The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Sports & Leisure => Topic started by: jay-ell on May 28, 2010, 03:15:44 pm
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Somebody here *has* to know something about gardening, right?
I want to grow a couple of herbs on my kitchen window ledge for use in cooking. I tried to grow basil from one of those dollar grow kits, but I think I drowned it or something because they've been up there for 2 weeks and they haven't sprouted. (My son's marigold pot is doing great, though.)
I'm thinking basil, chives, and parsley would be awesome to have. The windowsill gets a fair amount of sun in the afternoon, but I'm willing to invest in a grow light if I need one. Mostly I just want to be able to make pesto for two from fresh basil, mmm yummygood. And I figure if I'm going to go to the trouble to grow parsley and basil, I may as well throw some chives in there too - I grew chives once before, and they're really easy and tasty as garnish or in cream cheese spreads.
I have about 36 inches of linear space, and the ledge is about 3" wide, so I whatever I put up there has to be arranged in a single row.
Any advice?
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You may be able to grow something on the windowsill, but it won't be anywhere close to what you can produce outside. If you want enough basil to make pesto, you're going to need a medium-sized container in a spot that gets good sun most of the day. Is that an option for you?
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You may be able to grow something on the windowsill, but it won't be anywhere close to what you can produce outside. If you want enough basil to make pesto, you're going to need a medium-sized container in a spot that gets good sun most of the day. Is that an option for you?
I can grow stuff on the back deck in the spring/summer/fall, but I'm definitely too lazy to put anything in the ground.
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Yeah, a 3" wide ledge probably isn't going to be able to hold a pot big enough to grow useful amounts of herbs.
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Growing in the ground is not more work than growing in pots. In fact, growing in pots is more work. For one thing, the ground is already made of dirt - you don't have to buy dirt and pots and combine the two. For another, pots dry out faster than the ground, so you need to water more often.
I have always thought that there is actually nothing more lovely than an outdoor porch full of potted plants and it's even more glorious to have potted plants on an outdoor patio in the middle of a garden. Part of the reason for this is that such a display represents a huge amount of work. It's almost decadent, because it gives the impression that someone must have a gardener doing the manual labor.
In other news: at this time of year you can buy herb seedlings cheap. If you are not really into gardening, don't bother trying to grow from seed. You are going to save maybe a few bucks if you are successful, but if you are not experienced or that interested, you are unlikely to be successful.
In short: Buy some seedlings and stick them in the ground.
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In short: Buy some seedlings and stick them in the ground.
QFT. Go to farmers' markets and shop around. Some stands will try to sell you seedlings for $5 each, but you can probably find someone who will sell them for $2 each or 3 for $5. They've done the hard part already.
Dig a hole big enough to fit the whole root ball in and then some. Pop the plant out of the container, then into the hole, and fill in around it with garden soil. Give it a good watering to get it started.
After that, you probably just need to water every couple-three days if it doesn't rain.
My garden this year: a whole mess of leafy greens (lettuce, arugula, spinach, chard), tomatoes, serrano pepper, zukes, cukes, a whole lot of onions, green onions, leeks, carrots. Radishes have already come and gone. And in containers, basil, sage, and thyme.
How nice is it to be able to go out in the back yard and pick yourself a salad? Real nice, I tell you.
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In my old house, I had abut the same amount of space (maybe a little less) and I managed to have an aloe plant and a little tray of chives for a while. I chucked the aloe plant when it threatened to take over my kitchen sink.
So, if I wanted to grow this stuff on the back deck or patio, would they survive all winter? If I have just a few pots I could bring them in to the laundry room for the winter, but they wouldn't get any sun there.
I literally know virtually nothing about plants, do not be afraid to treat me like an idiot here.
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Woah, simulposts!
Wombles, I am hesitant to put stuff in the ground here because my yard is a mess. The previous owners let it go terribly, and we've been concerned with getting the inside habitable, so we haven't been able to fix everything that's wrong with it yet. It was so neglected for so long that poison ivy and poison oak that had overtaken the whole backyard. It took us 6 months to get things to the point where the kids could play outside. When we moved in last august, we still had the previous autumn's leaves on the ground, that's how neglected the yard was.
The front yard is so shady we were told by a landscape guy that we would have a hard time even getting grass to grow, unless we feel like chopping down two beautiful old growth oak trees. Right now we just have a bunch of moss and clover. Also, my kids play in the backyard, and there is no way I could keep them from tromping all over it anything I might plant there. And the dirt is hard clay, not great for growing things in. I would have to buy dirt to mix with the dirt I already own if I wanted anything to grow, so I figure if I'm going to pay for dirt I may as well put it in pots. But again, I know almost nothing, so I could be completely wrong about all of this.
We do have a spot in the front yard that already has some flowering bushes and stuff that was probably put there by the guy who flipped the house before the previous owners bought it in '93. It's kind of shaggy looking and I guess I could dig up some of that and put an herb garden next to the front walk. But honestly, the idea of messing around with the front garden terrifies me. Also, it seems like that area should be dedicated to decorative plants.
I should post pictures, shouldn't I? You would be shocked and amazed at the disaster that is my yard.
Carlos, that sounds wonderful, but waaay to ambitious for me and my black thumbs. I have killed cactus, I am not kidding about being clueless. I do know the basic mechanics from helping my grandmother plant annuals from seedlings when I was a kid, but the part of the process that requires you to make decisions is completely new to me.
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A herb garden next to the front walk is a totally lovely idea. It's still easier to dig up a small spot and amend the soil a bit than to fuss with pots. Don't believe those people who say you need to dig up the whole bed half way down to China to prepare the soil. Herbs are tough. Loosen up as big an area as you can stand, at least a few inches around each pot, and if the roots are wrapped round the soil inside the pot, loosen them up too. Most herbs grow in pretty tough areas in their native habitats and it's claimed that they taste weaker if they are grown in soil that is too rich anyway. You do want good drainage for herbs though so if you have clay, you may want to add something like sand as much as you want to add organic matter.
I usually water every day for a week to get plants established, then as Carlos says, every two or three days. Use your judgment, if it's drooping, it needs water more often. But it's better to water deeply less frequently than to sprinkle lightly every day. The latter results in a plant that keeps its roots close to the surface and dries out more quickly.
Trust me this will be easier than growing in pots. I am the world's laziest gardener, nothing survives in my garden if it needs coddling. Pots are only for special cases where I have an insane urge to be all Martha Stewart and make an extra effort for some stupid pretty thing that I will regret. Pots are not for growing herbs unless you don't own any ground to put them in.
