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2014 functional edible garden plan

sprinkl

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Okay, my main goals this year are to have lots of vegetables and to have a natural fencing of vegetable plants to have some privacy from our neighbours in a cheap and edible way.
Pepper seeds are planted, strawberry plants are growing and the blackberry plant is making shoots. The raspberry plant isn't doing much yet.

For fencing I'd like to plant corn, beans and squash together as I've read they are a well functioning combo.
Corn provides a natural pole for bean vines to climb. Beans fix nitrogen on their roots, improving the overall fertility of the plot by providing nitrogen to the following years corn. Bean vines also help stabilize the corn plants, making them less vulnerable to blowing over in the wind. Shallow-rooted squash vines become a living mulch, shading emerging weeds and preventing soil moisture from evaporating, thereby improving the overall crops chances of survival in dry years. Spiny squash plants also help discourage predators from approaching the corn and beans. The large amount of crop residue from this planting combination can be incorporated back into the soil at the end of the season, to build up the organic matter and improve its structure.

Corn, beans and squash also complement each other nutritionally. Corn provides carbohydrates, the dried beans are rich in protein, balancing the lack of necessary amino acids found in corn. Finally, squash yields both vitamins from the fruit and healthful, delicious oil from the seeds.

I want to try classic strains of sweet corn besides those super sweet hybrids but I read you can't plant them together because of the genes? I interpret this that if they pollinate each other they could all be super sweet or all be regular sweet? If that's the case I won't be ordering the hybrids..

What will also be ordered are mushroom plugs, to grow mushrooms on logs of trees. This is new to me and I'm pretty curious about it. We love eating mushrooms, but they can be so damn pricey. I've grown psychedelic ones before in pre mixed grow kits, just open the lid and add water, easiest thing I've ever grown, let's hope this goes as well.

Also some sunflowers, for additional fence blockage and to try harvesting the seeds.

Tomato plants will be bought from the garden center as I feel I'm a bit on the late side to be popping seeds. I want huge tomato plants :)
I'm not growing in a greenhouse this year so I'm a bit worried about rot though. I'm hoping to find some strains that do well in open air. I better order some resistant strains just in case the garden center ones don't finish the job.

It's likely that I'll grow a bunch more vegetables but for now these are the essential ones.

And finally some image/poster I found about vegetables which is really cool:
http://popchartlab.com/collections/prints/products/the-various-varieties-of-vegetables
VarietiesofVegetables_914x627_A_1024x1024.jpg
 

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