Ulla Bisgaard

Alan Burnett wrote:I love the photos Ulla, the shelves with grow lights recessed on the underside of each shelf is fantastic! When it's time to prepare annual crops I definitely want to copy that into my space

I've added onto my corner a bit, I've put reflective insulation on the walls, draped plastic sheeting as a makeshift door, and hung a simple grow light. I'm sure I'll have to do more if I really want it to keep an optimal temperature and humidity for growing during the winter, but I want to test out how it's going to work this winter as-is.

I'm planning to start swiss chard, anise hyssop, and kale in March, then maximillian sunflowers in April. I'm sure I'll come up with more seeds to start by then, and I will probably try to propagate some fall cuttings between all of that

Amazon usually has some really good deals on grow lights on Black Friday. The under shelf grow light I use, are attached with sip ties, but also comes with other ways to hang them. Mine are set in a daisy chain, which also help when you plug them in. By using a daisy chain, you only need one outlet.
Keep us posted on how things goes with it.

It looks like Bermuda grass

This actually makes me blush, because I have to admit, that I have 3 pantries. I like to always have at least a year’s worth of food in stock, and I grow an average of 2000 pounds of food in a year, so I need the space.
In the kitchen, I keep 2 large shelving unit for herbs and spices, and one for teas and my apothecary. We also have a small pantry with everyday stables in smaller amounts. My second pantry is very large, since I do a lot of food preservation. I have two canners and a freeze drier. In this pantry I store bulk items, canned fruits, homemade condiments, freeze dried meals, broth (a huge stable for me). We use a lot of broth in our household, so  I make 10 gallons a time. Canned and pickled vegetables are also here.
I also keep pasta, rice, homemade flour, vinegar, honey, salt, sugar, freeze dried eggs, dried cashew milk, nut milk, freeze dried berries and vegetables.
In our garage, I have a pantry for long term overflow food storage, 3 freezers and a fridge where I keep all the fermented foods I make. One freezer is for beef and pork, the second for poultry and vegetables and the third for vegetables and freeze dryer trays.
We don’t spend a lot of money on foods, since we produce most of it ourselves. We are 4 to 5 adults, depending on who is here for dinner, and we only spend around 100$ on groceries a week. In comparison our homestead has produced over 11 thousand dollars worth of food this year, and we are not done yet.
I know my pantries is a cooks dream, since we have the ingredients for pretty much anything.

Timothy Norton wrote:How long has it taken your plum trees to start producing?

I have two Plums planted a couple years ago and they are starting to get a decent amount of growth but I have not seen any flowers. I know that I am just being impatient, but I am wondering if perhaps in my third year I might see something.

Here is to hoping!

Both of mine didn’t start producing until after they had reached a mature hight. For mine that was 7 feet for one and 10 for the second. I was also told, that if I add compost in spring, they will out their energy into growing bigger, but I don’t know if that’s true

Alan Burnett wrote:The past few years, I've had a very simple grow 'room' of a large plastic bin with a grow light under a table. I'd order my seeds in February, plant them indoors in March/April, and plant them out to the garden once they fill their pots. I know I'm learning because I'm making a ton of mistakes.

This year I'm upgrading to a 3'x5' table in the corner of a concrete basement, plus enough space to work while inside. I still have to figure out exactly what to do for walls, I am thinking of fastening mylar sheets to the concrete walls, and hanging blankets + plastic sheeting for the new walls, which I'll need to pass through to work. The room has a window, and I'm not sure how it'll behave when the cold dry winter winds meet the relatively insulated basement where I'm watering plants regularly under a grow light.

I really want to propagate cuttings but it's been a bit discouraging how many cuttings have died under my care so far. I'm hoping this new grow room will work out well for this year's crop

It takes time and experimenting to get it right. I tried two other ways, before I ended up with what I have now. When I started, I used emergency thermal blankets, since they are so cheap to get. Later I invested in what we have now, which is an insulation material you buy in rolls. They last longer than the emergency blankets.
This year, I started my cold season crops in August, when it was 115 degrees F outside. Once we hit Halloween, I will transplant them all out, and by then the seedlings will be very big. This is important since by then we will start getting shorter days, which slows down the growth rate of my Brassicas and other cold season crops. If I don’t do this, I will get some smaller broccoli and cauliflower, with no big heads, and they will bolt before we get much harvest out of them. It’s the same with cabbages, lettuce and other greens like Boc Choy. This was a struggle until I started using an indoor grow room. It’s a very common problem when growing in our area, since we transition from hot to cold crops at the same time. It means that we are harvesting, prepping my raised beds and planting them, at the same time.
Right now I still need to harvest sweet potatoes, lots of herbs, turmeric, ginger, sorghum and beans. We can and are pulling the beans, grains and herbs, but the rest isn’t ready to harvest yet. The sweet potatoes won’t be ready until after thanksgiving, which is okay, since the root vegetables I am planning to direct seed there, don’t need as much time as the rest, plus they won’t go to seed as fast.
I have attached a couple of pics so you can see how they look.