And forget about the over the winter thing for now, that is too ambitious to start if you really know nothing.
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By the way, moss and clover is a beautiful idea for a ground cover. Don't you dare cut down those trees to grow grass. If you have moss, you are blessed. And that is NOT a word that I EVER use.
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By the way, moss and clover is a beautiful idea for a ground cover. Don't you dare cut down those trees to grow grass. If you have moss, you are blessed. And that is NOT a word that I EVER use.
Losing the trees is not even a consideration. We had some dead branches cut off to keep them healthy, but they are staying.
Being the type to break out in hives if I so much as walk through a patch of grass, I'm not opposed to moss and clover, myself. As an added bonus, we've only mowed the lawn once in the ten months we've lived here, with a borrowed push mower, and it took half an hour because we only had to do the front. (The backyard is bare dirt, and that's how it's going to stay, at least until the swing set, trampoline, and sandbox come down.)
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A herb garden next to the front walk is a totally lovely idea...You do want good drainage for herbs though so if you have clay, you may want to add something like sand as much as you want to add organic matter.
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Trust me this will be easier than growing in pots. I am the world's laziest gardener, nothing survives in my garden if it needs coddling. Pots are only for special cases where I have an insane urge to be all Martha Stewart and make an extra effort for some stupid pretty thing that I will regret. Pots are not for growing herbs unless you don't own any ground to put them in.
And forget about the over the winter thing for now, that is too ambitious to start if you really know nothing.
OK, this is not sounding so bad. I took another look at the front garden and there are some half-dead scrubby things right beside the front porch that should probably be dug up anyway.
If I need to add sand for drainage, is it OK to use the old play sand that I'm getting ready to scoop out of my kids' sandbox and replace? It's been rained on (we accidentally left the cover off during a major thunderstorm) and it's full of sharp twigs and pinecone gumballs and half-decomposed leaves and other stuff that I'd prefer my kids didn't play in, but I imagine it's just fine for a garden.
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The best sun in my backyard is on the patio and the deck. And the not-directly-in-the-way spots are so overgrown with wisteria and bamboo that it will cost us at least 2 weekends or $700 to get it cleared out. We've already had an estimate on hiring it done, and it ain't in the budget.
Seriously, I have seen "before" pictures on "Desperate Landscapes" that look better than our yard does.
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Sand with half-decomposed leaves sounds like just the thing.
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Thyme, mint and chives will likely survive the winter; basil and sage, not so much.
Be careful with mint, though; it'll take over. That's one we definitely keep in a pot so it doesn't go all gangster on the other plants.
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we've got our herbs in pots on the front porch. big pots, not little ones. ikea has these like four-gallon terra cotta pots we found for like four bucks each.
rosemary, basil, mint, oregano. we only had to replace the basil in the spring, and that's only because i don't trust my dogs with a potted plant indoors over the winter. the best part about herbs in pots is the ability to move them around easily; the second best part is the drug jokes.
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If you're planting basil in a pot, it will grow well if you fertilize it with your murdered lover's head (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella,_or_the_Pot_of_Basil).
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Damn, I go off to lunch for one hour and you guys hold a whole gardening thread without me?
Throw 'em in the ground. Find a sunny spot, dig it up as much as reasonably possible and stick the plants in there. Water when it get dry. Maybe throw some Miracle-Gro on there. Bingo, you're an amateur botanist.
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I'd skip the Miracle Gro for herbs, again on the theory that they are tastier if they lead a tough life. Like the rest of us, really.
I have no experience on which to base an opinion on the efficacy of the murdered lover's head, though, because that's the sort of thing that falls into the category of more work than I am going to do for a damn plant.
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If you're planting basil in a pot, it will grow well if you fertilize it with your murdered lover's head (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella,_or_the_Pot_of_Basil).
I have no experience on which to base an opinion on the efficacy of the murdered lover's head, though, because that's the sort of thing that falls into the category of more work than I am going to do for a damn plant.
I love you both so much.
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I am not, however, advocating you go get a drum of hossshit. That was a lot of work.
That is not something you need to worry about.
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how dare you mix your peas and corn and pasta together
i have no idea what's for lunch today, i eagerly await the missus's return with foodstuffs.
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I had a little macaroni with peas and corn mixed in and 2 oz. of chunked up spam in a bowl with a liter of tap water.
Is that your lunch, or the dog's? Also, who eats lunch at 10am?
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I burned my omelet because I was embroiled in reading replies to this thread, and ended up scarfing a Balance Bar while driving my son to afternoon preschool.
:-[
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SIXTEEN INCHES
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A couple bean burritos from Taco John's.
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Oh yeah, I guess I should eat lunch.
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Our window-box is like some fragrant gladiatorial arena.
The basil fell fast - it couldn't take the harsh British winter and it gave up.
The mint died back, but it was feigning - while the coriander and the oregano fought it out, it was spreading its roots under the soil, watching and waiting. Now it's springing forth from six different strike points, and it means to throttle all that's in its way.
The coriander has been too kind, too caring. It has sat there, growing, responsible, careful. In a pot of its own it would be thriving. But the others have taken advantage, and instead it withers as the other herbs gradually harangue it into submission.
The oregano is just fuck*ng crazy. One minute it's on its arse, the next it springs up like a delicious jack-in-the-box. Don't mess with the oregano. It could turn at any time.
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Funny you say that about oregano. I planted oregano a few years ago in the garden, then discovered, I really don't need fresh oregano. But it's expanding like mad (of course when half the plants I really want drop dead from either the heat or the winter). And yet, I am kind of afraid to pull it up.
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Yeah, I just don't know what I'd do with a bunch of fresh oregano.
I'm going to start with basil by the front walk and see what happens with that. Maybe as soon as this weekend.
Is it a bad idea to go on vacation three weeks after planting seedlings outdoors? Or will they survive for a week without me, even if it doesn't rain?
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oregano + basil + thyme + tomatoes + garlic + onions + salt + pepper + olive oil + balsamic = pasta sauce. get a bunch of tomatoes and jars and you can be set for the winter.
also try oregano on a bagel with schmear. a pizza ain't a pizza without oregano. plus when times get tough you can call it weed and sell it to morons.
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I mean, I know what to do with oregano, I just don't use it often enough to justify growing it myself, I don't think.
Basil, parsley, and chives? Absolutely.
Oregano and rosemary, while awesome, do not feature heavily in my regular rotation of meals.
