I'm twenty, ignorant to ecology, agriculture and basic veges

[anthonyescobar]

and wanting to change that for myself and many others....just wondering what your inspiration was early on, or your story that got you into gardening? I really want to make a big impression on people and teach other people what I learn through the experience and hold open forums out in my local community and educate people after I've crossed a couple of bounds and leaps//

[gumbo2176]

When I was a young kid back in the late 50's/early 60's, I had an uncle that farmed about an acre and would sell excess produce on the highway to make a little extra money. I was 9 when my dad died and I'd be sent to the country to my uncle's house for the summer. He and my Aunt Hilda had 12 kids so a lot of what they grew got used at home. My aunt used to can and freeze a lot of what they grew.

His sons and I would help pick stuff and tend to the garden and I got a kick out of watching things grow, especially fast producers like beans, okra, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. It seemed to me, no matter how much you picked one day, there was just about that much to pick the next. To a kid of 9, it was like free food. It wasn't until I got a bit older and started growing my own small gardens that I realized none of it was really free if you factored in all the time and effort put into a successful garden.

Now, in my late 50's, I still have a love for gardening and most of what I grow is used for food for my immediate family and preserving for later use once their season ends. Any excess is given to extended family and neighbors who are appreciative of good home-grown produce.

One of the things that keeps me gardening is a simple walk through the produce section of the local market. I've seen bell peppers going for as much as $1.20 each, cucumbers going for .75 each, tomatoes at $2.50 and up a lb. If you were to buy one pack of seeds for each of those vegetables, you'd have more than you can possibly eat and the seeds would likely cost about the same as a small bag of the above produce.

If------ I wanted to make an impression on folks about the virtues of gardening, I'd walk into a forum with a basket of home grown vegetables. Nothing gets attention better than results.

Good luck in your endeavor. Hopefully, you will catch the bug. This site is a wealth of information for the asking. Another place is your local garden center or nursery for what is good to grow in you area during certain times of the year.

[soil]

.just wondering what your inspiration was early on, or your story that got you into gardening?

nature, she has a lot to teach if you listen.

[farmerlon]

....just wondering what your inspiration was early on, or your story that got you into gardening?

I can't say for sure why I started gardening, but I know what got me hooked ... the flavor of homegrown organic produce.

For organic gardening, the health benefits are amazing... you get to eat awesome chemical-free produce, and you get great exercise tending the garden.

[lily51]

Moving to the country with my husband who was raised here and assumed everyone planted huge gardens is how I got started gardening. Add to that, he thought since I had decided to not teach and stay home with the kids until they were in school, I would get bored (he was never a stay home mom so what did he know), so we planted an acre of strawberries and had a nice little family business for 8 years.
My garden evolved into raised beds the last 12 or so years and they are wonderful.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Inspiration for my organic conversion...

First I have to thank Lisa Napolitano, who I occasionally do a radio show with, for finally kicking my but enough to try it. Being an industry guy I just did what I saw as the easiest way to go; I think it is the same for most folks...

But the biggies that have colored my thinking? [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._O._Wilson]E.O. Wilson[/url], [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldo_Leopold]Aldo Leopold[/url], [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Carson]Rachel Carson[/url](!), [url=https://patternliteracy.com/bio.html]Toby Hemenway[/url], [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka]Masonobu Fukuoka[/url], [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Howard]Sir Albert Howard[/url], (!)[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rodale_Institute]the Rodale Institute[/url], [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Ingham]Elaine Ingham[/url], [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets]Paul Stamets[/url], [url=https://www.mycorrhizae.com/about/dr-mikes-bio]Mike Amaranthus[/url], [url=https://www.paultukey.com/]Paul Tukey[/url], [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Mollison]Bill Mollison[/url], [url=https://www.holmgren.com.au/]Dave Holmgren[/url], [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandana_Shiva]Vandana Shiva[/url]...

That will keep you busy for a while... It's kept me busy for decades...

HG

[stevo]

Hi anthonyescobar.

When I was a child my parents were misionarys I grew up with many poor indigenous peoples that had prospered for thousands of years on substainable organic agriculture. When I say poor I mean poor as far as my western culture conciders poor.

They lived fruitful, happy and rich lives . Their wealth, was knowledge and was passsed from generation to generation and so was their land. This land remaind intact and preserved for all their future generation to live off.

But this all changed with the introduction of our so called modernization. I have seen first hand the results of this and it was begining of the end not only their culture but their most valuable asset their land. Modern farming methods ruined the soil, poisened their rivers and was not sustainable and could not be passed to future generations.

This all sounds rather morbid but this is my knowledge that I have passed onto my children not to allow this to happen again, to be smart about how you live your life, and how it will impact on other generations.

I once read an artical when I was younger about an englishman who designed what to day is your basic suburan / estate housing and his vision was that all house holds with your average sized back yard could feed the family for next to nothing thereby reducing the burden on the government having to do so.

It is possible but we have become lazy or something. I am glad to see U taking an intrest and this will benefit not only you but all of us and our future generations.

Some of the litrature I have read is anything by david suzuki hope I spelt that right and a gentleman in tasmainia ,australia by the name of peter cundle

thanks for your time stevo

[Gunsandroses]

hey everyone, I'm also pretty new at this, and I decided to go green
Ive started composting etc etc,but now that I'm actually gardening my food.. well lets says its pretty dificult, since I cant use any fertilisers or anything, and I wanted some advice..
I heard [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfalfa[/url] is really good for your plants, but I have no idead if its true or not.. so I thought I should ask the pros
I wanted to buy some online, but I havent found many websites that sell them.. [url]https://www.twenga.com/price-organic-food-gardening.html[/url] theres this one, but I don't know, maybe you guys have some better advice...
Please let me know! (oh btw I live in the city so getting horse or cows fieces is pretty difficult (a friend of mine told me to use that)
thanks everyone for your help!
have a great day!

