What type of produce do you grow?

[the-gnole]

Gnole - what advantages are there in using those wooden edges/beds in your pics? Would you not get just the same result from an old fashioned ordinary garden? My next door neighbour has a garden like yours but it just seems to turn into chaos halfway through the season...

The beds are 5ft wide with paths in between, I can reach all parts of them without having to walk over them, so very easy to maintain, I can rotate which crops I grow in each bed and find what grows best in which bed, and even in what part of each bed, I can also use different soil types in each bed (when I get better at it) so if a particular veg likes a more acid soil I can adjust it to suit.

I can also use the poly-tunnels on some and net tunnels on others.

also saves me getting my boots dirty walking up and down the garden

[Big fat bill]

Hi

One piece of advise is to make a note of the variety you plant (of anything you grow) and record how well it grew/survived/tasted. So you don't buy seeds that don't like your soil/climate a second time!

Cheers

Matt

Absolutly imperative imfomation there Matt. Garlic is the prime example of being a soil / climate restrictive crop. It's worth recording a lot of detail as you know. I tend to record type of soil used for seedlings, temperiture, date of potting on etc and then potting out and final records on plants etc. I found out why my sweetcorn was not growing despite it having a good start because of the notes taken.
I was talking to the seed seller and telling them I'd had no luck for 2 years running with there seed, a heritage variety. They had not had the same complaints as mine, certainly over two years and when I recounted what I had done from my note book it was clear that i'd planted them out too early. F1 varieties can go out in April but the heritage cannot go out until the end of May at the very earliest.

Also if you are taking part in the Big Biochar experiment http://www.bigbiocharexperiment.co.uk/this next year then notes will be needed.

[mongrel]

My advise is to grow what you will eat, often in the past I've had crops that nobody really used simply because gardening books suggested them.
One more thing as a prepper I hope your only using non-hybrid seeds, so you can collect and use your own seeds, the supermarket seeds will no breed true so are useless for your long term use.
Try getting your seeds from http://www.realseeds.co.uk/ no dearer but you can plant from your own seeds.

Just enjoy the garden eating your produce nothing is better

Mongrel

[the-gnole]

Nah, I'm using what will hopefully give me the best crop now, Maybe one day the world will become a hell hole where we can't get seeds, but until then

I do try to only grow what we will eat, but if there is a glut we give away or sell the rest

[mongrel]

Oh well the day the world becomes a hell hole, then it's late! thats why we are Preppers, or so I thought.

In my garden I keep the best plants for seeds, so over the years I've started growing what does best for me, right here in my area, in a way breeding my own variety, so even if hell does not break lose I've still got the seeds best suited to me!

Each to his own

Mongrel

[the-gnole]

Nah, in the real world some of us prep for other stuff most likely to have an effect on our lives.

With any crop seeds you can't keep using your last years crop seeds ad infinitum. So even if you do use non F1 Hybrids now they are going to be quite different genetically in a few seasons time.

Can you indicate a particular cataclysmic event that will require me to use Non F1 hybrid seeds please

[Carrot Cruncher]

I may be mistaken but i'm sure I read somewhere that F1 seeds are not necessarily useless. Some might not work the following year, some just might not inherit the characteristics of the parent etc (eg they might not be frost resistant) and some might work just fine.

I am slowly (very slowly) building up a store of "non-Hybrid" but also use F1 seeds that are better suited to my growing conditions

[the-gnole]

I may be mistaken but i'm sure I read somewhere that F1 seeds are not necessarily useless. Some might not work the following year, some just might not inherit the characteristics of the parent etc (eg they might not be frost resistant) and some might work just fine.

I saw that as well CC, maybe that's why my runner beans were bigger this year

An article

http://www.gardenguides.com/3019-hybrid-delemma.html

how can you pass judgment on a thing when you don't understand it? (Okay, I know politicians do that all the time, but we're gardeners, remember?) At its simplest, a hybrid plant is one with two unrelated parents. Grow two summer squash plants in your garden and let the bees do that thing they do so well, and save the seeds. Plant them in the garden next summer, and the plants that come up are hybrids. (Whether or not they will be worth much depends on whether or not their parents were themselves F1 hybrids, something we will get to shortly.) Doesn't sound like much to get polarized about, does it? But this defines what a hybrid is, without saying much about how we put this bit of botanical science to use. And that, as usual, is where things get a bit more complicated, and where some people grow uncomfortable.

Hybridization is a tool essential to the science and art of plant breeding, that part of agriculture that makes possible the myriad variety of plants available for our gardens, and plays a crucial role in keeping Humanity a step or two (though sometimes it seems like less) ahead of mass starvation. In some breeding programs two plants (usually but not always of the same species) that have traits - color, flavor, disease resistance, etc. - that a plant breeder thinks would create a useful and/or profitable plant, are brought together and cross-pollinated. The seeds from these crosses are planted out and the progeny (the so-called F1 generation) are screened for the best combination of the desired traits and segregated from others of their own kind. What follows are years (sometimes many years) of careful selection and back-crossing with parental types that ultimately bring about a new plant variety. The open-pollinated varieties most of us prefer these days began their careers this way.

Read more: The Hybrid Delemma | Garden Guides http://www.gardenguides.com/3019-hybrid ... z1hrwI3KYM

[Plantiejo]

I have just read this thread with interest. As a grower for over 20 years I still learn something new every day and am pleased to do so.
(the-gnole) - I have tried the Square Foot Gardening Method as in Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work by Mel Bartholomew (1 May 2005). There are now newer versions. It worked for me at the time. I found it very easy to manage and decided it was the best method for smaller growing spaces that I have ever tried.

(Big Fat Bill, Mongrel and Carrot Cruncher) Seeds, the only ones for me now are also sourced from the real seed company. This is because I feel it SO important to practice the skills of growing AND self seed saving. The seed saving bit I knew very little about until I started doing it 2 years ago. I get good crops but I have an unheated Polytunnel that assists the process no end. The covered growing space being the best move I had made so far......until..... I was introduced to Permaculture.

Now all my energies go into planting and growing things that are useful and have very little input of energy (from me) to get a useful item from them (food, plant ties, firewood, building materials, etc). It takes time to adjust in method and get established but I feel it is worth it in the long run. On a very basic level, the growing part, can likened to replacing Community Trees (beside the road, in parks, etc) with Fruit Trees that are useful to us all.

One of the reference books that I use regularly is Creating A Forest Garden (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creating-Forest ... 1900322625)

I am a member of the Permaculture Association (http://www.permaculture.org.uk/) Well worth looking at for sustainable living and ways of preparing for the future. Right down to how to build your own compost loo. I have been enjoying learning about the Permaculture Principles and I feel they are closely linked to all the skills needed to being a prepared for anything. I have been fortunate also to have now visited a dozen or more communities living this way and shared skills with them.

[Reservior]

I am a member of the Permaculture Association (http://www.permaculture.org.uk/) Well worth looking at for sustainable living and ways of preparing for the future. Right down to how to build your own compost loo. I have been enjoying learning about the Permaculture Principles and I feel they are closely linked to all the skills needed to being a prepared for anything. I have been fortunate also to have now visited a dozen or more communities living this way and shared skills with them.

I know a few permaculturalists (is that a word? ) and they are all either preppers or very open to the idea of it. I agree with you, permaculture isn't a million miles away from prepping and permaculture can teach preppers a thing or two.

I don't suppose you are a professional gardener are you? Your not too far from me and I could do with someone to come round and do some work