And I know I will get reamed for saying this, but raw tomatoes gross me out, I will buy mine processed and canned, thanks. Yes, I am a little autistic, get over it.
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And I know I will get reamed for saying this, but raw tomatoes gross me out
>:(
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I like raw tomatoes and I like tomatoes cooked all day. What I HATE is tomatoes that are just slightly cooked. Like sauteed lightly and tossed with pasta or in a stir fry. Yuck.
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Do people put tomatoes in stir fry? That's horrifying.
Yes, of all the ways tomatoes can exist, "stewed" is among the worst.
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Oregano and rosemary, while awesome, do not feature heavily in my regular rotation of meals.
Rosemary is a really nice plant, though. It has a nice form and it smells good if you brush up against it.
And I know I will get reamed for saying this, but raw tomatoes gross me out, I will buy mine processed and canned, thanks. Yes, I am a little autistic, get over it.
Not by me. I hate raw tomatoes.
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Rosemary is a great plant, which is why I keep planting more even though it keeps dying, sigh. It's not as bad as the lavender, at least. I guess I just don't live in a Mediterranean climate.
I never used to cook with it before I grew it but now I do occasionally - it's much better fresh.
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Raw tomatoes in small chunks are fine but... whole slices of the stuff, ick.
All that gooey seedy crap in the middle all at once, you know, not little bits of it attached to each cube, it is a total texture thing.
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ONE tomato, raw
ONE shaker of salt
SEVERAL glomps of raw salted tomato
ONE giant smile on my face
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There is no wrong way to eat a tomato. Raw, grilled, stewed, sauced, on a sandwich, in a salad, as a part of thousands of other recipes. It's really the most perfect food on God's green earth.
But right about now when the home grown tomatoes start to roll in. All I need is a tomato and maybe a little salt. I'll eat a whole bag of 'em if I don't watch out.
So good.
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Looks like this whole herb garden thing might really be happening. There is a burst pipe in my yard that we believe to be under one of the existing flowerbeds (though that particular bed is empty except for a few half-dead, foot-high, oddly spaced baby shrubs) and we're going to have to dig it up anyway.
Fortuitous timing of an extremely unfortunate event. But at least once we get it fixed the $130/month water bills should come to an end.
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Well that's an excellent opportunity to do things the right way. Let me know how that goes for you, I don't think I have ever tried it.
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So, I guess it goes without saying that this didn't happen. The burst pipe was not where we thought it was, so I was not able to get someone else to dig up that part of the yard for me.
I am ignoring everything everyone said on Page 1 of this thread and growing a container garden. I've been doing a lot of reading on gardening and I have come to three conclusions:
1) 75% of my yard is unusable for gardening because of too much shade, and another 20% is unusable because my kids play in it. My yard only has about four square feet of usable land in a place that gets enough sun, and I would have to spend one weekend clearing out the overgrowth, another weekend building raised beds, and a third weekend prepping the dirt and actually planting anything. Even if I had three weekends in a row to spare -- which I don't -- I wouldn't be able to get anything in the ground in time for the start of the growing season for most of the things I'd want to grow this spring. And, that's a lot of work and expense up front for a hobby I'm not certain I'm going to stick with.
2) The best sun in my whole yard is right between the swing set and the trampoline, which is a no-go. But the second best sun is up on my deck, and I have a corner that would be lovely for a triangular arrangement of pots and planters in different heights.
3) While it seems like container gardens are a lot more work, it seems that (based on my reading) in-the-ground gardens are a bigger up-front investment of time -- preparing the soil, planting, hoeing, weeding, etc. -- while container gardens take more day-to-day maintenance -- more frequent watering and pruning. I don't have three weekends to kill preparing my yard, but I do have half an hour three or four times a week to take care of some plants on my deck.
So for me, I think containers are the way to go. Here are some pictures of my yard so you can see for yourselves. It's cloudy today, so you can't really get a sense of how shady things are back there, but take my word for it -- most of the yard is shaded for the majority of the day. (My front yard is even worse -- I have solar-powered lights around my front walk, and they are supposed to run for 8 hours on 2 hours of charging -- during the winter they run for maybe 30 minutes after dusk; in summertime, about 2 hours.)
So I am looking into vegetables (which are much more interesting to me than flowers) and tying to figure out what I could plant that will withstand our hot summers and isn't already past planting season. (Cool-weather plants, like lettuce, have to be started indoors around the beginning of February here because our spring is so short.)
Anyway, this is my latest obsession, so I thought I would resurrect this thread so that those of you who couldn't care less can ignore it.
Edit: Forgot to add photo link: http://s1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc497/jldunston/ (http://s1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc497/jldunston/)
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The fenced-in portion of my yard (link in other thread) is where our garden is. It's probably 12' x 20' or so. We've got most everything started and they're sprouting well. I'm not sure when they go in the ground ('m not the professional here). When I get home I'll put in my little update - it'll be fun!
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Whoa, that is seriously not a yard for vegetable gardening.
Looking at what you have there, I would say that if you are looking for a gardening hobby, you need to get interested in ferns, hostas, woodland wildflowers, and early spring bulbs. If you are really only interested in vegetables, unfortunately I don't have any idea what would work in containers in your climate, but I wonder if maybe you could increase your effective space by using trellises and growing beans and stuff that grow on vines.
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Whoa, that is seriously not a yard for vegetable gardening.
Looking at what you have there, I would say that if you are looking for a gardening hobby, you need to get interested in ferns, hostas, woodland wildflowers, and early spring bulbs. If you are really only interested in vegetables, unfortunately I don't have any idea what would work in containers in your climate, but I wonder if maybe you could increase your effective space by using trellises and growing beans and stuff that grow on vines.
I have been piecing this together from various sources, but it looks like I can grow (among other things) blueberries and lettuce in early spring through about June; strawberries through much of the summer if I keep the pots small enough to move from full-sun to part-sun during the hottest months; sugar snap peas are about due to go in the ground (I may have missed the window on seeding them already, but may be able to get seedlings) and green beans can go in a few weeks later; sweet potatoes, carrots, and a few other root vegetables grow almost year-round. All these things love containers, too. The only thing I would really want to grow that don't do so well in containers are watermelons, which are probably a little ambitious for me at this point anyway.
The green beans and snap peas are good candidates for trellises; the snap peas are usually grown in shrubs but if you provide them with a trellis they will climb. And we eat the dickens out of both those things, so that's a huge plus -- a major impetus for doing this is showing my kids that food does not "come from" the grocery store. (Did I say that already somewhere else?)
