Your Questions About Gardening

GardenersCardiff answers:

Dried beans and grains (rice, quinoa, amaranth, oats, buckwheat, rye, etc) and a food mill or food processor or coffee bean grinder to grind the grains and maybe grind the beans so they can cook quicker. Different types of nuts or seeds too. You can make soups or even “milks” with nuts, grains and beans. Just cook, puree and seive them or don’t seive them if you don’t mind the pulp.

Potatoes can be peeled, cut into chunks, cooked to just done, put into quart jars with fresh hot brine (salt) water and a little bit of lemon juice for acidity and processed 1 hour in a water bath canner. They are handy for making fried potatoes, mashed potatoes, potato salad, parsley buttered potatoes, etc. They are quick to use (although it is work to can them) and versatile and they keep better than in the refrig or in the basement.

Grow a small garden if you can and can some tomatoes (whole or as sauce with a food mill) for vitamin C and maybe some potatoes and whatever and can whatever you can so it will be handy without refrigeration. Buy used mason jars and canning equipment cheap at thrift stores and get the lids at the grocery store new. You can re-use the lids if you are gentle at prying them up when taking the food out. Save glass jars from food bought at the store when you can to use when canning, esp if you can add a two part Mason lid to them.

Vegetable soup is good to can. Peanut butter can be made and canned and other nut butters…just have to work with it…Most things can for 1 hour in a water bath canner. Or use a pressure canner, but to me that is scary. Jelly or jam does not take as long to water bath can.

Keep the canned goods in the basement on a shelf. Mark dates on them with tape maybe to keep track of when they were canned.

Dandelion greens and dandelion flowers can be canned or just eaten if needed. They are high in iron I believe. Usually need to add vinegar or cook in a soup like you do with kale or chard with beans. They grow on their own, just don’t get them from any grass that has been sprayed or treated with pesticides or herbicides.You can even make a coffee from the toasted ground roots.

Rhubarb is easy to grow and can be canned if you like rhubarb.

I would stock up some on sugar and flour, esp strong/bread flour or whole grain flour (more protein and bread making) or vital wheat gluten flour (can make pretend meats) and baking yeast for bread making (keep the yeast jars in the freezer to keep them fresh longer). Honey would be a canned sweetner that would keep well even if you open the jar and keep it at room temp.

I have started canning myself recently because of the way the economy is going. Got a pressure cooker (small) and pressure canner (for quart jars), but still too chicken to use them. They claim low acid foods must be pressure canned, but I have had good luck so far with using a water bath canner for 1 hour with white potatoes and vegetable soup and pistachio butter and dandelion jelly (from flowers). Dandelion jelly tastes like honey. The pistachio butter I made by soaking the nuts for 24 hours and grinding in an electric meat grinder, but a food processor might do nut butters just as well.

I myself like nutritional yeast too…the kind marked “good tasting”…not the baking kind. It has lots of vitamins.

You could try growing mushrooms in the basement, but I do not have a green thumb or any idea on this…I think they grow on manure, so that would smell.

Spices and salt and pepper is a good idea. Lemon juice or lime juice in the little squirt bottles to keep in the refrig to aid in canning low acid items and for drinks. Frozen canned juice concentrates.

Cooking oils or shortening. Mustard. Vinegar (cider and white).

Some bottled water jugs or bottles. Some toilet paper and paper towels.

Maybe a small gas grill with ways to cook pots or bake on it if necessary…or as an emergency heating source. A kerosene heater as an emergency heating source maybe too.

GardenersCardiff answers:

No problem. You’ll need either a variety of pots/tubs, or construct yourself a DIY vegetable bed – make a timber/brick outline up to whatever height is wanted, and fill it with soil/compost – but not above a damp proof course, make sure it is away from walls of this nature.

Light/shade may be an issue if you have high walls… Check out what areas get the most sun, and which are in shade. There are vegetables which will grow in shade… Start off a pot of radish seeds, or lettuces.

