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EB1640 Growing Small Fruits for the Home Garden
Seeded on Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:31 PM EST
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This is a great article for growing many items that are easily raised both by city dwellers and urban gardeners! There is plenty of room for any of these smaller sized plants!
- 2 votes
#1 - Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:33 PM ESTAG, do you know if you can domesticate wild blackberries? I have a slew of them growing up the west side of my property.
- 2 votes
#2 - Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:41 PM ESTYou can, but they are so hard to house break. Leaving seeds all over the place.
- 3 votes
LOL! That is what my husband says, but I'm determined! Maybe tough love?
- 2 votes
That's about what I would say, Enoch! I just make an agreement with them: If you bear a lot of fruit for me, I will let your children grow up all over the place! I just hack out a path to the middle, being as kind and respectful as possible, after all, even the 'old guys' aren't over their prime, and then harvest on! If they start taking over the lawn, they'll mow down where they aren't wanted. I got 3 large freezer bags worth this year, and turned some into jam, some into ice cream sauce, and left a few frozen for....that thing I can never remember.... Duh..., oh! ....duh... cobbler! Yes! I remembered... whew!
Actually, I really do hack out my paths, so I can harvest them ALL!
- 1 vote
OK - Now these particular berries are intertwined with various trees, etc. So, I guess I need to get the kids over here because hacking sounds like young people work!
Thanks for the input. I've just noticed small berries the last two years and have let my wild things feast.
- 2 votes
Love the freely provided goodies. Sold one jar of wild blackberry jam at a fund raiser for $30.00!
- 2 votes
#3 - Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:39 PM ESTIf by any chance you get choke-cherries, I harvest those, too, and have a good jam recipe if anyone wants it!
Could also send seeds for the choke-cherry tree; hardy here to -10 degrees, so probably good anywhere..
- 1 vote
#4 - Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:40 PM ESTHave you a picture of choke-cherries? Ah - I'll go do my own looking up. YOu are a pearl for giving us this info. I feel like it is straight from your heart!
I have this one tree that has these little red berries, that I've never seen before. I just contacted the Georgia Ag Dept. to see if they have an arborist who can come identify about 15 different trees for me. And maybe a few bushes! The whole back part of my lot is a forest, and where I come from one learns to identify the different palm trees! LOL
- 2 votes
Great idea!! I know what you are saying, with the palm tree thing. In So. Calif, we had palm tree, orange and avocado, and (mostly) eucalyptus trees, with a few decorative -strip mall things- thrown in!
The leaves to the choke cherry I just saw, are poisonous, so be sure what you are picking. It is fairly easy to look them up, but one can always take a sample of leaves and berries in to Ag Dept, too, if you have a local branch... If your arborist can't get there.
By the way, RaisedByWolves, it is from my heart, and I thank you. It is one gift to share that hopefully is helpful to any and all, and with the difficult times we all have been through, and still going through, it matters to me that we learn what we have and how to harvest and use it!!
Besides, what a great way to exchange recipes and ideas, like Enoch did with the grape pie!
That sounds luscious, and I can taste it now with homemade ice cream!! Ooohhhhh, YUM!
- 1 vote
AG, I lived in SoCal for 62 of my 65 years! I loved going into my gram's garden and picking oranges, lemons, limes, and avocados! Yum. And the smell of eucalyptus. I loved that.
And jacaranda with all the amazing lavender glow over our streets. OK, they were sticky and left a mess, but since purple and lavender are my favs, I remember those spring drives along streets full of jacaranda - like Sawtelle Blvd.
I used to have really good yields in Santa Monica, but I am taking this slowly, especially because my hubby has a few problems w/his hip and can't help; so I have to do as my neurology problems allow (which is why my daughter-in-law is helping with splitting up the gardening between her yard and mine).
- 2 votes
I forgot jacaranda..don't know how, but hey, many states will let you get a soil sample for free, through a University Extension program; call around and ask. You're in Georgia? Probably so much that is edible, and GOOD, all over your place! I used to hate seeing Queen Anne's Lace: now I eat it, and make medicine from it. Same for dandelions, RED clover, those little, tiny 'sour' baby clovers, catnip, and a variety of herbs that I now have a good stand of: basil, oregano, cilantro, two mints, wild garlic, and a new one I will harvest next year: mullein. Look that one up, you may have it!
Don't forget to identify Hickory trees, walnut trees, and pecan trees if you have them.
An easy way: Walnut trees start shedding leaves usually in August and is first tree bare. Hickory is the first tree in the woods (most times), to turn colors- reds, oranges, yellows. Don't know any pecan tricks.
- 1 vote
#5 - Thu Nov 17, 2011 11:46 PM ESTI do have two hickory trees. I've been taking my arbor society book out with me and identify trees. So far, birch, elm, oak, pine, hickory - but I think a couple of them are hemlock - trying to find out. I have a call in to the extension person, whom I met last year. Thanks for the advice!
I'm just starting my herb garden. I did get a very good basil this year. I'll check for mullein - what is it good for?