I don't expect to never have to buy a vegetable from the grocery store again, but I want to be able to take the kids outside, pick some snap peas, wash them off, and have a snack. My daughter is already fascinated with the idea of eating lettuce that comes from just outside our back door -- I have never seen a three-year-old beg for more salad before.
On the original topic of this thread, I do also have some parsley and basil growing on that window ledge we talked about before -- just seedlings so far, but I think I've got it figured out now. (I got pots with proper drainage this time, and I'm watering them much, much less. I drowned the last batch -- big time.) I discovered that the fluorescent light bulb that hangs just above them and never, ever gets turned off (it's our "security" light that keeps us from stubbing our toes during late-night trips to the kitchen) will actually function as a grow light, but without the danger of scorching that comes with heat lamps. So between the natural light through the window and the 24/7 fluorescent glow they're getting, those herbs should do fairly well as indoor plants in that location. Probably not as well as they'd do outside, but well enough to use in spaghetti sauce when I need to.
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Wouldn't you need an awfully huge container to grow sweet potatoes?
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You either need a really big container or a really unambitious gardener. By which I mean, you can grow them in medium-sized containers as long as you don't want too many. This would be a thing I would be more inclined to put in the ground, though -- you can't put other types of plants in with your sweet potatoes because you have to dig up the whole container to harvest them. And I kind of want to be able to plant green leafy things that look nice while they are waiting to produce food.
I just ordered a blueberry bush. I couldn't help myself; blueberries are so awesome. I looked it up on the website for my local agricultural department to make sure this variety would do OK in our heat, and it appears it will survive several years as long as I move it into a partial-sun zone during the hottest part of summer.
Now I'm deciding if I should plant some scallions and carrots together in a big cheap plastic tub (http://www.target.com/Beverage-Tub-H-17-5-W/dp/B003MYAO70/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&searchView=grid5&keywords=party%20tub&fromGsearch=true&sr=1-3&qid=1301172228&rh=&searchRank=target104545&id=Beverage%20Tub%20H%2017%205%20W&node=1038576|1287991011&searchSize=30&searchPage=1&searchNodeID=1038576|1287991011&searchBinNameList=subjectbin%2Cprice%2Ctarget_com_primary_color-bin%2Ctarget_com_size-bin%2Ctarget_com_brand-bin&frombrowse=0) (the ones available in-store are deeper and come in better colors), then elevate the lettuce on a crate to sit behind them.
I know the scallions will grow year-round here; I even have some random scraggly ones growing in my yard. I could do two planters and sow them a few weeks apart and have a harvest once a month. (Carrots and scallions both mature in 60 - 75 days, depending on what variety of carrots you go with.) But I am trying to rein myself in and not plant a billion different things right out of the gate.
It is hard. This might be worse than when I learned to knit. At least yarn doesn't die if you leave it alone for a few busy months.
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Carrots are good for the whole, kids go out and pick a thing and eat it, deal. Sweet potatoes sound like more trouble to grow, and then you can't eat them without cooking them, so they don't work for that.
Here's the other thing: Some vegetables are much tastier when fresh and/or home grown, but others, there's not enough difference to be worth the trouble. I can't imagine sweet potatoes are going to be any better home grown, since they're not the sort of thing where you eat tiny baby fresh raw ones, or anything.
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Carrots are good for the whole, kids go out and pick a thing and eat it, deal. Sweet potatoes sound like more trouble to grow, and then you can't eat them without cooking them, so they don't work for that.
Here's the other thing: Some vegetables are much tastier when fresh and/or home grown, but others, there's not enough difference to be worth the trouble. I can't imagine sweet potatoes are going to be any better home grown, since they're not the sort of thing where you eat tiny baby fresh raw ones, or anything.
That is a very, very good point. And if I really want cheap, locally grown sweet potatoes, I can go to the farmer's market -- they have them year round.
I bought two plastic tubs and some carrot and scallion seeds today. Dammit. It was only $15 for the whole operation, but now I have to go get more potting mix and some gravel to line the tubs once I've drilled drainage holes in them.
I said I wasn't going to do this...my plan was to start small with one or two plants that I could focus on and learn the basics. Now, with the blueberry bush I ordered today and the strawberry plants my mother ordered (she was planning on growing them herself but now she says she wants me to do it, "since you'll be out in the garden anyway"), I'm going to be growing five different things in at least four containers. (I'm going to start one tub of carrots and scallions now and see how it goes before I plant the second one.) That doesn't include the three-pot mini-planter of herbs and flowers in my kitchen window.
I did this when I was learning to knit, too. I would see a pattern I liked, fall in love with it, and think, "Well, I've never done lace before, and I've never done socks, but how hard could lace socks be? They're mostly holes!" (I did finish those, incidentally, and they're beautiful. My mom wears them all the time. But there was a lot of swearing involved before I finally bound off the toes.)
I swear, if I buy another plant this season, somebody come to my house and give me a good swift kick in the ass.
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That is a very, very good point. And if I really want cheap, locally grown sweet potatoes, I can go to the farmer's market -- they have them year round.
Let me also warn you that everything you are growing will be ready at exactly the same time that it is cheap and abundant in your local farmer's market. I know you are not growing stuff to save money, but, it's less annoying if you are expecting it.
This is why I stopped growing most vegetables. We now have a farmer's market literally two blocks away, it just seems stupid. I only grow these little Japanese peppers that I can't get anywhere.
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I was reading my book last night, and it had this to say about growing potatoes in containers: "they come under the heading of 'available year-round at the market at a very reasonable price, and I'd rather use the garden space for something else.'" So McGee & Stuckey are with you on that one.
We have a great farmer's market in Raleigh, but I didn't even go there very often when I lived half a mile away and didn't have any kids. It's so big and there are so many choices, it's actually a little intimidating. Now that I'm more confident about it, I live twenty minutes away and I absolutely refuse to take my kids (they're too big for strollers and there are to many places for them to run off and cause trouble). So I buy most of my produce at the grocery store even though we have this great farmer's market nearby.
But, I like knowing that I *could* get locally-grown food if I were so inclined, and had the time.
There are some things, like the scallions and carrots I planted today, that I think will be much more convenient to be able to just get what I need from the yard as I need it. I am trying to plant things that are "harvest as needed" so that I don't end up with a huge abundance of something that I then have to try to pawn off on unsuspecting neighbors.
I think I may have overplanted the radishes, though. I like them in salads, but other than that, I don't really know what to do with them.
