Do you have your own food garden?

I had a garden for many years, but had to move and only planted a couple of tomatoes and a few beans in the flower beds where I live now. Last year, I hired a man to build a couple of raised beds from cinder block and I filled them with compost and topsoil. You'll need about three times the topsoil as compost and they need to be mixed thoroughly early in the year, then allowed to set long enough to settle somewhat before you work it. My raised beds are only about 18 inches high, but things grew surprisingly well. I planted sunflowers, tomatoes, beans, three kinds of squash and got a decent crop of all. For root crops like potatoes and carrots, you'll need loose soil, slightly sandy and easily worked, Squash will grow just about anywhere. Probably the best thing you can do is go to the library and read everything on gardening you can find, then throw out about 80% of it and go with your instinct.

Hi! You're 43, I'm 43! What a coincidence! :-) I try to do a mini garden every year, things like carrots and grape tomatoes in planter boxes because we have many rabbits on our property. Every year I talk about doing a larger garden but I never get around to it. I would love to raise cucumbers and onions, maybe even some garlic and herbs would be fun, too. Let's see, ideas to create a raised garden. Maybe some old crates or even plastic containers, perforated at the bottom to allow drainage, on an old table or up on a porch or deck. Maybe you could also do like I do and keep a few in those little planter boxes on a porch or deck.

hi,actually gardening is my hobby.i love flowers,so mostly i plant flower plants,never tried with fruit plants.i have a lemon tree,in fruits.

We try to, but don't always get around to doing it. Even though we have the best interest to do it. A lot of time the effort isn't there. Ya know? hehe I love fresh veggies in the summer though and beautiful flowers. They make the area look so pretty!

My health does not allow it anymore but I used to have a pretty big garden with all kinds of stuff from tomatoes and cucumbers to herbs. I made alot of pickles and froze a great deal of stuff. My friend used to call my the pickle lady. I miss my homemade pickles and I really miss fresh tomatoes.

I have a herbal garden. I plant rosemary, mint, thyme and parsley. I want to plant a food garden, but never get around to it. I am probably going to try one this year. I probably will plant, tomatoes, strawberry,pepper, carrots and potatoes. The most important thing is to make sure the soil is prepare.

Big tubs on stands make a great raised garden for beginners, they are easy to tackle one at a time and easy to water as well. I've seen lovely things one with tubs stood on old tyres or bricks that were then painted and decorated and it all looked very cheerful

growing mushrooms is very economical and needs little maintainace and big rewards.

yes! i mostly grow potatoes, tomatoes, rhubarb, brocolli, lettuce and then fruits such as grapefruit, lemons and grapes. before you even plant the seeds you should get some cheap fertiliser from anyone who owns a farm, or even use your own ;). place this about 5 inches beneath your soil, then cover with the soil and water for a few hours. when you plant the seeds make sure they have enough space. as they grow you will need to water depending on how much you rain you get, but where i live it's usually about once a day. you need to make sure you keep weeding your garden also, because they will choke your plants and steal their water. also it's important that they get lots of sun, so make sure you plant them in a place with lots of that. that's the really basics. herbs are a lot easier, i just grow them in a big pot down by my garden.

It's easy for us who live in tropical country to have our own food garden. We have 2 rambutan trees and 1 starfruit tree to give us fruit.We plant longbeans, lady fingers, sweet potatoes, yam, chillies, pumpkin, radish, spinish...(all these are easy planted and need little care) in our house compound. We make our own compost(organic fertilizer) using grasses, falling leaves and left over food. Beside getting the harvest we also take this as a good form of physical exercise.

I would love to do this, but I am not sure how to get started. it sounds like a wonderful way to save money and to have some homegrown food that would not be infected with some of the awful chemicals that are sprayed on most crops. I hope that you get to start your home garden! It sounds like such a wonderful venture! ^_^

Hi there. I have just come inside from planting some more veggie seedlings in my garden. I have been in my house now for nearly 2 yrs and this is the first time I have planted my own veggie garden in a suburban yard. I grew up on a rural property and we grew our own veggies just in a garden bed on the ground. My veggie garden is slightly raised, it's about 20" off the ground and runs across the full length of the back of my house. I have peas, beans, beetroot, lots of capsicum, cucumber, lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, corn, pumpkin, basil, rosemary, rhubarb, garlic chives, spring onions, mint. They are all just small seedlings at the moment but I'm hoping they will grow to be very fruitfull. I do also have some carrots and tomotos that are just sprouting and also a lemon tree in a pot. Fingers crossed I get lots of veggies.

I don't have my own garden per se, but I do try to grow at least one or two things per year. I have not tried a raised garden, but I have container gardened successfully with tomatoes, strawberries, cayenne peppers, etc. I have also grown carrots and corn, but not in a container. I tried potatoes, but that did not go so well, so I will try again. Good luck with your project, it is never too late to start!

We have raised a garden all our lives. We always raised a large garden till about 7 years ago when we moved into a new home. Now we use raised beds. It is so easy to garden this way.There is a wonderful article on raised bed gardening in a back issue of Backwoods Home Magazine. It can be found online at http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/yeager74.html I hope I am allowed to put links on here. I am new and it wont let me copy and paste my link. This magazine has many more articles on raised beds so if you dont find what you want in this one...just do a search on the site for "raised bed garden" you will find alot of them.

one of my hobby is gardening, whether its flowers or vegetable which i like, i love it when i see them grow everyday and also i think they are a good view and provide a good and healthy environment.

I've been thinking much the same thing. I think I'm going to start off small though - a couple of tomato plants this year, and then maybe add some after that.

I think one of the best gardening tips I ever got (particularly if you have limited space or ability) was "Don't waste time, effort and money growing things that you can buy cheaply in the store." I try to keep that in mind when I start looking at seeds and catalogues and want to plant everything in sight LOL Having said that, I have gravitated more to flower gardening of late but, in veggies, I love to grow bush beans (both green and yellow). They are the easiest things to grow and nothing beats the "fresh out of the garden" flavor at dinner time! I like the bush varieties because they are hardy, stocky plants and you don't have to tie them up or train them on a trellis or anything. Plus you get lots of beans from each plant. I always grow cherry tomatoes (they are really expensive here, for some reason). I've done that successfully both in the ground and in large containers. I also like to experiment with tomatoes -- I grew some nice yellow ones last year (very low acidity). If you have the space to grow zucchini, they're so great for baking! I filled my freezer one year with muffins, quick breads and such, from a zucchini crop (and was still giving the darn veggies away to the neighbors LOL)... but the plants do spread. I also always have garlic chives, parsley and a few other herbs which I use regularly. I'm always tempted to try lots of herbs but, if I don't already cook with them, I feel I'd be planting them just for the sake of having the plants. One year, I even planted edible flowers! That was fun -- but, admittedly, the family was pretty skeptical about eating them LOL Good luck with your garden! Keep us updated on what you decide :)

I have a garden but there is not a lot of space so all I can grow is tomato and green pepper plants.If I had more romm for a garden I would grow, lettuce, patatoes, carrotes green beans and onions.I enjoy all veggies.

I always wanted to start my own food garden, but never really gotten around too it, i guess when my son gets older i can do it and make him do half the work but as for right now i stay kind of busy.

If your town/city has a FreeCycle group you can post on there and see if anyone has something to help you start your garden. Its amazing what people give away on those groups. I have done a garden the last couple years, every time it gets bigger. I also can or freeze what I grow. Tomatoes and okra is what did the best for me last year. I can't wait for the cold and snow to be gone so I can start this year's garden!