My little Urbstead (urban homestead)

[captain planet]

Getting ready and gearing up for the 2013 season and I thought there might be a chance others might be interested in what I got goin on. I don't have a ton of space and I'm not a pro, but I really enjoy producing (some) food for and with my family, and connecting with the luna's. I live in a big city and have about 25 x 25 yard. I have 6 2 x 8 raised boxes for veggies , 2. *1 x5ft for herbs, various wine barrels and pots..... In ground will be 3 black beauty squash, 3 yellow str8 neck squash, working on getting a fig (purple)tree, and an apple tree. (gala) . Must have as of yesterday a rain barrel, just haven't got around to it. **Next post, full seed list!

 

[captain planet]

Perennial herbs: *no seeds anymore, *sage, oregano, thyme, mint ( is mint perennial? If not it reseeds itself well) and our dill reseeds itself well ( we get really pretty caterpillars on the dill that turn into black swallowtail butterflies, really cool)*

we will be starting genovese basil, cilantro, parsley moss curled, rosemary (all Martha Stewart USDA organic seed) .... I think were gonna find a few spots for lavender. That's about it as far as herbs go. But we r planting cold crops soon so let me go grab them..... I'll be back

 

[captain planet]

Cold/cooler crops
Dwarf blue kale
Bloomsdale spinach
Rainbow chard
Cosmic purple carrot
Danver 126 carrot..... All from "sustainable seed co."

And add Russian tarragon to the herbs

 

[captain planet]

Tomato we have: csikos botermo, and pantano romanesco
Pepper: sweet king of the north for bell, and frauds grande jalapeño ( if I had more room I'd be all about some habs and bhuts)*
All of the maters, pepps, and squash are heirlooms from baker creek heirloom seeds.........there is a pack of cucumber seeds looking at me and I just don't know where it's gonna go
Let me know what you guys are rockin, when your startin, how your startin.......... Maybe this week I'll work on getting setup to post pics

 

[captain planet]

Ooooops! How could I forget the alliums.... Red onions just went in last week and the Chesnok red hardneck garlic has been in since nov..... The garlic shoots are already above ground woohoo. Third or fourth year growing garlic, and this is our first year of growing from the best bulbs we grew from last year!!!! Can't find the onion set package right now, I think the Chesnok red garlic came from .. The garlic store.com or somethin like that*

 

[unclefishstick]

already past the typical last frost date here,already had broccoli and red cabbage in ground for a couple of weeks,i cheated and got some bonnie starts,its my first real garden...

 

[Treetroit City]

My wife always has dill just for the swallowtails. I think the Monarchs prefer milkweed which grows naturally.

 

[unclefishstick]

one of my red yuccas is starting to bloom,i know hummingbirds love those

 

[captain planet]

Unc- Broccoli and cabbage are two I haven't done yet! We've stuck to things we use the most of and can fit the most in. I'm not sure if the broc would be efficient for us. Ahhh last year half our plants were starts from the nursery,... Year before tho was all seeds...... Every window of the house had beer cups side to side in every window . * * This year the tent is taken over 3/4 of the way*

 

[captain planet]

My wife always has dill just for the swallowtails. I think the Monarchs prefer milkweed which grows naturally.

There really cool! If you have any kiddies they also make a great biology lesson, if you setup alitte terrarium for them and take the fat adults in. One year, we had a crystalys/ cacoon, sit all winter and just about forgot it.... Early spring one of the kiddies walk by to see a surprise... It was pretty cool

 

[unclefishstick]

i really have only the faintest idea what im doing here,but nothing like jumping in feet first...it was only a year ago i even started having any non ganja plants in the house,so i went from 1 to close to 200 plants species in a year....

 

[captain planet]

Yeah that's the only way! Every year we do a few more firsts!

 

[captain planet]

Ok so I open the fridge and bam! I forgot the strawberrie transplants we picked up, quinault, and honeoye, ones a June bearer and ones..... Not !?! I'm winging the strawberries this year

 

[unspoken]

i really have only the faintest idea what im doing here,but nothing like jumping in feet first...it was only a year ago i even started having any non ganja plants in the house,so i went from 1 to close to 200 plants species in a year....

I did the same thing. My first year was pretty much a disaster, but then I got the hang of things by the second year.

 

[captain planet]

The kale plants we started indoor are now outside in a box. keep fingers crossed for me. .... Strawberries are healed in till we have the time and space to plant them good, it's startinnnn

 

[unclefishstick]

lol, zone 8a for the win baby,way past last frost here already,even the sprouts are out in the sun all day!

 

[hippie_lettuce]

Can't wait until we can move to a place permanently with a better growing season. At least some of my garlic is coming up!! I thought I planted them way too late. My peppers are still chilling indoors and I'm about to drop 7 types of tomatoes and peas. I'm going to try a couple of upside down tomatoes using canvas grocery bags. Cheap experiment and saw a nice looking tomato plant like that at a greenhouse.

One of the better points about living here is that there are many farms to get all kinds of manure, most of the time for free.

 

[Galactic]

Cool things you got planned. Tuned for the summer

 

[captain planet]

Unc- zone 8a ..... U got the glue, do you really gotta rub you growing zone in my face *..... I said in another post I was zone5/6, but I think I'm really 6/7 ( I really wanna move to Maine and do a little subsistence/med farm, I guess it's a solid 5 mostly up there
Hippie- *did someone say garlic! Tomatoes like that seem pretty cool, I wish I had more places to hang things, although they dry out a Bajillion times more quick.
Thanx galactic, I'm gonna try to get some pic goin soon to get my graphic side on!

 

[captain planet]

K, minor flub.... I jumped the gun and got my gala apple tree,.... To read more after (flub). I was eying up the saplings with multiple variety grafts that can cross pollinate itself/the others, but I got the gala my fave. So I'm pretty sure there are not enough apple trees close by to get the pollination needed, so I'm either grabbing a second variety to plant close by, or moving the gala and getting the multiple.... Lesson learned, wisdom gained !