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The idea of a year round farmers market - oh, that would be such a luxury! I wish we had that or the ability to grow some veg year round. That would be wonderful.
I am starting to think about the garden, even though we've still got snow on the ground. I planted a lot of perennial herbs last season, so hopefully they come back up again this year. Sage, basil, thyme, rosemary and dill are all hiding under the snow right now. That and the asparagus.
Locally, there was a terrible blight that took out most of the tomatoes last season, so I'm worried the soil will still be carrying the fungus. I'm going to till the area up really good and work in some compost, but I'm thinking I'm going to plant a lot fewer tomatoes and locate them in a different area of the garden this season.
I really want to grow some sugar snap peas this season, along with the usual beens and carrots. I've yet to have any success with onions, but I'm going to try again this year. I had a huge bounty of potatoes last season, which was good. They were pretty bland tasting though. I'm going to try another variety and see what happens.
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All my onions ended up as the cocktail-type, but I'm pretty sure they weren't supposed to. We've had great luck with tomatoes, potatoes, squash of various varieties, lettuce/spinach/basil, and herbs. I really wish our peppers would work out better - they're usually a little thinner-fleshed than I'd prefer. We had garlic when we first moved in. That was cool, but I'm not sure how you're supposed to propagate them, and I guess we maybe were supposed to leave something in the ground. I think you break up a bulb and plant each one (somewhat like potatoes) and then new bulbs come up all over. I will do that some time.
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Yes, that's how you propagate garlic -- plant each clove and wait for it to sprout. But according to my gardening book, this can take 9 or 10 months. A good solution, if you don't want to wait (and if you want to try something you can't get at the market) is to pull it up and eat it while it's still "green." It has "that unique garlic taste but in a milder version, and a bonus of bright green color."
Begin harvesting the baby garlic plants as soon as they form green leaves, starting about four to five weeks after planting the cloves. After trimming away the roots you eat the whole plant: stem, leaves, and any small bulb that has begun to form at the base -- and that's green garlic. Those left to get a bit larger, with a bulb forming, are perfect for grilling.
You can also treat this as a cut-and-come-again plant. Slice off some green shoots with a knife -- just the amount you need for tonight -- and they'll grow back. You can do this up to five times. The plant grows fast, so keep up the fertilizing with a complete fertilizer.
They recommend planting a clove or two whenever you have some left over from cooking and when you happen to have a small empty space in a container.
Similarly, I'm growing green onions. Regular onions take the better part of a year to reach full size, but green onions are either regular onions harvested before they're mature or a specific breed called "bunching" onions, aka scallions. You can pull up a few young scallions whenever you need them and leave the rest in the ground to grow a week or two more, then replant when about half of them are gone. That sounded convenient to me because I usually only use one or two scallions in a recipe, but it's sold in bunches, so I have to either chop and freeze the remainder or end up throwing it away.
Smells, if you really want to grow tomatoes but are worried about the blight, you might consider putting them in containers. Most tomatoes (except the very largest beefsteak varieties) do well in containers so long as you allow plenty of depth for the roots. And since you live where it's colder, you could start them indoors to get a jump on the growing season and just move the container outside after the last frost. They won't be as big as the tomatoes you can grow in the ground, but they might be better than not having any at all, or sickly ones, from the fungus.
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Yeah, green onions are awesome to grow at home for the reason you've described. I've tried growing full-size onions, both from seed and from onion sets (lil' baby onions you buy at the garden store), and found it to be a waste of resources. (Caveat: my garden really doesn't get enough sun, so take from that what you will.)
We used to get so-called "garlic scapes" or green garlic from our CSA. They were OK, but I never found myself wishing I had them.
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All our garlic was planted before we moved in, so we sort of just reaped the reward.
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So, I planted radishes because I like them in salad and because they mature from seed in less than 30 days, and I wanted my kids to see something come up quickly. They sprouted overnight last night and as soon as the sun comes back out (tomorrow, if the weatherman is to be believed) I'm going to take them outside. My question is this: once they're here what do I do with them?
I only sowed about a dozen seeds, and I imagine half of them will go in some of the numerous salads we've been eating because I have this kickin' lettuce container that supplies me with all the salad greens I could possibly want. But the other half-dozen, does anybody know of something cool and fun to do with radishes (besides carve them into rosettes) that is tasty to eat?
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We request that they don't send them in the organic bin, sorry.
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You have a vegetable that can be carved into flowers, and that's not enough for you? You're a tough customer.
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Slice them real thin, then put them on buttered baguette slices.
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Wrist rocket?
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Okay, I caved. I bought chives and thyme today. I had a small blank space I needed to fill. But herbs don't count, because they require so little care. Right?
Here's what the deck looks like right now:
(http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc497/jldunston/c3fcd40a.jpg)
From the top down, the three-tiered thingamajig is a strawberry pot, but I don't like the design of it. My mom ordered it and then decided she wanted me to take care of it for her, and there's no way for the lower tiers to really get full sun. I'm going to have to rotate them left-to-right and bottom-to-top, which is just too much hassle. On the table next to the strawberries, the yellow contains the chives I bought today and the red pot is the thyme. They're hard to see, but they're good starts (not from seed).
The oblong red tub on the shorter table is where the radishes, carrots, and green onions are sown. The radishes have sprouted and I'm just starting to see spindly little carrot tops come through. Planting them in this container was a mistake, though; the soil settled much more than I expected it would when I watered it the first time, and now I'm worried there's not enough depth for the carrots to mature. This is the container I'm thinking of using for a Purple Queen bush bean (http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/beans/snap/bean-purple-queen-prod000596.html?catId=3000&trail=4166:Bush#null) after the carrots come out.
The tallish, dark red container in the middle is my blueberry bush, which is just starting to wake up after hibernation. The huge yellow tub ($7 at Target; I drilled some drain holes and lined the bottom with rocks) is just dirt right now; in another 3 weeks I'll sow a second round of carrots and green onions (and possibly radishes, if the ones I just planted come out nicely.) The three white urns are the extra strawberry transplants that didn't fit in the three-tiered thing; they're going back to Mom's after she moves into her new place in about a month.
And the lettuce, of course, is still going strong -- on the west side of the arrangement, it gets partial shade. When the lettuce is done, I'm going to spray-paint the container bright yellow (to match the rest of the color scheme) and use it for a fall crop of either more lettuce or some spinach.
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There is still snow on the ground here. It still drops below freezing at night. Sigh.
That looks really good JL. Apart from the fact it made me fall into a bit of a depressions related to our local weather, it looks like a nice little planter garden you can be proud of.
