We have done that. A couple of years ago it really became a concern for me, I was working in a place that did a lot of food safety studies. Whether you grow or raise your own OR buy your food from another party, the most important thing to remember is "Know your farmer".

I actually found a local natural dairy that delivered pasteurized milk, cream, butter, ice-cream,etc. to our home. We used a local farm for all of our meat that was humanely raised. And our local Amish farm provided us with eggs. (They have great eggs, perfectly safe--that's where the eggs for immunizations come from, btw). Now, I can't say the same for their milk. Too many neighbors believed that if they bought their veggies at the Amish farm they were organic. Not so. There are a lot of chemicals being used, and I learned that some of our local Amish farms used terrible stuff. Find a certified organic farm if you don't grow the veggies yourself.

We did a lot of canning and freezing. I can't believe we have to start all over with our gardens. ugh

Bee

Yes! We've always limited ourselves to what we could grow in containers on our deck since I've been so worried about all the pesticides everyone around us uses to keep their grass looking so green. Our yard slopes down and our garden area would have to be at the bottom of that and I worry that the rain will carry all the pesticides right to it. But one of my "projects" is to figure out how to expand what we grow next season. There are a few organic community gardens around us that we may check out, but I'd much prefer being able to take care of one in my own backyard while the kids are playing. I'd love to hear what others do to protect their crops from all the pesticides around them. I'd also love to learn how to can foods. A local farm stand had the most amazing canned green beans this summer, which has inspired me to look into it! Thanks for starting this thread!

Hi, Lavender. I'm just thinking about doing more at this point, but raising some food at home makes good sense when you have room for it, which we do. Our friends raise chickens and veggies for home and market, and the guys could build and stock us a hen house tomorrow, but I'd like to do more traveling, not less. Still, we could if needed. Chickens are food the planet around, in some of the worst climates and tiniest yards. Unfortunately, our neighbors' little guys act more like pets than food when I come over. Same for the goats.

For some time I have grown a variety of herbs and of greens for salads, the sort of stuff that's expensive at the market, and a handful of fruit trees. This year I was going to get a tractor in to break up hardpan and put in a little mixed orchard but didn't. Really do want to, though. We'll plant tough, disease-resistant varieties and use an integrated management system combined with acceptance of less than perfect fruit since we won't be trying to sell it. Those rotten spots and bugs that do show up in the kitchen can be cut out the way they always have been.

BTW, shortly after moving to buggy, steamy Georgia, I asked a very elderly gentleman how his family managed to feed themselves before commercial pesticides, fungicides, etc., and he smiled and explained that they planted "enough for us and them."

The PO installed a large fenced garden with raised beds and built in irrigation and we use the same gardener who has been with the property two decades.

So of course we planted! We planted quite a variety, has successes and failures, shortages and surpluses. The whole family was involved.

Is is extraordinarily satisfying. However, we have access to terrific organic produce markets and CSAs already. So i think it was more for the satisfaction then for quality. And it certainly was not cheaper!

Next year, we will focus on the things that were successful but also only those things where the quality is indeed superior. Haricot verts. Heirloom tomatoes. Broccoli, and cauliflower. We will also do lettuces just because we loved the daily trek to pick it for salads, pretty much June thru end October.

We have chickens, fruit trees and berry patches, and a 1000 square foot organic vegetable garden on our suburban I plan succession plantings so I can put up lots for winter, plus grow lots of storage vegs like potatoes, onions, garlic, squash. It's fabulous not to have to buy produce other than greens and bananas until about March when our homegrown supplies begin to run low. Of course then we're only 6 weeks or so away from fresh spring greens! We also buy shares (half or quarter animal) of local pastured beef and pork for the freezer.

I hope to add chickens this next year, and hope to expand the garden, also. We have a root cellar with shelves for canned goods and storing squash, potatoes, etc. planned under our new addition, so it can be accessed from our mud room area. I also plan keep to things that grow well for me...No use wasting space for others. I've been meaning to start canning for a couple years, but our crops haven't warranted the trouble, and I haven't found a good enough bulk source.

Years ago our veggie garden was 1 acre!!! Since we had to clear the land bring in the soil etc I always wondered what a mellon, tomato or pepper really cost us. Eventually we lost a lot to the wild life. We raised chickens for eggs and eventually soup, turkeys, pigs and pheasants. 2 children, 2 adults and I ran 2 - 15 cu ft freezers. I will say the food was delicious, organic, expensive and a whole lot of work. Some fruits and veggies are fine and that is enough for me now.

