Your Questions About Gardening

GardenersCardiff answers:

ABSOLUTELY. I grow tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, yellow squash, and jalapenos every year. Tomatoes are definitely my biggest crop. If you ate a tomato grown in your yard, you’d understand. I can’t even begin to tell you how much more flavorful home-grown tomatoes are compared to the hot-house variety you buy at a grocery store. Go to a farmers market and buy a couple – you’ll never want to eat those tasteless hot house tomatoes again.

Since I can’t grow my vegetables all year round, and I can’t eat all my vegetables before they go bad, I make things with them that can be canned like homemade salsa, marinara sauce, and dill pickles.

I also keep an herb garden all year round…fresh herbs are so much more flavorful and fresh than using the dried variety. In the winter months, I use an aerogarden (hydroponic, indoor garden) for my herbs. The best part is that my herbs are ready when I need them, I don’t have to buy them, and they don’t go bad before I can use them.

GardenersCardiff answers:

If you have the room and the time then yes it is.

GardenersCardiff answers:

In some cases, yes but if you consider all the expenses that are needed and the labor, the benefits are nominal. You do get much better tasting food, I can attest to that. The market for seeds have also gone through the roof. See the order catalogs. However, it’s not only for the savings that a person should have a garden, it’s for the advantage of being self sufficient. You should not use poo from creatures that eat meat in your compost, but it’s not very costly to make your own. Right now is the time to start one with the fall season arriving, for leaves and most people still mowing their grass, you can have lots of material just for harvesting it. Should we have a food shortage or by some catastrophe the food markets goes awry, you will be glad to have your own food supply. I strongly recommend that every able bodied person have their own garden. Our relatives used to come visit us once a year when the corn was ready for picking, so there’s also a social factor involved. Water is a big factor in gardening. Mother nature will not always cooperate when moisture is needed, so you do have to make some provisions to irrigate when those things don’t happen. It doesn’t take a lot of land for a family garden. You can grow lots of things in a small area, so good luck if you decide to go ahead with it.