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permaculture

A Food Forest From the Grocery Store?

Craig Dobbson

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posted 13 years ago

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What are all the things that you could buy in a grocery store to establish a ground cover for a new food forest site?

I just finished digging out the swales and hugel beds this past weekend. The chickens are working it over, smoothing out the rough spots and picking out the pests and seeds. By mid week I hope to have it all mulched with hay and straw, then it's just a matter of getting some cover crops down. I had good luck last year when I added beans, peas, popcorn and some other seeds from the grocery store bulk bins into my cover crop mixes. This year I saved all the seeds from my squashes, pumpkins and such, but I'm interested to know what else might work.

Any one have any Ideas as to what I could pull off the shelf/bin at a grocery store and throw into some mulch? This is all going in an area that won't be planted with anything else but shrubs and trees so I have to cover the ground and start building soil. Edibility isn't really an issue because I have a separate area for food crops. So it's another experiment I guess.

Input welcomed and appreciated.

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tel jetson

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Location: woodland, washington

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posted 13 years ago

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if there's an 'ethnic' section in the produce department, you might find all sorts of things that will take root and grow.

a bulk foods aisle could also offer plenty of options: alfalfa, pumpkin, wheat and other grains, quinoa, sprouting mixes of brassicas, sunflowers, peanuts, chia, and others. both places that cater to unwashed hippies and wealthy foodies are likely to have more promise than a thriftway (do those still exist?).

then there are seeds from fruit. not great for groundcover, but could grow plenty of fuel, fiber, and mulch. stone fruits, pomes, citrus, cucurbits, nightshades (tomatillos will form a mat). fresh mint and rosemary are easily rooted. thymes and oregano are marginally more difficult. potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams will grow if they haven't been treated to prevent it.

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Brenda Groth

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Location: North Central Michigan

posted 13 years ago

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some grocery stores also sell plants of course in the garden centers but also in the herb areas of the produce department..you could plant root ends of plants like celery, etc..and you could get seeds from really ripe produce as well, I've actually had sprouting seeds inside of apples before as well. The spice aisle might have caraway, dill, fennel and anise seeds all of which are insectary plants. some good ideas here.

I wouldn't buy seed packets from grocery stores, they only have a couple dozen seeds where you can get them by the ounce or thereabouts from mail order..much cheaper.

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Renate Howard

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Location: zone 6b

posted 13 years ago

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Don't forget the herb/spice section! Fennel, dill seed, cumin, coriander, even some pepper seeds from the pepper flakes can grow; Oh yeah, and mustard seeds (and poppy seeds but they make the illegal opiate-type poppies).

I've planted garlic and horseradish from the grocery store as well. And I've got some rosemary I bought on sale that rooted for me to plant out this year; you can easily root cut mint to plant as well.

Ben Plummer

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Location: Midcoast Maine, Zone 5b

posted 13 years ago

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I posted earlier today about the book Don't Throw It, Grow It, you can view the ToC and get some ideas.

terry howard

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posted 12 years ago

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Try buckwheat, beans, Jerusalem artichokes.

Jordan Lowery

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Location: zone 7

posted 12 years ago

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i used amaranth as my pioneer crop for establishing a food forest. at 3$ a lb i covered my plot for under 10$. and i got a nice harvest of greens and grain and honey in the end of it. oh yea soil building too.

The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings. - Masanobu Fukuoka

Thekla McDaniels

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posted 2 weeks ago

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A lot of commercial poppy seeds have been radiated. That decreases the germination rate drastically! If you buy organic poppy seeds, they should not have been radiated.

I think it’s worth mentioning that if you’re planning to try to grow the seeds from tomatoes or squash or melons and such, it is worth buying the organic ones. The commercial grade produce isn’t always GMO but organic produce is never GMO. One problem with trying to get seeds from GMO produce is that the seeds may not be viable. There are forms of genetic modification that make the plant unable to produce viable seed.

When you buy fresh mushrooms, sometimes at the bottom of the stipe, there are little tiny filaments holding on. You might be able to use them to get mycelium started in a growing medium. I have heard of people making a kind of mushroom slurry and using that to inoculate their substrate.

Sometimes the dried mushrooms still have the spores in them, and if you know how to germinate the spores and grow a jar of spawn, you could inoculate a substrate to grow mushrooms. It’s kind of technical, but not that hard. I would recommend doing a lot of research and having everything ready so that if you get a chance at some mushrooms, you’ll be ready to go.

