Any growers here?

[chud]

Anyone else have the bug for growing?

I planted some eggplant and collard greens in pots on my back porch.
They seem to be doing good.
I just got back from being out of town, and my son pointed out to me that we have a couple of small eggplant starting to grow!

[grzegorz]

Nice! That's one of my favorites.

[Andy_S]

SNIP
Our long term plan is to create a Decentralised Autonomous Community (DAC) on a decommissioned golf course.
SNIP

DAC sounds interesting.

Some advice on this project. With all the hippy chicks you will surely attract, you will definitely need a manly, cheesy and mystical TaiChee instructor. I can safely say I am the man for you. Can you kindly let me know whether you will pay my generous salary in hard cash, vegetable produce or home brew?* And I hate to say this, but my contract will also require steak three times a week. Doable? (If necessary, I can slaughter the livestock myself, using judo chops or my Yin-Yang TaiChee sword.)

BTW, why was the golf course "decommissioned?" Too many moldering old golf balls impacting the environment?

Or too many moldering old golfers...?


*Mead, ale, moonshine or sloe gin are all acceptable. But NO cabbage wine, OK?

[Interloper]

I haven't been on the board much lately mostly because I'm finding better uses for my time such as growing fruit and veggies.

I'm growing several varieties of cherries, avocados, citrus, blueberries, seeded fruit, pomegranates and veggies.

Anyone else have the bug for growing?

I'm really excited about the avocados because although California is famous for its avocados it's hard to find anything other than the commercially grown varieties.

Although the cherries will probably the tastiest since that is what my town famous for the avocado seems to be a gift from the gods in terms of all the health benefits these fruit offer.

I'm a professional gardener and horticulturist, and of course my work with plants also is a personal thing. On my small property I grow several kinds of blueberries, native shadbush (Amalanchier), and grapes. Also, 4 kinds of edible bamboos, various herbs and summer veggies. I have miniature pomegranates in pots (winter is too cold here to leave them outdoors), and plan to add some fig trees next year. Some varieties will overwinter outdoors here, but I will keep them in pots and let them go dormant in the cellar during winter.

[emptycloud]

SNIP
Our long term plan is to create a Decentralised Autonomous Community (DAC) on a decommissioned golf course.
SNIP

DAC sounds interesting.

Some advice on this project. With all the hippy chicks you will surely attract, you will definitely need a manly, cheesy and mystical TaiChee instructor. I can safely say I am the man for you. Can you kindly let me know whether you will pay my generous salary in hard cash, vegetable produce or home brew?* And I hate to say this, but my contract will also require steak three times a week. Doable? (If necessary, I can slaughter the livestock myself, using judo chops or my Yin-Yang TaiChee sword.)

BTW, why was the golf course "decommissioned?" Too many moldering old golf balls impacting the environment?

Or too many moldering old golfers...?


*Mead, ale, moonshine or sloe gin are all acceptable. But NO cabbage wine, OK?

The above all seems pretty reasonable. Will you be happy to service the original flower children, that's the only opening we have at the moment, you could start at the bottom and work your way up..? someone need to fill this position and I think your the man...

The golf courses have gone bust. Golf in Scotland and perhaps the rest of the UK is in fact taking a down turn. Membership fees have been slashed, wimmin allowed into the club house, young folk not taking up the sport, and so on. The bottom line is that we built to many (on prime agricultural land.)

Rich

ps..do you have a pony tail and moustache...not essential but would help.

[emptycloud]

I haven't been on the board much lately mostly because I'm finding better uses for my time such as growing fruit and veggies.

I'm growing several varieties of cherries, avocados, citrus, blueberries, seeded fruit, pomegranates and veggies.

Anyone else have the bug for growing?

I'm really excited about the avocados because although California is famous for its avocados it's hard to find anything other than the commercially grown varieties.

Although the cherries will probably the tastiest since that is what my town famous for the avocado seems to be a gift from the gods in terms of all the health benefits these fruit offer.

I'm a professional gardener and horticulturist, and of course my work with plants also is a personal thing. On my small property I grow several kinds of blueberries, native shadbush (Amalanchier), and grapes. Also, 4 kinds of edible bamboos, various herbs and summer veggies. I have miniature pomegranates in pots (winter is too cold here to leave them outdoors), and plan to add some fig trees next year. Some varieties will overwinter outdoors here, but I will keep them in pots and let them go dormant in the cellar during winter.

