5 ms·

Have people also started growing vegetables and herbs at home as their creative projects? Unfortunately basics of agricultural farming are not part of school c

Have people also started growing vegetables and herbs at home as their creative projects? Unfortunately basics of agricultural farming are not part of school curriculum. I wonder if that was so at some point in the past. Wouldn't it be so great if everyone of us knew the basics of farming like we know basic maths? It could in theory result in growing more plants (good for environment), getting some fresh vegetables or fruits every now and then, a past time activity to enhance one's mental health by getting to work with your hands and creating something from bare minimum?

floren 6y ago
I've heard that there are a lot more people planting gardens this year, yes. I'm not doing more than some beans and peppers due to previous experience with our desert summers, but if I was somewhere more temperate / water-rich, I'd definitely be doing it. My high school had an FFA chapter that had a small garden behind the shop building; students with room at home would also raise sheep, cattle, and hogs. There weren't a lot of people in FFA, though. I think gardening, at the very least, would be a good addition to the curriculum... ideally I'd like to see all students taking at least one home economics / shop type course every year beginning in middle school, but if wishes were horses...
nxc18 6y ago
Its been trendy to start gardening since the beginning of covid, at least anecdotally (I've ramped up my container gardening) and from what I hear on podcasts. The 'Victory Garden' in particular is a trendy concept and I'm all for it. My one concern about this as a food source is that if you don't have soil (in other words, you have to buy it and put in containers, then amend heavily) I suspect this is vastly more expensive and worse for the environment than buying from farms. The quality is fantastic though - tomatoes from the store make me gag, but fresh off the vine the ones I grow are delicious. It is also very good for mental health.
- HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
  Sounds like a pretty good tradeoff to me.
datavirtue 6y ago
I have. Not for a project but because I'm vegetarian and super market produce is absolute garbage. Often old, mostly tasteless, picked unripened, and grown on NPK fertilizers is depleted soil resulting in a lack of macro nutrients. I filled huge raised beds with mushroom compost (trucked in) and topped them with locally sourced municiple wood chips (keeps soil from drying out). Companion planting has almost completely staved off pests and the crops are growing vigorously. We plan to run cold crops under hooped plastic in the winter. We have been eating out of the garden for weeks now. Check out "back to Eden" of you want to reduce labor. Basically talks about how they used cover to create healthy soil grow crops in parched conditions.
gcheong 6y ago
I have a garden but dealing with bugs and weeds limits my enthusiasm for planting crops outdoors and so in addition to just growing a few things outside I’ve also been growing things in our AeroGarden and am experimenting with Kratky style hydroponics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kratky_method https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kratky_method .
- lostlogin 6y ago
  This can be helped (but not solved) by sticking to a few basic things that grow well in your climate. As soon as I try something that is borderline the amount of work requires goes way up.
- seesawtron 6y ago
  good luck mate. looks interesting
- datavirtue 6y ago
  It is really easy to deal with moisture retention, weeds, and pests. Check out back to Eden and companion planting. It works. I'm an experienced hydroponic grower and outdoor gardener that had given up for the same reasons. Hydroponics is an excessive amount of labor though it yeilds well and is good indoors. Back to Eden was a revelation (more like Duh!!) for me and outdoor gardening has been much easier and much more profitable.
mattkevan 6y ago
After seeing the devastated shelves in the local supermarket shortly before lockdown, I semi-jokingly bought a load of vegetable seeds wondering whether I’d need to dig up the lawn and turn it into a kitchen garden. Three months later we’ve got a good crop of cucumber, tomatoes, peppers and carrots going.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  You and a lot of others. A seed distributor I have a distant connection with with was running at about 7x normal volumes. They were also selling a lot of things that won’t be grown easily at this time of year, so there are likely to be mixed results.
analog31 6y ago
We expanded our backyard garden. Getting things to plant has been an effort, since we didn't want to go into the garden stores. We found some seeds at the supermarket, which are turning out to not be very fertile. Our biggest challenge is dealing with the growing season in Wisconsin, which requires starting things indoors. Next year we'll know to research things sooner, and we'll figure out where to find things like the right kinds of disease resistant varieties.
stellar678 6y ago
I finally figured out how to keep a supermarket basil plant alive, how to promote new growth and slow down flowering. And I've also succeeded at rooting and planting it - so now I have 5 supermarket basil plants! It's really gratifying - but my windowsill definitely won't be enough to grow the amount of herbs I'd like to consume. Perhaps I'll have to take my new knowledge to the back yard.
- swimfar 6y ago
  Are you doing something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD9CIQ7ynOc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD9CIQ7ynOc I heard about it recently and want to try it out next time I get a basil plant.
  - stellar678 6y ago
    Yep, pretty much exactly that. The supermarket basil (I think it's Genovese Basil) feels a bit more delicate than the ones he shows there, the result being that maybe 1/3 of the cuttings just rotted away in the water. But 2/3 success felt pretty good!
rch 6y ago
The concept of educational community gardens and seed libraries occasionally comes up in conversation about the scope of services provided by traditional (book) libraries. As an example, there's an official program in Boulder already: https://boulderlibrary.org/seed-to-table/ https://boulderlibrary.org/seed-to-table/
dillonmckay 6y ago
There are college degrees for that sort of thing.
stevekemp 6y ago
Very much so. There have been a lot of news articles, especially in the UK which I follow more carefully, about it. I've been growing herbs, and flowers, on my balcony for years, but this year we managed to get an allotment - 10mx10m for €50/year, and only a few minutes walk from our house. We spent a lot of time cutting down grass, weeding and similar, but we got very lucky with the timing. We gained access in mid-May before all the places were claimed, and we've managed to plant Onions, Garlic, Potatoes, and a bunch of pretty plants. Radish/Turnips/Carrots aren't doing so well, but everything else is thriving. Things are growing well and every couple of days I head over to water, weed, and take care of the plot. I'm actually surprised by how much I've been enjoying the process.