[rainbowgardener]

G&R - You are kind of hijacking someone else's thread. For next time, if you have a separate question you want an answer to, it would be better to start your own thread. But for now I will respond to your question.

Alfalfa is a nitrogen fixer and so is good for your soil. So are clover and peas, beans and other legumes.

But it doesn't have to be complicated -- just start a compost pile. If you aren't familiar with composting, browse in our Compost Forum, all the info you would need is there. I don't fertilize and I don't use manures, being also in the city. I just compost everything (kitchen scraps, weeds, leaves, garden trimmings, etc) and return it to the soil.

[Gunsandroses]

oh I'm sorry I thought I could post here! my bad!
Okay then... thanks for the info..I'lltry it out... hopefully my flowers will grow

[Gary350]

Growing up my whole family grew a garden it saves a lot of money not having to buy vegatables at the store. My grandmother canned a winter supply of food in mason jars. We had garden fresh vegatables all winter.

After graduating from college my first job did not pay well so I decided to plant a garden to save money. Also grocery store tomatoes have the flavor of cardboard and I love home grown tomatoes so I planted my own. I grew beans, corn, squash, peppers and canned it in mason jars for the winter it saved me a lot of money and the food was excellent just like I remember it from growing up.

I also like growing things it is fun. I enjoy the whole process, tilling the garden, planting the seeds, watching the plants grow, keep the grass and weeds out, picking the vegatables and eating them too.

[katylaide]

I'm TWENTY AND IGNORANT TOO!!! I started gardening a year ago as a strategy to make myself happier after a pretty bad few months mentally. I'd never done much gardening before, except when I was seven and we were moving house I remember asking my mum if I could have a vegie patch at the new house. We started one, but didn't get very far with it. Same with some avocados. And a couple of years ago I managed to grow some sweet alyssum from seed on my cat's grave by pouring a cup of water on it every day. My dad is also a keen vegetable gardener but uses some synthetic methods and has dipped into hydroponics, neither of which appeal to me. I decided to go organic for my vegie garden because I figured you may as well, and that way you can garden extremely cheaply. Also I'm a vegetarian and had no desire to spray bugs. I started my first seeds in egg cartons. Now I use toilet rolls. It was an INCREDIBLE feeling holding the egg cartons and caring for the tiny seedlings. I could stare in wonder at them for hours. The plants went into two raised beds which I made out of 1) an old dresser and 2) an old couch, quite a feat for someone with limited woodworking skills. I got obsessed really quickly without knowing much about gardening at all. I managed to kill some beans by feeding them dirty aquarium water in place of clean water (it is actually a good fertiliser but not in large quantities) and I'm not exactly self-sufficient a year on. Composting is also really fun but I haven't quite got the knack of that either. I researched a few gardening methods, like no-dig gardening and permaculture, which appealed to me. Right now I try to draw from a lot of the stuff I've read but mostly go with the flow. My favourite gardening authors right now are Jackie French and Lolo Houbein. They're both Australian but I know Lolo's book One Magic Square is available in the US. It would be a good start to gardening and it's an actual way of gardening so it could be something you could teach other people. The way I garden right now is pretty much no-dig with lots of mulch and a bit of companion planting. What grows grows and then I can save seed from the surviving plants for next year. With all my failure last year as a gardener I did manage to save a few seeds. I enjoy growing heirloom vegetables (from which you can save seed and have it grow predictably into another vegetable of the same kind), especially weird varieties that you can't get at the supermarket. If you're going to garden like me (read: as you go along) it seems like it will take a lot of time and patience to actually get good at it, but I know I love it.

[GeorgiaGirl]

For me, it was tasting my first home-grown organic cherry tomato when I was 20. I had always hated tomatoes (or so I thought). What I hated was chemically-grown, artificially ripened grocery store tomatoes. The taste of that cherry tomato was so delicious, I still remember it to this day.

So, I will second what others said about the TASTE of organic being a big selling-point. When you learn how much more nutrient-rich it is, better for the land, etc., it's a no-brainer. Any kid who tastes an organic vegetable and compares it to the conventionally-grown version will be a convert for life.

[lorax]

Gardening has been handed down through the generations of my family - I have spent a total of two years in my 28 on this planet without something growing somewhere. Thinking back on it, we've always been organic gardeners as well - certainly, it was aged horse manure that went into the gardens when I was a kid, and here in Ecuador I use a mix of aged manures and seaweed.

I remember being about 3 when I started in the garden - Mom got me going planting the peas, corn and bush beans. It always seemed like the biggest miracle to see the plants come out of those little seeds.

[Troppofoodgardener]

As a child, I equated gardening with chores (I hated mowing the lawn, raking leaves, weeding). However since buying my first home, with an empty backyard staring at me saying "Pleeeaaase... DO something with me!" I began looking into ways of improving this space, and maybe even learn something along the way. It made a big difference for me to have a sense of responsibility over this little patch of grass, compared to having been forced to carry out menial tasks in the past. In a wider sense, my backyard is also symbolic for the miniscule patch of earth which I currently inhabit.

I've always been interested in ways of improving ecological sustainability and my self-sufficiency, and incorparating these into my garden creation was essential. Organic gardening naturally became the next step. I mainly grow plants that can be eaten, or are useful. I see it as an added bonus that the plant is not only beautiful, it provides FOR me! However, I also recognise non-edible plants have their place in any garden.

I still don't mow the lawn - as I don't have one; rake the leaves - they fall where they please and can become mulch! However I DO occasionally weed nowadays.

Oh.. and I've been gardening since June this year.

That's me done.. NEXT!