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Cécile Stelzer Johnson

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posted 2 weeks ago

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As I'm looking at the prices of seeds for planting in the big box stores, I figured it is time to make some changes and plant everything you can plant, from every source you can find, all the time. Even weird stuff that I would not have thought of before.
Pomes, such as apples, will not grow true to seed but plums & cherries will do a bit better. I'm not sure why but stone fruit have a better chance of coming up true to seed.
A packet of cucumber seeds can cost you $4.00 and have only 20 seeds! It's getting ridiculous! When I started gardening, like 50 years ago, a 25 cents packet could grow you enough of that one food for a year for the whole family.
So I bought a package of 7 bean soup mix, separated the spice packet and looked at all the many different beans! I'll be planting those! There is a food store where I can get all sorts of grains in bulk. That's the way to go, I think...

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Yeardly Arthur

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Location: Half acre on a hill in Central Alabama, Zone 8a and 8b

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posted 2 weeks ago

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Lentils. Get a bag for a buck and shake them all around. Great ground cover, lovely to look at, and they even fix nitrogen. What's not to love?

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Anne Miller

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posted 2 weeks ago

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If I wanted to start a food forest from what I could get at the grocery store I would start with fruit that will grow in my area.

If lemons and oranges will not grow where I live then those seeds would be discarded.

Beans and potatoes would be next.

A lot of items from the grocery store will regrow though these are not likely candidates due to a small yield. Like onions, celery and carrots.

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Cécile Stelzer Johnson

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Anne Miller wrote:If I wanted to start a food forest from what I could get at the grocery store I would start with fruit that will grow in my area.
A lot of items from the grocery store will regrow though these are not likely candidates due to a small yield. Like onions, celery and carrots.

I second the motion, in particular for all biennials, like celery and carrots.
Biennials will grow a root and strong reserves to last the winter. In the second year, they are more interested in making seeds. So if the idea is to harvest the seeds of some carrots or some celery, that's certainly a great project.
By the way, I bought some lovage seeds this winter. I once had a lovage plant that regrew and the taste of celery was stronger than celery. It might make more leaves, less stalk, and the stalks may be thinner. They also said that in perfect conditions, these enormous celery-like plants can reach 6ft!
I'd be happy with less, but hey, if they grow that big, who am I to complain?

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Riona Abhainn

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posted 1 week ago

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Plants I've gotten to grow from grocery store food:
potatoes, mini-white pumpkins.

Seeds I've tried which didn't work:
cantalope once, bell peppers once, I'd try both again, in fact I'm about to plant bell pepper seeds again to try, but I think like William of Ohio said they are picked too early to go to the store so the seeds don't mature. I'll try anything twice in the garden though.

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Thekla McDaniels

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posted 1 week ago

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Riona, did you take your bell pepper seeds that didn’t germinate from a green pepper? The peppers that are red or orange are riper than the green ones, and, in my mind are more likely to have mature seeds.

Let us know if you get better results on your second try!

Best luck: satisfaction

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Cécile Stelzer Johnson

pollinator

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Location: zone 4b, sandy, Continental D

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posted 1 week ago

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Riona Abhainn wrote:Plants I've gotten to grow from grocery store food:
potatoes, mini-white pumpkins.
Seeds I've tried which didn't work:
cantalope once, bell peppers once, I'd try both again, in fact I'm about to plant bell pepper seeds again to try, but I think like William of Ohio said they are picked too early to go to the store so the seeds don't mature. I'll try anything twice in the garden though.

Cantaloupe should work unless you got "suicide seeds" (a seed that bears sterile offsprings by design). For the bell peppers, Thekla is correct: Green peppers are just immature yellow, red, orange or purple sweet peppers. Last year, I didn't know and I tried to plant the seeds of the green pepper and it was a complete failure: Not one of them germinated.
This year, I bought the 3 pack yellow, red and orange sweet peppers from the store and cut them in half. I allowed the "stump" inside, to which the seeds were attached to stay with the seeds and let them dry a bit for about a week. I think this allowed them to keep suckling from the mother, so to speak and finish ripening. The seeds fell off with a gentle rub from my thumb.
They were planted in a seed starting mix, with a heating mat (to put all the luck on my side: sweet peppers are more tropical as they come from South America). Also, my Wisconsin zone 4b is short.
Well, long story short, they all came up and I'll have many plants to give away!

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Riona Abhainn

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Location: Milwaukie Oregon, USA zone 8b

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I'm trying to recall, it was winter of 24-25 that I saved them and dried them. But this is good to know for future, no seeds from green bell peppers.

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