floren 6y ago

I've heard that there are a lot more people planting gardens this year, yes. I'm not doing more than some beans and peppers due to previous experience with our desert summers, but if I was somewhere more temperate / water-rich, I'd definitely be doing it. My high school had an FFA chapter that had a small garden behind the shop building; students with room at home would also raise sheep, cattle, and hogs. There weren't a lot of people in FFA, though. I think gardening, at the very least, would be a good addition to the curriculum... ideally I'd like to see all students taking at least one home economics / shop type course every year beginning in middle school, but if wishes were horses...

nxc18 6y ago

Its been trendy to start gardening since the beginning of covid, at least anecdotally (I've ramped up my container gardening) and from what I hear on podcasts. The 'Victory Garden' in particular is a trendy concept and I'm all for it. My one concern about this as a food source is that if you don't have soil (in other words, you have to buy it and put in containers, then amend heavily) I suspect this is vastly more expensive and worse for the environment than buying from farms. The quality is fantastic though - tomatoes from the store make me gag, but fresh off the vine the ones I grow are delicious. It is also very good for mental health.

HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
Sounds like a pretty good tradeoff to me.

datavirtue 6y ago

I have. Not for a project but because I'm vegetarian and super market produce is absolute garbage. Often old, mostly tasteless, picked unripened, and grown on NPK fertilizers is depleted soil resulting in a lack of macro nutrients. I filled huge raised beds with mushroom compost (trucked in) and topped them with locally sourced municiple wood chips (keeps soil from drying out). Companion planting has almost completely staved off pests and the crops are growing vigorously. We plan to run cold crops under hooped plastic in the winter. We have been eating out of the garden for weeks now. Check out "back to Eden" of you want to reduce labor. Basically talks about how they used cover to create healthy soil grow crops in parched conditions.

gcheong 6y ago

I have a garden but dealing with bugs and weeds limits my enthusiasm for planting crops outdoors and so in addition to just growing a few things outside I’ve also been growing things in our AeroGarden and am experimenting with Kratky style hydroponics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kratky_method https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kratky_method .

lostlogin 6y ago
This can be helped (but not solved) by sticking to a few basic things that grow well in your climate. As soon as I try something that is borderline the amount of work requires goes way up.
seesawtron 6y ago
good luck mate. looks interesting
datavirtue 6y ago
It is really easy to deal with moisture retention, weeds, and pests. Check out back to Eden and companion planting. It works. I'm an experienced hydroponic grower and outdoor gardener that had given up for the same reasons. Hydroponics is an excessive amount of labor though it yeilds well and is good indoors. Back to Eden was a revelation (more like Duh!!) for me and outdoor gardening has been much easier and much more profitable.

mattkevan 6y ago

After seeing the devastated shelves in the local supermarket shortly before lockdown, I semi-jokingly bought a load of vegetable seeds wondering whether I’d need to dig up the lawn and turn it into a kitchen garden. Three months later we’ve got a good crop of cucumber, tomatoes, peppers and carrots going.

lostlogin 6y ago
You and a lot of others. A seed distributor I have a distant connection with with was running at about 7x normal volumes. They were also selling a lot of things that won’t be grown easily at this time of year, so there are likely to be mixed results.

analog31 6y ago

We expanded our backyard garden. Getting things to plant has been an effort, since we didn't want to go into the garden stores. We found some seeds at the supermarket, which are turning out to not be very fertile. Our biggest challenge is dealing with the growing season in Wisconsin, which requires starting things indoors. Next year we'll know to research things sooner, and we'll figure out where to find things like the right kinds of disease resistant varieties.

stellar678 6y ago

I finally figured out how to keep a supermarket basil plant alive, how to promote new growth and slow down flowering. And I've also succeeded at rooting and planting it - so now I have 5 supermarket basil plants! It's really gratifying - but my windowsill definitely won't be enough to grow the amount of herbs I'd like to consume. Perhaps I'll have to take my new knowledge to the back yard.

swimfar 6y ago
Are you doing something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD9CIQ7ynOc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD9CIQ7ynOc I heard about it recently and want to try it out next time I get a basil plant.
- stellar678 6y ago
  Yep, pretty much exactly that. The supermarket basil (I think it's Genovese Basil) feels a bit more delicate than the ones he shows there, the result being that maybe 1/3 of the cuttings just rotted away in the water. But 2/3 success felt pretty good!

rch 6y ago

The concept of educational community gardens and seed libraries occasionally comes up in conversation about the scope of services provided by traditional (book) libraries. As an example, there's an official program in Boulder already: https://boulderlibrary.org/seed-to-table/ https://boulderlibrary.org/seed-to-table/

dillonmckay 6y ago

There are college degrees for that sort of thing.

stevekemp 6y ago

Very much so. There have been a lot of news articles, especially in the UK which I follow more carefully, about it. I've been growing herbs, and flowers, on my balcony for years, but this year we managed to get an allotment - 10mx10m for €50/year, and only a few minutes walk from our house. We spent a lot of time cutting down grass, weeding and similar, but we got very lucky with the timing. We gained access in mid-May before all the places were claimed, and we've managed to plant Onions, Garlic, Potatoes, and a bunch of pretty plants. Radish/Turnips/Carrots aren't doing so well, but everything else is thriving. Things are growing well and every couple of days I head over to water, weed, and take care of the plot. I'm actually surprised by how much I've been enjoying the process.