If you're into gardening

[07Negative]

And you're somewhat close to Santa Rosa, CA. I highly encourage you to check out this expo. I went last 2 years. It'll seriously throw your hair back. Great for the family and great info if you're concerned about food security.
http://www.theheirloomexpo.com/conference/the-3rd-annual-heirloom-expo/

I was also thinking of starting a thread on gardening. I'm insanely passionate about food and genuinely concerned about our nations health. And if I can get just one person to grow a carrot religiously. Then I think I've done a good deed. I grew up on 650 acre farm in Minnesota and a 10 acre homestead in Iowa. I continue to grow and had turned my east Oakland ghetto into a chateau. I've been mentoring ex gang banger kids in verticulture for about 5 years. I also debunk the ideal you can't grow. Even if you only have a small space or almost all shaded yard/space.
I'm a soil science freak who reads books and practices practical techniques. I'm not a vegan but I do think b/c of proven science, that we need to reduce our meat intake and eat more veggies. And fewer processed foods. We can all
contribut to recipes that make eating more veggies more appealing to our taste buds. I'm sure we're all full of resources. Great thing for college folk too! Save your folks some coin and impress the chicks/dudes on your cooking skills. Chicks dig guys with skills.

[bluedragon436]

I tried doing hanging tomatoes this past year... got the plants to grow nicely, but no tomatoes by the time I left for this deployment... I think I'll try again next year, just start them off earlier... and pepper plants..

[07Negative]

There are a ton of varieties of tomatoes. I suggest Early Girl or cherry tomatoes as they produce early and throughout the season. Most peppers need the full season too. Take the sucker steams off the tomato plant. It'll produce fruit faster b/c they are not taking up the energy. I'll get fruit 2 weeks sooner this way.
If you can, start them indoors a few weeks before outdoors. And don't over water them. Too much water makes they grow fruit slower. Glad to hear ya trying.

[Dredwolf]

When I went to A-Stan, the wife did not bother with the 2 larger gardens we normally have, and went to container and raised bed gardens.

We were going to start the big garden again this year, but life happened, so we did container and raised beds again...then we had this extremely wet summer in South Carolina....I built the raised beds to deal with normal rainfall, not this...

So much rain, the raised beds could not drain, the ground was saturated. We lost a lot of the pines in the front woods due to the soaked ground and bad thunderstorms.

Maybe next year.. :rolleyes:

[07Negative]

I personally prefer raised beds. If you take out a 1/3 of your soil from the beds. Throw in perlite & mix the snot out of it. It helps with draining so much & you don't end up with root rot. Another good container gardening media are felt bags or berlap sack. They drain well and air prune the roots. There's "Smart Pots" and a few other name brands out there. My favorite ones are, "Geopots." Also earth pots are really cool. They're self watering. They're small. But I squeeze 15 heads of lettuce out each one.
You're lucky as heck to have so much water :) Cali sucks for rain fall.

[07Negative]

Not to make an assumption. But if your into collards. Look into tree collards. They're a perineal (meaning you plant them once & they keep growing). They take both heat & the cold (down to about 30deg). Cook em just like any ol' collard too. Awesome with ham hawks or Rocky Mountain oysters if you're into those.