Going to start a garden

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Dec 30, 2019
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I'm going to start a garden this year. Last weekend I got my soil ready and my rows tilled up. now I am debating what to plant. I got some herbs started and some sweet peppers going from seed already. So what would you suggest for canning and what not.
 
Potatoes. They last forever nearly and one unused tater makes like 8 seeds. Those seeds turn into 8 taters each.

Carrots.
Apple tree
Chickens.
 
Peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, kale, some form of squash, and sweet Potatoes. We use a row of 50" wire panels bent over into an arch and held in place with steel tee-posts for our green beans; much easier picking. ;):thumbsup:
 
Lemon cucumber are my favorite thing to eat straight from the garden
 
I should have mentioned that we plant climbing type (pole type) green beans instead of bush type beans.;)
 
I mainly grow chili peppers, because that's what grows well in my back yard. And I grow a lot of them. More than I know what to do with. Jalapenos, Tabasco, Serrano, Thai, Bird's Eye, Ghost, Habaneros, and Carolina Reapers. Chili peppers grow really well where I live, so that's one of the main things I grow. (I make lots of hot sauce.) They should also grow well in Ohio (my cousin has a farm there and grows lots of them). But if I lived in Ohio, I'd grow some in pots to get an early crop next year. The plants will produce for several years under the right conditions, but they won't survive a hard freeze.

Cucumbers also grow well here, so I grow those too. A couple plants are enough. Once they get going, I have more than I know what to do with. I'd grow more tomatoes, but it's going to be in the 90s in no time, and they can't set fruit when it gets that hot. If you live somewhere where tomatoes will fruit in the summer, I'd go really heavy on a variety of heirloom tomatoes. Black Sea Man is a particularly hilarious variety. Also, tomatoes are great for canning. With the high acid content, they keep really well.

When I lived in Michigan (I was a kid at the time), I grew pumpkins. I'd grow those and other winter squash if I had the space and they grew well here. Pumpkins, butternut, Spaghetti squash, etc. Summer squashes are good too, if you've got the right conditions.

I have a lot of lettuce growing right now, but for me, the season's about over. It's a cool weather crop. Also spinach. There's some kale mixed in there too, but I'd really rather have more lettuce. If the lettuce season were longer, I'd have more seeds going.

Radishes are good because you can get results pretty quickly. Like 30 days. They're only radishes, but at least you get some early tangible pay off for your work.

Also sugar snap peas if you like stir fry. They're pretty fast, but fade in hot weather. Yard long beans are good too. And other green beans, if you like that kind of thing.

I also grow a lot of tropical and subtropical fruits. Various citrus, avocados (not much luck yet), star fruit, papayas and stuff like that. But I'm on the Texas Gulf coast where that sort of stuff grows. It's a trade off for the short tomato and lettuce season, I guess.

But it really comes down to what will grow well where you live that you like to eat. Tomatoes are hugely frustrating to me because there's nothing better than home grown tomatoes, but they just don't grow well here. But at least I have fresh key limes for my margaritas and home-grown jalapenos to stuff with cream cheese and wrap with bacon.


And if you're going to be canning and don't have a proper pressure canner, you need this. Not a Presto or some made in China thing. This.
 
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I have everything ready to go in the ground but I am waiting until after mothers day to put anyhting alrady sprouted into the ground. Today i will be putting my blue lake green beans in the dirt about 25 hills if everything comes up.
 
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