One thing I have always been told is that drainage is overrated in containers, but then I'm pretty sure the level of moisture you get in NC is quite different than what we get in Southern MB. I curse any containers with drainage around my parts. Damn things turn to dry cracked clumps way too fast.
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I am obsessive about drainage because I am a compulsive over-waterer. Even though I know this about myself and try to keep it in check, I don't trust myself not to drown my plants, so I make sure everything I plant in has plenty of drainage.
We have very long, very hot summers with very little rain, but the air is still extraordinarily humid and steamy. With a garden the size of mine, though, it's not a big deal to hand-water (I have a hose bib within easy reach). I am considering, though, setting up some kind of raincatcher barrel system this spring so that I don't have to use tap water on my plants -- water is scarce here in the summer and I don't like to contribute to that.
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I'm toying with the idea of digging up my hops roots and putting them in planters. My 2.5 year old is tromping the weeds into oblivion and there's no doubt the hops will suffer a similar fate once they get going.
Also - we're converging on a decision to hire a gardener. 9 years of having houses with yards hasn't converted me into a lawnscaping genius somehow. It might be time to let a pro do the work.
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I'm toying with the idea of digging up my hops roots and putting them in planters. My 2.5 year old is tromping the weeds into oblivion and there's no doubt the hops will suffer a similar fate once they get going.
Also - we're converging on a decision to hire a gardener. 9 years of having houses with yards hasn't converted me into a lawnscaping genius somehow. It might be time to let a pro do the work.
We're going to have to hire a new guy. Our last gardener dropped off the face of the earth. Of course, he dealt dope on the side, so it was bound to happen eventually.
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I had a hops vine once. I had to get rid of it before it took over the entire city. I think it could stand up to toddlers.
We are on our second gardening company. Really, is it too much to ask such a business to hire people who can tell the difference between something that a person would plant on purpose and a weed?
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We're going to have to hire a new guy. Our last gardener dropped off the face of the earth. Of course, he dealt dope on the side, so it was bound to happen eventually.
I'm assuming he grew weed? Some (OK, so like three) of the best gardeners I know learned the craft growing in unusual conditions.
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I think we're going to hire someone to take care of the front. We don't even own a lawnmower. Of course, we get so little sun in the front that we've only mowed the lawn three or four times in the year we've lived here, but it probably should be done more often than that, plus we have tons of leaves that they can take care of when the mowing is light.
The backyard has no grass anyway, just bare dirt, and until the kids are old enough to take down the swing set, sandbox, and playhouse, that's fine with us. (The trampoline, for its part, will likely stay until they kids move out -- Pedro had one growing up and he said he and his siblings used it well into their teens.)
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Here is an article on what sounds like a near-idiot-proof planting box.
http://www.slate.com/id/2291834/
I've printed out the plans, may try putting one together some weekend coming up.
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HOW THE FUCK DO I KEEP THESE DAMN SQUIRRELS FROM DIGGING UP MY SHIT?!?
Seriously. Squirrels keep digging up my carrots before they're ready. One got a whole CUNT plant, roots and all, just as it was beginning to flower. They've started digging anywhere there's dirt on my deck, even into the chives, just on the off chance that there's something there.
I've put screening up over the carrots and radishes, where they were doing the most damage, but I really don't want to have to do that if there's another way to discourage them.
I'm pretty sure it's squirrels and not birds, because of the way the holes are dug, not pecked.
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It's hard to keep them off the CUNT plants.
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It's hard to keep them off the CUNT plants.
squirrels that like nuts and strawberries?
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Squirrels are evil. There is not nearly enough about squirrels on my blog.
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A squirrel attacked me once.
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I heard they are delicious too. You could kill two birds (so to speak) with one stone.
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I read that cayenne pepper will discourage them from digging. Gives 'em a real hotfoot, literally.
Gonna try that out tomorrow, I think. We'll see if it keeps them out of the chives before I take the netting off the carrots.
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A squirrel attacked me once.
My husband was also once attacked by a squirrel. He has the cutest little scar from where it bit through his earlobe while he was trying to save it from certain death at the hands of his family cat.
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I think. We'll see if it keeps them out of the chives before I take the netting off the carrots.
You want the squirrel and the chives together... in your skillet.
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They sell cayenne pepper as a squirrel repellent to mix with birdseed. My recollection is that what happens is that you just get the squirrels who have a taste for hot food. I'd be interested to know if it solves the digging problem.
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A squirrel attacked me once.
A moose once bit my sister.
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They sell cayenne pepper as a squirrel repellent to mix with birdseed. My recollection is that what happens is that you just get the squirrels who have a taste for hot food. I'd be interested to know if it solves the digging problem.
From what I read, it actually makes their paws burn as they dig. I can't imagine it'd have the same effect in a bird feeder.
Worth a shot? I'll let you know if it works.
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"I went to the movie theatre and when I was there, I ate a whole bag of CUNT flavoured Swedish giraffe."
I love you, Filter-Bot, you are the raddest thing.
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while he was trying to save it from certain death at the hands of his family cat.
This reminds me of a question I have for cat owners. Do you try to save the lives of the mice that your cats attempt to kill? Also, for vegetarian/vegan pet owners, do your pets have the same diet? I know this is way off topic but I've had some discussions on the topics with friends and want y'all's take.
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I am a vegan with about 7 years of professional pet experience (vet and cat shelter) and a vegetarian roommate with a cat. Our cat eats meat, I am pretty sure all cats have to. He does dig on tofurky, but I don't really give him that much, cause it can't be good for him (also, I haven't eaten that shit in months, I am kind of off processed foods.)
From what I understand, you can maybe get away with a vegetarian dog, but is not good for them, and you absolutely have to feed your cat meat. My other roommate (vegan) has rabbits to avoid this whole thing. If our cat was killing a penis I would stop him if it was just beginning and let him kill it if it was far enough that the penis was just going to die anyways. Sometimes I cheer him on when he kills moths. For some reason I fuck*ng hate moths. They are just so disgusting.
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From what I read, it actually makes their paws burn as they dig. I can't imagine it'd have the same effect in a bird feeder.
Worth a shot? I'll let you know if it works.
If they don't care that their mouths burn when they eat the stuff, I am doubtful that their paws are more delicate. But I would love to know what happens.
As for cats, it's the least they can do to kill vermin that gets in the house, it's not like they have any other job, so no, I don't stop them. I'm sure mice would kill me if I got into their house, so I don't feel any guilt about this. And yes, cats MUST eat meat. A vegetarian diet is a good way to kill them.