I have a 6,000 sq foot garden, and I have no intention of enlarging it for the next growing season. Though I've talked DH into letting me get a few goats to go with the rabbits and chickens we raise.

My house kitchen was designed with that in mind - and that is why I have a summer kitchen too. I even got a stainless steel canner to use on my induction cooktop.

I've seen a few kitchens posted on here, and thought "wow, that would work well for processing" and usually a few pictures later, I see some canned goods or a canner sitting by.

We've had a fenced veggie garden for years, and some years we have more and some less. I bought a pressure canner for the first time this year for pasta sauce. Funny thing, the tomatoes came ripe really late this year, so the bulk of them were ready for canning just about the time we tore our kitchen out. I've never known them to be so late before. [Ha! Now I know what we're having for dinner.]

We have prolific olallieberry vines (a loganberry-youngberry cross, like a blackberry sort of) and mostly do a lot of jam in early June. This year we've added 5 new fruit tree, 2 citrus, apricot, plum, and peach, plus 2 blueberry bushes.

I do have a burning question, if anyone knows. Years ago, I canned apricots from a now-deceased tree, and they always came out mushy, not even remotely firm. Good, but mushy. Will using the pressure canner solve that?

Suzannesl, ask on the Harvest forum, those folks know their canning!

I am already there. We have 2 freezers and a canning cupboard full to the brim. I love to garden and so therefore do grow most of our veggies even though I am extremely lucky to live in an area with many many beautiful organic farms and terrific farmers markets. Still, nothing beats strolling out to the garden to pick lettuce for your lunch salad!

I am trying to focus on high-value crops, for example succession plantings of greens late and early using my small homemade hoophouse, and crops such as early cucumbers, leeks and tomatoes. I also try and grow things we like to make into value added products-- dilly beans, pickles, pickled beets, etc. We also have blueberries, raspberries and blackberries, and a small flock of laying hens to add to the ambience and compost.

If you are concerned about pesticide run-off, try raised beds with purchased soil. That will keep things above the level of the run-off.

I live on a small, beachside lot where I grow a lot of ornamentals. We get airborne salt and our well water is salt intruded. I've repeatedly tried tomatoes, peppers & eggplant but they are not salt tolerate. Lettuce was ok, herbs grow very well and my lemon tree bears continually.

Whether or not a person can grow food for themselves depends on a lot of different factors! Luckily we have a great year-round farmers market that provides locally grown veggies much of the year.

We grow a garden of veggies and herbs. I have fruit trees in the yard (apple and cherry). We have raspberries. We don't use pesticides or herbicides in our yard. All organic lawn. There's a great organic lawn forum in GW. I want chickens but since I have a friend with chickens right now that's on the back burner. Mostly due to our two dogs that would gladly have chicken for dinner. I will be getting bees in the spring and plan to have two hives. Mostly educational/hobby but a little bit of honey now and then will be a bonus. We buy organic beef from a local supplier and freeze half beef at a time. I could do more. We are always trying to be more self sufficient than the year prior. Food supply is a real issue.

Ne

In addition to a huge 40x40 garden in our backyard we recently purchased 2 hydroponic tower gardens that we have on our deck outside our kitchen door. We just took them down after 9 months of growing tomatoes, squash, parsley, basil, strawberries, a variety of lettuces, kale, swiss chard and spinach etc. It's been a wonderful experience and love the concept of it. No dirt, it totally waters itself on a timer and the produce is organic. We were part a consumer test market and I believe they will be available for sale in February or March of 2012. It's based on the technology you may have seen at Epcot. We loved it so much that it may be a new business venture for us. Will be glad to get anyone more info as it comes available. Here is a pic of what ours looked like.

A few years ago I decided to try to grow my own produce, having grown up on a farm where we grew all of our own food. Since I live on a small city lot, there wasn't a lot of space, so I cut out more than half of my driveway and re-landscaped that area to be a garden/orchard. I put in a fence with espaliered trees (apples and cherries) on one side, along with a fig tree, all of which are pollenated by my own mason bees. I then built raised beds in different configurations and use those along with barrels and bits of open spots for all of my summer veggies, herbs and tea plants. I was fortunate this year to be able to can beets, tomatoes, green beans, blueberries, raspberries and strawberries from my garden. I eat strictly from my pesticide and chemical free garden all summer long, and sometimes well into the fall. I do try to winter over some veggies, but thus far haven't mastered it! I buy fresh tuna from the coast and can that to last all year as well. For the rest of my produce that I can't grow, I shop the local farmer's markets and get my eggs from friends that have chickens. My roasting hens come from a local farmer that butchers only twice a year, and also supplies me with cheese making supplies
and fresh non-pasturized milk that freezes wonderfully.

