Your Questions About Gardening

GardenersCardiff answers:

Shay has the right idea. Easy enough to build bins from scrap lumber and chicken wire. Put them next to each other for ease of turning. Add your kitchen scraps. Query rabbit breeders in your area. I found several that are happy for me to show up with my shovel and 5 gallon buckets. Great additive to the compost bins and does not need to cure like horse or cow manure. Good home made compost available to your customers will be added income. You do need to chop up the cuttings and prunings to facilitate decomposition. Toss in grass clippings and mulched leaves as well. Of course you can continue to bring your stuff to the community recycle facility until they start charging.

Good luck

GardenersCardiff answers:

You can use many different things in which to grow veggies as well as flowers, but they may not be particularly portable since you need something that is large enough for veggies and/or flowers to grow in. They can’t be treated like indoor plants most of which grow slowly. Outdoor growing will last only as long as end of May to end of August.

I don’t know anything that would hang on a chain link fence that wouldn’t make it sag, so nothing would be able to sit on top of it. If you know someone who is handy, he/they could make square flower boxes (at least 2′ high); you could put them on a dolly (a round piece of wood or plastic, with wheels on the bottom.

One type of inexpensive container is Ikea bags – the bright blue ones. They are very strong, have strong handles, and they could be moved around by two people. Some of the nurseries also have bags made from similar material to Ikea bags which are used for sand and/or compost. Roll the tops down a bit before filling with soil.

And don’t forget to pierce the bottom so any extra water can drain out.

If you want to use the fence for ‘growing’ plant some ivy type plants like morning glory, or trailing narstutium (tom thumb plants). Tomatoes can be grown in the middle of a container, and tied to the chain link. Put flowers around them. If you do plant tomatoes, use a tin that has the top and bottom cut off, and plant the tomato plant with the can around the stalk. That will discourage cutworms which will chop your tomato stalks like a lumberjack fells a tree!

Visit your local Home Depot and ask the folks there to help you – they are very knowledgeable, and you may get some of last year’s pots/bags for free!

GardenersCardiff answers:

Well, it’s hard to find anything because they didn’t HAVE a ‘cost of living’ like we do.

You are also asking about a period of over 200 years.
That’s a long time – I remember when a Hershey Bar cost 10 cents as opposed to $1.00.
Cost of living, inflation, foreign market, taxation, fair market, etc.

In the 1700 – 1800s many things were bartered for — traded.
You either cut down your own trees or purchased wood — and built your own house.
Very little food was purchased at a store – only staples – everything else was cooked at home and planted in a garden.
Meat was raised at home or shot in the woods.
Even bricks were made at home.
Even for the wealthy — estates had their own gardens, kitchens, bakeries, hen houses, etc.
Luxuries would be purchased but luxuries are NOT considered part of the Cost of Living.

Shop owners and craftsmen still practiced their trade — but most still had their own garden at home and would hunt on the weekend or set small game traps to be cooked in strews and soups.

A Cost of Living Standard was just that, a standard.
If you could survive well by doing all this yourself, a cost of Living standard was not required and kind of made the point null and void.