Library will give you some books to get you starteded on which plant for what sized pot, and vegetable container gardening. Joy Larkcom’s ‘Grow your own Vegetables’ is indispensible and will talk you through what each vegetable ‘likes’ and that is easily translatable to pot growing.
Googling: vegetable container gardening… Will bring up many helpful pages. Also look at square foot gardening

An easy place to start (so you can get something growing while having a cuppa and reading further) might be some cut-and-come again leafy greens…. Grab a packet of mixed leafy salad seeds e.g. Oriental spicy mix, mizuna greens (there are others) and take a container that’s got about 3″ of depth and some drainage holes in the bottom – even better if it’s deeper than 3″). Compost in container, not quite to the top, scatter some seeds about, add some more compost to cover the seeds(say another 1/2-3/4″). Gently press down. Water from the bottom, if possible (by standing in a bigger container of water), otherwise sprinkle gentle from the top, and then let nature get on with it. Once the seeds have germinated, leave them until they are about 3″ tall, then you have a couple of choices… Pick individual salad leaves as required, or let get bigger before taking a pair of scissors and snipping off the required amount about 2″ above soil level… The remains will sprout again! You can do the same with pea seeds… To get pea sprouts, which are a lovely delicacy, just let them grow a touch bigger before taking the first cut, then eat raw, or do in a bit oil/butter/garlic. Mmmmm.

A tomato plant will grow in a 9″ pot (minimum)… Head off to Woolworths (or equivalent) and buy their cheap 99p buckets (much cheaper than big pots), drill a couple of drainage holes in the base, fill with compost (tape some of the empty compost bag’s light excluding plastic around the bucket, if it’s see-through), add 1 tomato plant, plus cane for support (if it’s a tumbling tomato, no need for a cane.

Pak Choi is easy to grow from seed, and should do well in pots (I’ve grown it in a grow bag, just made about 12 slits, and shoved 1 plant into each hole)… This would be a good one to consider, since we’re getting into the right time to sow the seed to avoid bolting. (Larkcom will tell you more, or have a read of the back of a Pak Choi packet of seeds).

Beetroot, potatoes (for next year, just use buckets or an old dustbin cut in half), Kale, chilli peppers, carrots, strawberries, cougettes etc can all be grown in pots. If you like chillis, just get a plant from a garden centre, stick it in a bigger pot, and it should quite happily survive the summer outside and give you a good crop tghat can be frozen/pickled for later consumption.

You like baby carrots? Get a deeper container and put some seeds in it… Delicious. Courgettes? One plant could provide you with a couple a week (if not more). French beans? A bucket up against the wall with some string/trellis arrangement, try 3 plants in a bucket and get climbing french beans, or, without the wall, stick a couple of bush bean seeds in (still time this year). Cucumber? Get an OUTDOOR variety (heritage… Ring up garden centres and ask if they have Crystal Apple/crystal Lemon cucumber)… And shove a plant in a pot up against a wall, or let it sprawl along the ground.. Tastes wonderful, just ignore the odd shape. If you are in the UK, try Alan Romans – good seeds, minus the packaging blurb = excellent value for money.

Feeding? To start off with, any tomato liquid feed should be enough to get your plants through. Just read the instructions, and follow through. Watering? Yes, important with container gardening where things can dry out quickly. Tips? Collect old 2l soft drinks plastic bottles. Fill them up with water/liquid feed (as required). Pierce base somewhere with a pin/needle, stand bottle on soil/rig up in suitable place, water will slowly trickle from bottle to soil… Stops the water pouring straight down the sides of the container and out the bottom.

Enjoy!

GardenersCardiff answers:

Your lilacs are suffering from Bacterial Blight (pseudomonas syringae). You’ll need to spray your lilacs with a fungicide to control this damaging bacterial disease. The best on the market, one that I have used for over 20 yrs, is a product made by “Ortho” called “multi-purpose fungicide” which contains “Daconil” 2787. This fungicide controls over 130 different diseases on trees, shrub, and lawns. It can be easily purchased in the garden centers of Walmart, Home Depot, or Lowes. Follow the directions on the mixing rate which is easy to follow. This fungicide will only control any “further” infection and will “not” reverse the leaf spotting already done. Here is a link with the product info… Hope this answers your question.
Http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/1996/6-7-1996/lilac.html
http://www0.epinions.com/content_105989770884
http://www2.yardiac.com/long.asp?tgs=3402432:42635163&cart_id=&item_id=976

… Billy Ray