- 2 votes
RBWolves: http://www.makeitmissoula.com/2011/08/mullein-heals-the-earth/. http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/SeedlistU-V.htm
Verbascum thapus , formal name. Tall, tall flower spikes, grows roadside, too.
Many uses, seeds are poisonous though. Look it up, originally Indian 'toilet paper'. Do not wipe against grain, they say!! Also, poultices, ear ache medicine if not punctured, asthma, coughs, more...
- 3 votes
Thank you for the URL, AG. I'm on it!
Wow! I have seen these, and they are sold as "hostas" here. I need them because they are purple!!!
- 2 votes
I think a 'hosta' and a mullein is a different critter. Do you have photos of what they are selling? Mullein is velvety- looks like a pale green velvet rose, with a spike coming out of the center, once it is two years old and begins blooming....
- 1 vote
From the URL, they look like the picture at the top of the verbascum section. I'll do research, of course, but I just went with that picture.
- 2 votes
Wonderful to see you've jumped in with both feet and going gangbusters with the Invisible Roadside Garden. If I could make a suggestion to add some of the article content along with the seed you'll help to draw in the casual browsers as well. Don't worry if the auto post warning says you may have copied and pasted too much, a paragraph from any source you would link to is more worried about getting traffic than the Associated Press & MSM folks who are all the enforcers of how many words need permission to reprint. :~)
One more tip and that's to vote for the comments that folks leave in your column so it shows up on the tracker every time a comment vote is registered and folks watching that can find there way here also. Plus folks like to have their contributions appreciated and voting is an easy way to show it!!
- 3 votes
#6 - Sun Nov 20, 2011 1:01 AM ESTHi, and Thanks. I try to respond to everyone personally, but sometimes Time doesn't permit.
Thanks for coming by.. I do try to vote up their comment, but probably miss it sometimes. I really am new on here, although it says member since 1-09. I must have said something once, in '09, I guess, but have only really been here since Aug. or so this year. I am still trying to figure everything out, and Newsvine help never answers.
My current friends are helping much. My biggest question is who to post an article to, and a friend said all of Newsvine... I did not want an article to go into a group that didn't want it there, but I guess then, that group clips it in.
I still cannot get my 'loaf of bread up into the avatar of THE INVISIBLE ROADSIDE GARDEN, but will work on that later...
Really am way to busy, and a slow computer that I am trying to use for another 6-7 months, probably. As I have said in some posts, we are trying to pay off debt, and that means I am going without EVERYTHING for now, and doing things like growing all my own herbs, foods, finding 'free' fruit trees and getting permission to pick them, studying free roadside foods and gathering them, and learning about herbal medicines and remedies.
Right now, I brew our own medicinal tea, with 11 herbs in it, that I gather, dry and cook.
My husband isn't as well as I am, and that leaves me a heavy load. I truly believe that we will see massive food shortage, great hunger within a relatively short period of time, due to Mansanto and politics and other things- even just plain old droughts.
It is in my heart to help if I can. Thanks for coming over. gloria
- 1 vote
Arkansas Gloria...Hi, and Thanks. I try to respond to everyone personally, but sometimes Time doesn't permit
Lol, no worries getting me to grasp the idea that life gets in the way of other plans! :~)
- 3 votes
We are planning our spring garden now. I'm hoping for more use of the wild things that are growing on our land - like the blackberries.
AG, do hickory nuts have a use? I always thought that they were just for my squirrels! This winter, I'm getting into the rest of the trees and seeing what I have that is bearing nuts/fruits. We planted two apple trees over at my son's house two years ago; so, maybe next year?
- 2 votes
Something not working right, hard to post. Hickory nuts are great, but take a lot of determination to harvest- to shell and get meat out! I use a big butcher knife and a hammer, crack the seam, then cut down from there. Grand daughter is over for the weekend, and she needs much of reading help..possibly dyslexic...so have been working with her on visual skills...
Anyway, hickories are delicious, but for the work, an acquired taste. I get enough for two hickory nut cakes every winter. Good to know about though. Free food! (Roadside garden)
- 2 votes
Get as many heirlooms as possible, and save seed!! if you can only buy a tiny package this year, and you save the seed, you're on, for just a small cost. I started with (honestly) probably 20 Amaranth seeds, which I babied and protected like a mother hen, and now, I have enough seeds for this whole town!!
Buy a package of little paper lunch bags, or save flour bags all year, to put seeds in- the seed heads, blossoms in- for drying. Label with magic marker, and close with paper clip... keeps any tiny bugs IN, AND dust and dirt OUT!
- 2 votes
Thank you. I ordered my seeds from a company (I don't have it up in front of me) that I've used for years, organic, heirloom guaranteed.
Have you tried your granddaughter on comic books? That's how I taught my brother to read. They had a series called Classics Illustrated back then (mid-60s), that I used. Sometimes seeing what is going on helps connect to the written word.
I get dyslexic when I'm tired. But, I've been reading since I was 2-3 years old. My grandfather would sit me on his lap and read the paper to me every morning, from the time I could sit up. One day, I just started reading it to myself!
- 2 votes
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