Nice..

[emptycloud]

Right on! I believe it is possible. I went to Berekeley Bowl this weekend, which is an organic store they have out here (unfortunately only in Berekeley) that is basically a Whole Foods for everybody. They have a selection of organic fruit but all at affordable prices, unlike Whole Foods. I don't know how they do it but they do.

On the flipside growing avocados when the trees are small is a bit like taking up a martial art. Everything has to be perfect and demands a lot of time for these trees to be happy or they just die. I already lost one West Indian avocado tree and I have two more trees that don't seem too happy. If I had known all that was involved I might have reconsidered and went for another exotic fruit like loquats. No regrets but I didn't realize what I was getting into.

Speaking of Scotland. This video blows my mind.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOJ9vBdHZGM

got three ton of rock dust in the lock up. I put through the compost and wormeries.

[Andy_S]

RE: My services as the commune's official TaiChee warrior/chief hippy:
Servicing the "original" flower children?

Oooooh, I say!

I am no ageist, so bring on those MILFs!

By the way, I trust we are agreed on my sirloin and the "no cabbage wine" demands...?

RE: Decommissioned golf courses cos nobody is playing
Damned glad to hear it.

This is a "sport" that is:
Socially elitist;
Utterly ridiculous as a form of exercise (bar the gentle stroll between holes);
Utterly yawn-worthy as a spectator event;
And yet still manages to take up massive amounts of top-quality land.

Twould be a far, far better thing we do to turn them all into giant allotments, hippy communes or battlegrounds for wilderness armed-and-armoured team MMA matches.

Or even better: All three at once!

[Andy_S]

SNIP
ps..do you have a pony tail and moustache...not essential but would help.
SNIP

Imagine a love child resulting from the satanic coupling of David Hasselhoff and David Carradine and you have - moi!

My awesome combo of (well exposed) chest pelt, cheesy grin, fortune-cookie philosophy and slow-mo kuhrotty has hippy chicks swooning; they simply cannot help themselves.

[neijia_boxer]

it is pretty much out-of-season now but basically i use a mushroom compost and plant mostly Thai herbs my wife uses for cooking:
basil, kaffir leaf, thai peppers, ginger root, and lemongrass. We also have mint, lavendar, and dill. this is at home.

Now that I am in TCM school i want to plant these in spring: american ginseng, licorice root, peppermint, and a bunch others. We have a garden at the school as well, but it is to shady so i have to choose herbs that grow in shade. I will most likely plant them at home.

[grzegorz]

got three ton of rock dust in the lock up. I put through the compost and wormeries.

That stuff is a dollar a pound in the stores.

[yeniseri]

Avocado (we call is za boca) needs as much as an organic base as possible for longevity! Our neighbours cows used to feed on the grass, which in turn provided manure for added fertilization of the soil then goats would graze so we had a great harvest and sold the avocados to the local supermarket. Where I am now in Midwest, I have never seen a cow, or any grazing animals on the farms across the street but I do see the farmers adding, what I believe to be nitrogen and other stuff to the fields and the corn looks real good when there is a good rain. Otherwise when it is hot, and there is a good wind, the soil is terrible!

[grzegorz]

Thanks!

All advice is helpful with these trees. I changed the watering to every 3 days instead of 4 and sure enough those two sad trees are happy again. These trees are very demanding.

I am using compost from my worms, mixed with garden soil, some citrus/avocado food, my current soil and some sandy loom. I also understand that you want to leave all the leaves there too so they can create their own mulch. I also plan to add shredded cedar, following this example for building up the soil.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEkFFRjDkvs

[emptycloud]

got three ton of rock dust in the lock up. I put through the compost and wormeries.

That stuff is a dollar a pound in the stores.

I am buying it at about £0.25p per pound in loose tonne bags.

[grzegorz]

That's a steal! Even a dollar pound is low.

I dig some up on occasions where and when I can but even by the bucket it's hard to tell if it's doing much good. Do you know if you need a lot to see the benefits?