when I couldn't finish all my oat meal and my drain was clogged up. My oat meal has lots of cinimon milk honey so its just seems right there that s everything you need minus the water. Added all that to my mint plants soil. Would honey work in a water solution by itself? I would imagine it would kill a lot of bacteria because its a well known anti biotic and I also know diluting honey in water increase these effects.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Actually Sage, diluting honey in water turns it from an antibacterial (by way of dessication) into a bacterial food par excellence. Once it's hydrated it doesn't dehydrate very well, and now it is just a bunch of long chain sugars in a wet habitat, a bacterial playground. But as we are trying to culture a bacteria, and providing that culture with milk it would likely be food for the Lactobacillus cultures we are looking for...

And once you have antifungal bacteria like that in place, the chances of fungal cultures getting started are slimmed way down. WAY down.

HG

[Sage Hermit]

Are you saying you should perhaps combine the milk and honey?


I was unable to view the PDF link but I might have a basic understandin of what you are saying but if you could please clearify for me. Would you use the honey sugars as food for the bacteria from the milk?

[rainbowgardener]

We ARE living in the land of milk and honey!

[The Helpful Gardener]

Honey in a dilute form is indeed a bacterial food (with trace elements to boot) and the milk assures the selection of Lactobacillus ssp. as the bacteria of choice, so yes, that would work. I wouldn't go wild with the honey (it's expensive, and the milk is already bringing sugars to the table, as lactose, so unecessary) but that should be a good mix...

HG