Food Gardening

[surly]

Hey all,

I am very new to growing some food plants. Had chillies for a few years, some berries and herbs.
Last year I planted my first hops and had a decent crop. Can't wait until this years harvest.

In the meantime, I have a nice little spot in the garden where I WAS going to plant more hops. This is a sunny spot with about 2metres of climbing trellis. Anyone have thoughts of what food plant would grow there? Have been thinking of some sort of bean, but open to any suggestions.

Feel free to post your own food crops to inspire

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Scarlet runners, supposed to go for 7 years but take them out after 4.

 

[surly]

Thanks Mr Legless.
Looks to be a decent option. Will stick something in the ground on the weekend hopefully.

 

[BrosysBrews]

If you are looking at seasonal veggies there is an app called gardenate that tells you what to plant each month depending on your location

If you wanted something more permanant maybe some espalier citrus or fruit trees?

 

[Beersuit]

That app sounds cool brosysbrews do you use it?

I would be recommending fruit over citrus as you can brew with fruit not so much citrus.

 

[Dave70]

Cab Sauv grapes?..


Actually, I'm literally ripping up my old beds this weekend with a Bobcat and making the switch to giant black pots (courtesy of a mate down the road who had his factory unit used as a hydro dope setup by the tenants) that will sit upon some kind of low profile frame work. I'm over the constant bending over and weeding. I tend toward more constant cropping plants like spinach, herbs, kale, stuff like that. Its nice to grow a wide variety, but for all the time and watering, it hardly seems worth it to grow sweet potato for example when you can get it in on sale for $2 a kilo.

I'm going to look at some heirloom seed this season to see if you really can taste the difference.

 

[Lincoln2]

Choko

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Sweet corn and sweet potato for me are a crop of little return for effort put in, good thing about kale is it will sprout again from the root the following year as does broccolini, spuds are a crop I grow every year even though cheap enough to buy it is the small new potato like, the skin rubs off and served with bacon and the bacon fat drizzled over the spuds is magnificent.
The super food crops spinach,kale, broccoli, horse radish, (10 times better than kale ) and if anyone has a hydro set up watercress is so easy to grow packed with iron vitamin C and calcium.
Then the usual tomatoes, beans dwarf and runner, zucchini, always produces far more than needed, cucumbers, having experienced a few bitter cucumbers I always grow the hybrid variety which doesn't need pollinating heirloom varieties of tomatoes does seem to have a better, sweeter flavour and to get the best out of your vegetables cook and eat within an hour of harvesting.

 

[surly]

Thanks for all the thoughts guys, I ended up wandering around the local nursery and grabbed an heirloom tomato - Russian Black.
Grows about 1.8m, so should fill the space nicely. The idea of black tomatoes amuses me too.

 

[shaunous]

Your planting the wrong Sweet potato then. Grow the pink skinned/white centered version, better then the standard sweet potato. I had only 4 runners last year and only just ate the last of mine last night, and I gave a heap away including smoking some for a local brewers meet-up. I got a couple the size of a rugby ball. Filled 1.5 screen doors in the shed drying them, so a good return for minimal effort really. This year i've planted around 15 runners in a row(thanks to a mate lending me his small rotary hoe making life easier)

I tend to grow things that last a while once picked, or if they dont you can turn them into chutneys and what not. Maybe grow some tomatoes, they'll go well for sauces and chutneys paired with your chilli's.

 

[malt and barley blues]

Do you eat the leaves of the sweet potato, I told a Chinese guy

 

[malt and barley blues]

Posted before I had finished, I ate the leaves he said in China they give them to the pigs.

 

[shaunous]

No I don't and never have, but funnily enough someone at work today told me they eat the sweet potato leaves.

I'm not much of a salad man anyway.

 

[Lincoln2]

Posted before I had finished, I ate the leaves he said in China they give them to the pigs.

I live next door to an 70-80 year old mainland Chinese peasant woman who has only been in Aus for 2 years and doesn't speak a word of English. However we communicate via the garden as we are both keen vege growers and she is an absolute master of the garden. I do most of her hard manual labour and she rewards me with exotic veges, seeds and cuttings. There is no fence between our backyards so we are always working together. I could talk for hours about what a champion she is.

Anyways, she regularly eats the younger tender leaves of her sweet potato, from what I can gather, she uses them in soups, stews, stir fries etc

 

[wide eyed and legless]

My Dads birthday last Sunday, went into the garden and thrust my hands under the potato haulms and came up with a load of new potato's, roast lamb greens, new potato's and an afternoon listening to his rhythm and blues music, only wished I could have had a beer to complete the bliss.

 

[zooesk]

My garden this morning

 

[Forever Wort]

Insane mate, this time last year there were bushfires in your woods. Nuts.

 

[zooesk]

Sure was

 

[Dave70]

My garden this morning

ImageUploadedByAussie Home Brewer1413338169.383575.jpg

ImageUploadedByAussie Home Brewer1413338182.199852.jpg

Dam those Prius drivers with their carbon neutral lifestyles freezing the planet.
I'm going home to burn some tractor tyres.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

I thought I was doing well growing a banana plant in Melbourne but I subscribe to a UK magazine called Kitchen Garden (excellent source of information) and a lot of people in the UK are growing them, one woman had a plant fruit twice, also one of the biggest growing industries is wineries. But how do the scientists explain while the Arctic ice is receding the Antarctic ice is expanding ?

On a Michael Caine moment, A banana is the worlds largest herb, not many people know that. Learn a lot of useless stuff watching QI.