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My cats eat bugs, but we don't have mice. I don't eat a lot of meat, but what does my cat know? I'm not sure how humanely the animals are treated before they are made into cat chow. Now I'm curious. We do feed them IAMS, so maybe they're kinder about it?
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If our cat was killing a c*ck I would stop him
Well duh. Who wouldn't? OW!
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Iams products are mostly made with stuff like "chicken by-products" which is basically what's leftover when they cut away the parts of the animals that people want to eat. So they are regular factory farmed animals, raised and slaughtered in the usual ways.
There are smaller pet food companies that make a competitve point of where they source their meats, whether they are naturally raised, using the whole animal instead of just the by-products, etc, but I am not sure if any make a claim about whether the animals are more humanely treated. Possible, if they are using smaller farms, but I've never looked into it.
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Iams products are mostly made with stuff like "chicken by-products" which is basically what's leftover when they cut away the parts of the animals that people want to eat. So they are regular factory farmed animals, raised and slaughtered in the usual ways.
There are smaller pet food companies that make a competitve point of where they source their meats, whether they are naturally raised, using the whole animal instead of just the by-products, etc, but I am not sure if any make a claim about whether the animals are more humanely treated. Possible, if they are using smaller farms, but I've never looked into it.
I guess I'll just buy a bunch of chickens, giraffe, and rodents and make 'em fight it out - Thunderdome: Two small animals enter. One small animal leaves.
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Update: mothballs keep squirrels away. I put a few moth balls in cut-off nylon stockings, tied them shut, and placed one in each of the larger containers. I haven't seen a squirrel on the deck since. I win.
Here's a photo of my garden this morning:
(http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc497/jldunston/695b8740.jpg)
If you are hard-core enough to care about the individual plants, read on. Otherwise skip to the bottom picture:
The top level has thyme in the red pot and chives and green garlic in the yellow. The three-tiered thing in the back has strawberries, but it's a poorly designed pot and the strawberries in the white urns on the floor are doing much better.
The huge-leaved things in the translucent red bin are radishes; there were carrots and scallions in there too but the radishes completely took over. I planted a late variety by mistake -- I had expected them to be done by now so I could pull them to make room for the other stuff, but they're not done yet. I also have carrots and scallions in the large yellow bin toward the back -- what the squirrels didn't get -- so that's something. In this climate, I can sow carrots all summer long and harvest just about through Thanksgiving.
The lettuce is just about done; it was really flourishing and then we had a solid week of rain, and the pansies completely took over. Next year I will get an arrangement without flowers. I also lost the parsley I had grown from seed; I don't know what happened there, but I've decided not to bother with herbs from seed since I can buy them at maturity and grow them as perennials in this climate anyway. The white three-pot unit on the bottom near the front has the dead parsley and some nice mint and basil, but I think the mint is going to require a larger pot pretty soon.
Boyface brought home the marigold and the tomato plant from a field trip to the garden center, and I repotted them in yellow and red containers because the tomato was already rootbound and the wind kept blowing them over. The blueberries in the central red pot are still green; I can hardly wait for those.
I want to add more levels to balance the , unify the look of my containers a little better, and next year I'll plant all my strawberries together in a rectangular planter instead of dividing them among all those little pots.
Also, my first strawberry has turned red!
(http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc497/jldunston/0079c8ba.jpg)
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That's sort of an odd-looking strawberry plant, to my Alaskan eyes. Ours were always smaller with more berries.
*Did you try a wrist-rocket against the squirrels, at all?
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I dunno, I'm a noob at this. The plants aren't that big, actually -- they're in miniature urns, about 6" diameter. There's nothing for scale in the picture, but AFAIK they're normal-sized plants.
Mom ordered these plants off the teevee, and they're everbearing, so you get a handful of berries at a time for several weeks instead of one big burst in June. There are two more still-green berries on the side that don't show up very well in the picture. You can see the white flower on top, and there are three more blooms at the top from which the petals have already fallen. And I have three pots like this. The one berry that's red already is a fluke -- the rest are all within a week or so of each other in terms of development. It'll be another two weeks before I have enough to call it a harvest.
Still, it's exciting. My kids were literally jumping up and down on the deck when we went out to look at the plants this morning.
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Yeah, I just mean it looked like it might be running, like Ash said.
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Good stuff. We just got done putting up the deer net, actually BEFORE the deer show up to eat all the tomato plants, so we're ahead of the curve, there.
Lettuce is going crazy, swiss chard is about ready to harvest. The radishes were a total waste of time. And there's actually a couple of cherry tomatoes on that plant.
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The CUNT plant needs more sun, they do that when the leaves are stretching for more sun space when bundled in such as a row.
IMHO, I am not a plant doctor, YMMV.
Oh, yes. That's quite likely. Honestly, though, they are in the best spot for sun in my whole yard. I can't do any better unless I want to go outside and move them around the yard every day to get them out of the shade. Too darn many trees in this 'hood.
I am thinking next year I am going to put them in a rectangular box and hang it like a window box over the side of the deck railing. It would un-bunch the plants a bit, at least.
I'm also going to get good, honest plants from my local garden center instead of taking something my Mom ordered off TV and then decided she didn't want. I don't think these plants (from what I read) are particularly well-suited to my space.
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I'm not picking on your CUNT by the way, it is growing and fruitful so it's not like you've haven't kept it happy enough.
LOL
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Oh, yes. That's quite likely. Honestly, though, they are in the best spot for sun in my whole yard. I can't do any better unless I want to go outside and move them around the yard every day to get them out of the shade. Too darn many trees in this 'hood.
I am thinking next year I am going to put them in a rectangular box and hang it like a window box over the side of the deck railing. It would un-bunch the plants a bit, at least.
I'm also going to get good, honest plants from my local garden center instead of taking something my Mom ordered off TV and then decided she didn't want. I don't think these plants (from what I read) are particularly well-suited to my space.
Hey, that's a good idea, I should do that.
So, I'm gearing up for the gardening season already. The luxuries of living in zone 7B. Some of my herbs died off over the winter because I was lazy about bringing them inside on cold nights and they got frosted. The mint and chives are going to be fine, but I lost the basil, the cilantro, and possibly the parsley (does parsley have a dormant phase?). So I bought a tabletop kit that includes parsley, oregano, chives, basil, and cilantro along with seed starting medium and a little stand that will actually work well as a dining room centerpiece until it gets warm enough to take outside. My dining table gets fairly good sun for an indoor location so I think they'll do alright, and I can transplant them to bigger pots if needed and re-use the tabletop stand next year.
