The Easiest Plants to Grow in My Garden.

I recently bought a 19" rear tine tiller so I could make a ground level garden plot, I'm thinking about 20'x30', don't want it too big.......I keep making more work for myself dog gone it!! I really want to grow a small stand of Corn.

Spices too... Now I have a kitchen cabinet full of them.

I'm a renter but I have a nice backyard to work with. This year I'm doing almost everything out of planters. I've got lots of them now.

It looks like I should restart my spicy peppers again too. I don't see any growth coming from them. A squirrel dug around in the boxes. They've been a bigger pain than usual this year. I've been sprinkling cayenne pepper everywhere to try and spice them out.

Depending on where you are you'd better have a tall fence and some mean dogs.

They'll end up pulled up and smoked by some dumb kid before they get a foot tall.

That's funny, I didn't even think of that. I was thinking the police but kids would be a problem too. Worse than squirrels.

Legal
4 plants per household or per person or something like that.

Last year a buddy grew and wound up with pound of bud

A Permaculture garden in other words.
(Free pamphlets...great reads)
[link to permaverde.wordpress.com (secure)]

And...

Not here in the desert Brief ...

I had mint in the front for years just a small patch ...

And overnight it just vanished ..lol..Animals but its gone...

The desert Dryness ...And the Heat will almost kill anything...

Corn grows well in Upstate NY. We've grown some in the backyard just for fun. Because of the shade and incorrect soil, they never produced much.

There have been a few random stalks that grew right in town. I'd see a couple on the way to the grocery store near the sidewalk. People left them alone and they actually grew a few small ears of corn.

They make excelleny sweet relish. I used to make 12 jars a year for my brother. Make it like regular cukumber relish. I added red, yellow and green peppers to give it nifty color.

Figure one mature corn for every 5 square feet, you're going to get around 100 pieces of corn out of that 600 sq ft area most likely. I made that mistake once and never will again. If you have a small garden ,vegetables that produce multiple fruit over the season are much better like squash, peppers and 'maters. You can always trade things like peppers , beans and tomatoes for corn.

Corn is one of the worst producers on a per acre basis and if you have a small garden it isn't worth growing

Try hanging planters. I grow my cherry tomatoes in them and the animals leave them alone. In the desert you would have to water them a lot.

Sun/Jerusalem chokes

Lovage

Miner's lettuce

Day lilies (flowers and roots are edible...and yummy)

Hostas (all varieties are edible, and are grown for this purpose in Asia)

Scallions

Sage (Grows like a runner in my garden)

Scarlet Runner Beans

Red Sorrel

Several varieties of thyme

Lemon grass (turns into huge, beautiful fountains of delicious grass)

Asparagus

Primrose (this is an actual runner, so make a separate bed for it, like mint)

Oregano

Peppermint/Spearmint

Bee Balm

Passion fruit

Dwarf mulberry

Alpine Strawberries

Rhubarb

Arugula

Celery

Cilantro

Parsley

Rosemary

Basil

"Dead" Nettle (an edible nettle with no sting, but all of the nutrients)



Whereas all of these great plants, and tons of annual veggies, flourish and multiply in my garden beds, with little or no attention from me, often re-seeding themselves, I have tried, REALLY tried, to grow lavender, year after year, with miserable results.

Why, lavender? Why are you impossible to keep alive?!

I'm super picky with relishes but when I find a good one I enjoy it on hot dogs. I used to get some hot dogs late at night from a street vendor that made his own mango relish. So good...

The little wild strawberries here in the NW are incredibly sweet. They are not feral garden strawberries.

This is exactly back asswards. Fruit appeals to animals so they WILL eat it, and pass the seed in their manure. This is exactly why things like apples and berries are sweet.

I highlighted the ones I've grown before. I noticed a lot of nettles this year in one patch of lawn. They aren't the good kind and they hurt like hell if you grab one. I've only nicked my hands a few times digging them out.

That's correct but someone forgot to tell that to my wild strawberries..

They are a little sweet but I would prefer more.

I have to admit, I pulled up a few plants in my younger days. But I always waited until they flowered.


Got shot at by a psychotic vitamin vet one time having a "post traumatic stress reaction" too.

"Vietnam vet"

Thanks for the links. I'll check them out. I do like doing some work for the reward but the easy plants are very nice to have too.

Cilantro, Zucchini, Cukes, pumpkins, melons, oregano, lettuce

I force myself to wait to grow cilantro now because I want to time it with my peppers and tomatoes. It grows so fast and they don't...

That's the last thing I need...

My parents were chain smokers and now I have the lungs of a 70 year old...

We're high and dry, so not much grows easily here. But I can always grow chard, kale, lemon balm, carrots, beets, green onions, garlic, mint and currants.

I use a raised bed pattern: 8'x3'x10" box with a hoop house made of half inch plumbing lengths cut in half circles and the ends stuck in the dirt, then covered with painter's drop plastic and held down with rocks. This will keep the above plants growing in sub-zero weather at night as long as the days warm up. And they do. Squash and pumpkin grow well in the summer.

You can live on kale, chard and beets.

I had a huge pumpkin plant last year but it never produced. They can be frustrating. I take a handful of lemon balm leaves and rub them between my hands. I then rub them on my arms, neck, legs and ears to keep mosquitoes away.

Most times when you have a big beautiful plant that won't fruit, you simply need to help pollination. There are fewer bees than there used to be in many areas. You can just jostle the flowers, shake one flower into another, or use a Q-tip or a feather to gather pollen in one flower and move it to another flower and back again. I do a lot of "flicking" my blossoms to encourage fruiting.