Anne Miller wrote:

Jill Dyer wrote:Thick layer of any sort of mulch would be great - however this is not encouraged due to fire risk.  Rocks/stones are the preferred solution.
You may hear mumbling and muttering from this direction . . .

Jill said, My problem is weeds - went out to get some rhubarb, and every where was up-knees in an assortment of weeds. Take your eyes of 'em for a minute

Those weeds are probably more of a fire risk than a mulch would be.  A mulch would have moisture under it where the weeds do not.

Yep. The straw mulch get enough water, that they compost within 6 to 12 months. It’s the reason I have to add more each time I replant the beds. It’s also what makes the bugs in the soil prefer the straw to my seedlings.
We take fire prevention very seriously here, since we live in a high risk area.

Patrick Edmonds wrote:Oh Ulla, I love this!  It’s so relatable,  the mix-ups, the surprise plants, and of course the “helpful” birds doing their own thing. I’ve had similar moments where I swear my garden is running itself (and sometimes doing a better job than me!). Honestly, it sounds like you’ve built a little ecosystem where everything,  including the birds,  works together in its own funny way. And hey, accidental wasabi isn’t the worst surprise!

Good, it was supposed to be a funny post. Sometimes you just have to laugh about the things happening around you. I manage a 3300 square feet food forest garden, and a raised bed garden with 20 raised beds. If I take things too seriously I would drown. Instead I see it as natures way of making my life more interesting and enjoy the shenanigans the critters get up to, while embracing mistakes. Nothing and no one is perfect, and that’s just fine.
When we moved in here 10 years ago, it was a house sitting on 1/2 acre of dirt. Now I have a huge thriving garden with more insects and critters arriving each year. This year the first grasshoppers appeared, and while I don’t like they ate my parsley, it makes me proud that the land has healed enough for them to return. It’s also good exercise chasing them, so I can give them to my chickens.

Jill Dyer wrote:Ain't that the truth!   My problem is weeds - went out to get some rhubarb, and every where was up-knees in an assortment of weeds. Take your eyes of 'em for a minute. . . Rained overnight (a surprise) and everything was wet, so did a pull and drop.  Found lettuces!!! And last years capsicums are still hinging in. There's cabbage seedlings in the Aloe Vera pot, and several unidentifiable sprouting things in the compost. Oh, and then the birds have nipped off the baby spinach plants - my fault for not replacing the mesh cover on the raised garden bed.  Just not enough hours in the day, or resilience in the back, or knees.

That’s why I add a thick layer of straw mulch on all of my raised beds. With a thick layer, I don’t get as many weeks

Riona Abhainn wrote:Informative.  I hear very similar planning and gardening strategies on the Epic Gardening podcast, and they're also in San Diego.

Yes, I follow them too, plus San Diego seed company. I wrote this to make a handout for the people who comes for the tours we have in spring and fall. . It’s the question I get asked the most, and I also think it’s one of the hardest thing to master in our grow zone.
Having a food forest garden and a raised bed garden, means a lot of logistic work plus we grow more food than Kevin does, but he also isn’t finished planting all of his homestead. He also uses more raised beds than I do, which is logical as they sell them. I love the pots they sell btw. Super good quality.
Anyway, I am also working on a catalog of all the plants we grow, also for the tours, together with my excel sheets that shows how much we harvest. I also plan my garden crops 5 years ahead, to ensure proper crops rotations.

You know you are getting older, when the chaos starts in the nursery/green house.
What I have labeled as broccoli, turned out to be wasabi, and I have no idea why I started radishes indoors, and lettuce already in August. I am pretty sure my lettuce will have fully matured before it gets cold enough for me to plant them. They do look amazing though 😂
I am glad I figured it out now, and not later. The flavor profile between wasabi and broccoli are so different 😝.
I panicked for a while, until I found 4 four packs in my nursery that also says broccoli. Now I will just have to hope, those actually turns out to be broccoli.
If I seed broccoli too late, they usually end up bolting. Bolting means the birds take over the planting and seeding for the next season. That’s how I ended up with a huge broccoli growing in the crack between my carrot planters, and our patio, during the hot season, when they aren’t supposed to be able to grow.
Sometimes I think the birds are better gardeners than I am. 👩🏼‍🌾 when I direct seed anything, they always come and and steal the seeds. I used to think they were eating them. Instead it turns out they just want to mess with me.
It’s fair that they do some work though, since they think I am working for them, not the other way around.
Last spring and summer, I had sunflowers growing everywhere and I got many compliments for them. I didn’t tell anyone that I didn’t plant those, so the birds did. I only had problems, when people asked me that type of sunflowers they were, and I had no clue. 🤷 next spring I am just going to toss out seeds, and let the birds put them where they want them.