The kids helped me sow the seeds this afternoon and I made a chart so that we can track how many days it takes for the different types of herbs to sprout and how fast they grow once they've appeared. Because what we need more of is Science.
I also sowed some lettuce seeds for an indoor start -- I'll move them outside in about three weeks after they've sprouted. The last two years I've bought pre-sprouted lettuce but it's like $12-$15 for a decent-sized bowl, so I thought I'd try growing it from seed this year. I'm re-using the bowl I bought lettuce in last year, with new potting medium of course. It seemed to have just the right amount of drainage and produced a good crop in a compact space.
It might be too early for lettuce but I figure if it dies I've got enough seeds to start a second crop while it's still cool. I loved having fresh salads all the time last spring, but it's too hot for lettuce in June, July and August around here. I bought my sugar snap pea seeds, too, but those will have to wait 'til early March because the container I use is too big to move indoors, especially with the trellis.
Oh, and I ordered another mushroom log to keep under my sink; I thought it maybe wasn't worth the $35 I spent last year but then I realized that I've bought mushrooms at $3 for 8 ounces four times in the last two weeks and had to throw away three of the packages because they went bad before I could use them. So $5/lb for the convenience, freshness and lack of waste is probably worth it.
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Just interviewed a guy for an article on how climate change will affect gardening, and he says that we already ought to be getting off our asses and planting stuff like lettuce as early as possible, because the summer heat that kills off cool season crops is arriving earlier. And like you say, the worst thing that happens if you lose it to a frost is you plant it again. Seeds are cheap.
Also you know that if there is a late frost you don't have to move the container indoors - you can just cover the plants with a sheet or something. As long as it's not a hard freeze, that's good enough.
Parsley will survive the winter but it's a biennial - it goes to seed early in the second year so you can use it in the spring but then you'll have to plant more.
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Yeah, I know you can just cover the plants (and I have done so with my larger containers) but this lettuce bowl and my herbs are so small that it's honestly easier just to move them.
My parsley was bought as a mature plant, so I'm betting it's not going to do much this year. Especially with the way the squirrels were digging at it all winter.
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I've started gardening planning as well, though I feel less enthusiastic about it than in years past. Who knows, maybe it's just the winter blahs that I tend to get in spades. Hopefully once the weather warms up and I till the garden, I'll get fired up again.
I do a four-stage crop rotation, and this year the biggest plot is devoted to root vegetables. So there will be ample green onions, chives, carrots, parsnips, and radishes. Last year was my best year ever for carrots and parsnips, so I hope to keep up that momentum; they should actually be planted the end of this month. I planted a number of those in toilet paper tubes buried in the ground, which gave them dedicated space. My usual problem is that I plant too many seeds and then don't thin them properly.
I have never had good luck with full-size onions, either from seed or from onion sets. Maybe I'll try that again this year, as I'll have ample room for them.
Elsewhere: tomatoes, of course, hot peppers, lettuce, arugula, swiss chard, zukes, cukes, and okra. I grew okra for the first time last year and was very pleased with the results. The wife and kids don't really like it, so ten or so plants gave me just enough for me to use it occasionally. And the herbs in pots: basil, thyme, rosemary, sage, and mint.
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We might be having a garden this year. My more veggie-eating roommates maintained the previous tenant's garden over last summer/fall and ate lots of yummy stuff from out there. But this year we'd have to do all the planting and everything. I am skeptical, but they claim it's gonna happen.
Every time I see this topic I imagine JL having a little setup in her basement with big lamps and some fun herbs. Relaxing hobby.
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We might be having a garden this year. My more veggie-eating roommates maintained the previous tenant's garden over last summer/fall and ate lots of yummy stuff from out there. But this year we'd have to do all the planting and everything. I am skeptical, but they claim it's gonna happen.
Every time I see this topic I imagine JL having a little setup in her basement with big lamps and some fun herbs. Relaxing hobby.
Planting is the easy/fun part of gardening. Weeding in July is the arduous, hard to stick with part.
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Actually, I decided waaaay back that the investment of getting enough grow lights and dedicated indoor space was too much, and now I start my seeds indoors but move them to the back deck as soon as it's warm enough. Paul saw my garden when he was here -- and tasted the results. :)
You can grow most vegetables in containers, which eliminates the need for weeding. But if you've already got a dedicated plot, it makes more sense to use that. Planting is easy, like AW said, though -- get a good book on the topic from the library and make sure to pick varieties that are labeled "easy to grow" and are well-suited to your zone. If you go to Burpee.com and put in your zip code, then choose a vegetable, scroll down to where you see some tabs, click "growing info" and it will tell you exactly when to plant, when to expect harvest, and how to sow and grow that plant. It's really useful in the planning stages.
There are apps that help you plan your garden -- Gardening Toolkit is my favorite -- but a notebook and a pencil can't be beat.
If seeds scare you, you can always get seedlings and transplant them. It's a little more expensive but in my experience it's easier to get good yields from a plant that's been pampered by a nursery. You can also go to a locally-owned nursery and tell someone there, "Hey, I'm new to gardening but I really want to grow some veggies, what's easy to grow around here, and how do I care for it?" Gardeners are thrilled to share their craft with newbies. Just don't go on a Saturday or Sunday if you have a lot of questions -- stop by during the week when business is slow. Thank them by buying a few potted herbs or some supplies -- local nurseries lose a lot of business to big-box home improvement stores this time of year.
I'd recommend planting things you like and want to eat, but if you're salad people I'd recommend a looseleaf lettuce over a head-type lettuce. You can snip off exactly what you need as you need it and it will grow back, instead of harvesting the whole head at a time. Lettuce is super easy to grow but it has shallow roots so you have to grow it from seed, and it's a cool-weather crop so you'll have to have it in the ground before the last frost for the best yield.
Other stuff that's easy: Carrots, tomatoes, green onions, radishes, peppers. Some people say beans and peas are easy but I have had a hard time with them. (I think I planted too early in the fall & the heat stifled them.) Most herbs are easy too, but I'd seriously recommend containers for those, even if you have the ground space -- many of them tend to creep & will take over. Any kind of greens are low-maintenance, including spinach & kale, provided you plant them in the fall or early spring when it's not too hot. And most of these things (other than the greens) freeze well for use all winter long.
In related news, I started my mushroom spawn yesterday. So excited!
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I can attest to the tastiness of your garden (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/8508571944/in/photostream/lightbox/).