Nynke Muller

Hi Lola,
My property is 400 square meter, but the growing space is much smaller, maybe half of it. My family needs space to walk too (lol). My husband is slowly turing our lawn into a wild flower meadow. Than I sneak in some edibles and a fruit tree.

I grow mainly fruittrees of all sorts. I have managed to cramp in a lot. This year I spend a lot of time on clearing and pruning so the sun can actually reach the fruit and I can move around to pick it. Next year I want to focus on planting perennial or self seeding edible stuff around the fruit trees.

I always think: well, that was a nice harvest, but it must be possible to eat more from this ground. And every year I manage to do it somehow.

Nice to read your family is so involved. So is mine, but it needs one crazy person, like me ( and my sister) and possibly you, to drive it to the next level. As long as we respect the wishes of other users of the place, they let us take it pretty far.

Hi Lola,
I love your numbers!
I bet your numbers will increase over the years to come. If you can get your family members included in food growing, they will increase more.
Be creative, find more spaces to grow, and above all: Enjoy gardening and eating your homegrown food.

Normally I don't count or weigh my produce, because I lack the discipline to keep it up. Sometimes I do an estimate. So, the only real number I have for you is on my home grown wheat (I think). I started with one ear of wheat, that I picked up from the road next to a just harvested field. I picked off the seeds to sow in my garden in the fall just to have some roots in the ground. Next year I harvested a few ears and planted all the seeds again in fall. This year, I have wheat that seems to have huge graines inside. I have just finished cleaning the seeds and weigh them: 291 grams. Not enough for even one bread, but I am very proud anyways. I have already sowed some, and intent to sow some more.

A few more memorable numbers: my largest apple weights 480 grams, one year I grew 83kg of pumpkins total. An old record of 53 pots of tomato chutney. This year I tried wine making. There is aproximately 18 liters ripening in my shed.

Keep it up, have fun. I would love to see your numbers next year!
Kind regards Nynke

Rae Hortuli wrote:... I've heard of people having insurance problems if they have moss growing on their walls/roofs. I would LOVE to just spray and see what happens...

Wet mosses can be heavy and when there are ferns growing in it, that wil probably be worse. So please ensure the construction is strong enough to support the moss. If the mosses dry out completely in summer (you don't want that, because then the plants in it will die) they might burn well in case of a fire.

You can check with your insurance company what is the exact problem and try on a small part simultaneously. A small part, just one dot, will bring you joy and will not harm the builldings or the community in any kind of way. When everything goes well, add a second dot next year, or two... Have fun!

(Edited to remove spelling errors)

For tree years in a row I put the kernels of all avocados that I eat, in the ground. They are not completely suitable for my climate, but there are some examples of avocado trees growing far out of their proper climate zone. The winter of the first two years everything died off, not sad, because this was to be expected. I experiment with location and winterprotection etcetera. Last winter killed 6 out of 8 avocados. The two remaing looked bad, but made it in the end.

My surprise: Yesterday I found an avocado plant resprouting from the roots, on a location where I only planted kernels or plants 3 years ago and I have never seen it since that summer.

Hi Rae,
What a lovely space!
Looking at the plants that grow there, I guess it is pretty shaded and moist. That sounds like a great place for ferns and mosses indeed.

I have heard, but never tried (because I dont need to because I have ferns and mosses growing all over the place) that "painting" walls with buttermilk or yoghurt, will make mosses grow on them. You have a lot of walls that could use the mosses to make them more interesting looking. I would start with a strong visual shape, like a circle or a block on the concrete wall. While you work on the house, see what happens. Later you can decide whether you like the edges neat and maintain them, or just let it spread wild.

If the place is as moist as it seems on the pictures, all kind of things, probably ferns as well, will start to grow spontaneously in the moss a year later. If not, you might need to help it getting started. In that case, go for plants that love acidic soil.

Hortensias do well in a moist shady place if you like to bring in a big dot of colour. Azaleas are beautiful if the soil is acidic. Don't forget to plant some white flowers, they light up in darkness. Woodland plants is what you should probably be looking for.

If the patio is actually a lot sunnier than it seems to me, the concrete walls will store a lot of heat that they will release during the night. That offers great opportunities for all kinds of fruit. A well maintained blackberry or raspberries on the trellis will provide some fresh fruit as well.

If I were you, I would change little things, one at a time. It is a great place, you don't want to ruin it and than find out you don't like gardening all that much.

Good luck, have fun and let us know how it works out!

Anne Miller wrote:
...
I have looked and looked and can't find four o clocks as mentioned above.
...

Fifth row from the top, third from the right

Thank you Tereza and Joylynn,

I have freezes, so that gives me some confidence that I will be ok. I plant it to eat, so that should keep it in check as well. If I ever leave the place, I will have the obligation to remove it completely.
Green Dean's article is clear about taste and growing power as well. A gardener from Belgium (neighbouring country to the south) reacted that it behaves fine in his garden because of the frost. So that is the last confirmation I need.
I do struggle with the quote from the scientific article. Is it bad for my brain, or good?
Just to be sure, I will plant it in a pot on my city balcony, to learn what it does first. When it grows too big for the large container, I can decide again. By then I know whether I will eat enough of it to keep it in check.

Thanks Ladies!

Dear permies,
I really need your advice today.

I am about to plant an Andredera Cordifolia in my garden.
I have heard about its invasiveness in tropical areas, but I am in a temperate zone, so I hope it is not that bad. Is this a bad idea? Will I regret it?
I intend to eat the leaves (and maybe the bulbs). Are they any good? Are they worth the risk of overgrowing my garden?

Does anybody have any experience to share?
Kind regards,
Nynke

You know you are a seedsaver when you look at an exotic fruit and immediately wonder what the seed looks like (instead of being curious about the taste).

Hi Stina,
I hear you! After all these years I still struggle with eating "new" foods.
I do love what Burra says: Start small, accept your limitations. Learn one thing at a time.

What works for me:
The national dish of the Netherlands is "stamppot". It is basically mashed potatoes with vegetables in it. There are some varieties. The three most famous are: with carrots and onions, with kale and last but not least with sauerkraut. Normally one adds  something sour on the side, like pickles, or in case of sauerkraut, something sweet. This is always a great base. I can replace any part with something else for variation. I think Burra's sunchokes and kale will mash well together and with pickled walking onions on the side would be close to the original dish! This way I can introduce something new (sunchokes) into something old. Everybody (in the netherlands) recognises this dish and would give it a try. That way they will be introduced to sunchokes. Now I can replace every part of that dish with something else as a whole or partially. For example the pickled onions with apple sauce, and the kale with any leafy green that needs cooking. Just one step at a time. In only three meals, the dish has changed completely. You don't need to be a foody to do this (I am not).

Soup and stirr-fry are another way to add new flavors and textures by the way, and Kale makes great sauerkraut.

Once flavors are familiar, I can prepair them in a different way: like diced sunchokes in a stirr-fry for example. Before I know it, eating sunchokes is normal in my family.

Occasionally, if I have a lot of one vegetable, I try a more unusual recepy for variation, for example Burra's kale: use large leavea as a wrap or find a recipe for delicious kale pie. And once you can cook kale in a different way for every day of the week, replace the kale in the recipy with another leafy green.

One last thing: don't eat only your dinner from the garden. Fruit is easy to include in breakfast, lunch and snacking.

Good luck Stina, and let us know how it works out for you! Happy tasting!