Dave Bross

You can get around the bugs with timing...sometimes.

Try to grow whatever when the bugs aren't there.

An example here in N. FL is getting tomatoes in the ground in March, with freeze protection available, to get tomatoes before June first.

June first the bugs arrive and the heat will soon be too much for most tomatoes.

Not always do-able with all veggies but worth a look in case it would work for you.

Agreed on the sun factor being important.

I planted citrus up close to my oaks because that supposedly prevents the HLB disease ravaging Florida citrus.  End result was very slow growing citrus and long overdue to fruit...which I think is lack of sun.

Oaks are surprisingly shallow roots. When we get a lot of rain here even big old oaks can be uprooted and tipped over sideways by the wind, roots and all.
Don't know about apples.

Same here. Girardi was one of the mulberries I couldn't get to take that way either.

Very limited success with that one as cuttings also.

Now that my Girardi trees have finally fruited, which took 5 years, I don't like the fruit taste as much as others and there are very small numbers of fruit.

I am seriously considering taking the chainsaw to them.

In contrast, my Worlds Best fruited in two years, put on massive growth every year and are covered in tasty mulberries when they fruit.
They were even frozen to the ground last winter and have grown back to their original size in 10 months.

I have 6 - 7 varieties of mulberries and none come close to this one.

I got the original cuttings from Jan Doolin, who is easily found via searching her name and mulberry.

Mulberries are good about sprouting from a stick stuck in the ground...some more than others,

My most favorite and productive variety, World's Best, is very willing to take root this way.

Forgot to mention something else in my post above.

Living Room Lettuce

A bit of cost up front to set up, but I've been growing a lot of lettuce in my living room for years.

The setup:

10" by 20" nursery trays on a stainless steel wire bakers rack.
Around 14" between racks gives enough room that you don't need to figure out a way to raise and lower the lights. Plenty of light for the whole growth cycle and enough room to get in there to harvest.

LED grow lights hung from the shelf above the lettuce. the Barrina brand from Amazon has outperformed all others. Only failures were a switch or two going bad and easily fixed by bypassing the switch.
The lights are on a timer to run 14 hrs so the timer handles the on/off.
You need 2 - 3 lights per tray. Preferably 3.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082ZL1Q63?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_6&th=1

Master blend fertilizer and Sea 90 sea salt mixed  in the water for the trays. I keep a 55 gallon plastic drum of it nearby and water by dipping a small plastic watering can into the barrel.
About every other day they need water.
For the trays above my head I gauge the water level while filling with my finger as a dipstick.

https://tool-rank.com/masterblend-hydroponic-fertilizer-calculator-for-any-container-size/

Plastic berry containers with the lids cut off hold the growing medium, which is compost from my pile . Any potting soil works. This makes cleanup easier and gives you a reservoir of water you can visually monitor.
There is one size of berry container, 5" x 7 1/4" that fits six of them in a 10 x 20 tray.

I sprinkle a few tablespoons of Mosquito Bits in the bottom of the tray when I'm building a new tray to keep those skeeters at bay. The mosquito bits are Bacillus Thuringiensis, making a film on top of the nutrient solution that wipes out any skeeters that hatch.
Same folks make a bigger product called Mosquito Dunks that works the same way in larger hydro setups like Kratky, which involves a pool of standing water.

Lettuce wants light to sprout so I sprinkle the seeds on the surface and press them in. You can sprinkle sifted compost over them lightly if you want. Planting a new tray every 15 days keeps the rotation going.

You want leaf lettuce because you harvest it with a pair of scissors.  

The more frequently the harvest, the more it grows.

Yay!

Glad you found them, you're in for a treat, as well as practical info.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-gastronomy/the-soothing-pleasures-of-the-victorian-kitchen-garden-a-vintage-bbc-docuseries

It started with my interest in the back to the land movement 1960s/70s.

One side of my family were nurserymen and ag teachers so I had a jump on the how to from my mom.

Growing gardens morphed into growing bigger gardens.

Late 1960s there were some abandoned gilded age estates nearby, and I got to explore them in detail before they were done away with.

The most striking thing were what  was left of the greenhouses and orchards...very simple, almost self sufficient systems for growing things.

The only thing I've seen detailing some of these systems was the old Victorian Kitchen Garden series from the BBC.

Here's a list of explanations of the different parts of the series:

https://watch.plex.tv/show/the-victorian-kitchen-garden/season/1

Unfortunately, no links available to watch the episodes but you'll get the idea from the descriptions.
I was able to find a DVD with all the episodes but it was not easy to find. Worth it if you can turn up a copy.
A small sample of how they were growing flowers can be had on you Youtube by searching "victorian kitchen garden BBC"

These old estates were quite self sufficient, and that wasn't lost on me.

Over time bits and pieces of the permaculturists began turning up in my reading and seemed infinitely practical and a direct link back to the self sufficiency of the old stuff I had seen.

The last 15 years I've had my own place to work with these ideas, seeing what works in my fairly hostile climate.

Thanks to the oil embargo in the 1970s I ended up going from being a mechanic working for a septic tank company. Oddly enough, I loved that job.

There's no additive that can help a tank do what it does better than it does left alone.

Here's what does help:

Cut down on how much grease goes into the system. Detergents and soaps are major contributors here.

Filter the laundry water to keep all the lint from clothes from washing out into the system. This stuff plugs up your drainage faster than you think and easily goes right through the grease trap and out to the drainage. Some newer setups have a filter in the trap to catch this stuff.

The tank should be pumped out every 4 - 5 years. The main thing here is to get rid of the grease layer floating on the top before it gets so thick it overcomes the trap/tee leading out to the drainage and lets the grease go into/ plug up the drainage.

Pumping  is getting extremely expensive now so you may want open the tank and check grease levels yourself or get it pumped once and get an idea of how much grease accumulated over time and project that out to how long you can go before needing to pump again.

https://www.plumbingsupply.com/how-a-septic-system-works.html

Short term warnings would be a sudden very  cool breeze on a hot day. Rain is 10 minutes away.

You know it's over when concrete slabs have quit sweating dampness and dried out.

And a more technical favorite, I choose the animations with lightning flashes:

https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/conus.php?sat=G16

Sandy soil here with guaranteed drought conditions that last for months spring and fall.

After experimenting with everything , what worked was the 1/2 or 3/4"poly compression tubing you use a hole punch on to hook up sprinkler heads via 1/4" tubing and fittings to combine the two.

I use the standard, not quick lock fittings for the bigger tubing. You have to wiggle and force together. Mostly because I have a lot of them on hand.

https://school.sprinklerwarehouse.com/fittings-parts/how-to-attach-poly-tubing-to-pvc/      at 1:27

https://www.dripirrigation.com/search/?q=compression+fittings+poly+tube

The sprinkler heads are up on stakes so it's overhead watering.

https://www.amazon.com/Hicello-Misting-Irrigation-Sprinklers-Sprayer/dp/B097PH98VD/ref=sr_1_6_pp?

These come in 90 and 45 degree also. The brand names you find at like Home Depot are more expensive but last longer than the Chinese discount ones.  

You'll need a pressure regulator if your pressure is over 30 - 40 psi.  A filter is a good idea too.

This has been less expensive and less trouble than everything else I've tried.