As I've gotten older, it has become more important to me to eat organic, chemical free produce. It feels better to eat healthier, and I enjoy being able to taste real food. What I can't grow or find locally, or for those occasional snack foods, I just head to the local Whole Foods. I also try to eat by the season, only those foods that are normally grown in that season, which tends to eliminate buying produce from other countries which may be less controlled regarding pesticide use.

It's not easy to eat healthy, and does take a lot more prep (which should be much easier with the new kitchen!), but it's worth it to feel good and healthy. I think a lot of our current health problems are related to the diet that most Americans eat and I am hoping to counteract my bad genetics with healthy (albeit expensive) eating habits!

We are finally going to give it a try. My sister and her husband have been doing a raised garden the past few years, and when I'm around, I love to partake in the fresh picks. However I was 4 states away, so those times were rare. We now live just a couple of hours away, and my husband and I purchased almost 4 acres and have decided to do some gardening of our own. The back 2 acres are currently being used by a farmer who rotates, corn, soybeans, and rye. We close next week and will be contacting him in regards to maintaining our land ourselves, and plan to plant some things asap. I'm excited and have asked my sister and BIL to help. Wish us luck, or better yet, wish the crops luck. LOL!

Nursetammi, I'd love more info on those! What yard we have is very shady, so growing things on my deck is pretty much my only option (unless I turned my front lawn into a veggie garden, which I don't think the neighbors would appreciate).

Planted 3 more peach trees this year, along with 2 cherry trees to go with the one peach tree, 3 pear trees, and 10 apple trees already producing. Planted more blackberries, more blueberries.
Have a large garden with peppers, tomatoes, cauliflower, brocoli, eggplant, zuchinni, potates, squash, cucumbers, peas, green beans and onions. Also have strawberries, and raspberries. Nothing beats heading for the garden to grab a few fresh peas, and raw green beans and topping it off with a handful of each berry.
The store bought produce is bland, picked before it's ripe and has chemicals to keep it fresh. Who needs it?
I dread getting Stark Bros catalog, there are so many more trees and plants I want to get, but it may get out of hand! :)

If any of you are going to be starting to can (water bath of pressure) for the first time = PLEASE READ and read more, and learn about what you are doing with the process. You can potentionally kill your family if you do things wrong. Now, the risks are quite low, and actually quite easy to eliminate safely, so you don't have to panic, but understand that guessing is not a good thing.

I love canning and would encourage anyone to learn and start. The Harvest forum here is a very good place to start.

Along with Macybaby's recommendation of the Harvest Forum, I'll add that here on GW there are lots of great resources to help you get started. The Vegetable Gardening forum, Tomato Forum, Square Foot Garden forum, etc. are full of people as knowledgeable and helpful as this forum is with kitchen gurus.

Many states offer Master Gardening training through the Cooperative Extension Service, and I highly recommend that training for new gardeners.

I am a gardening junkie and I just LOVE seeing the growing interest in backyard gardening. Even at the small college where I work our students are interested in gardening and local eating, and have a garden on campus which provides produce to the local food pantry. Hurrah!

Yes!!

I too am a gardening junkie. We just moved from where we could only have raised beds since we only had 2 or 3" of topsoil before you hit rock - absolutely no luck with fruit trees but when we move...we have 2' of soil!

We've already planted 15 fruit trees in the spring and planted 246 cloves of garlic this fall. We don't even have a building permit yet. Our chicken coop is there so we go out everyday and dream. After we get a house, we'll build a barn and then get a cow! I can't wait.

If anybody is thinking of getting chickens - do.. They are great - easy to look after, fun, and pretty, I think. Not to mention eggs! Sometimes I've started baking and realize I need another egg, it's nice just to go out to the chicken coop instad of the store for more eggs.

Anna_Chosak, you are too funny about using your front lawn for a veggie garden and you are right because one of my neighbors did that and the neighborhood was not so happy :)

I would LOVE to expand our garden. We currently have five raised beds, some containers, some baby fruit trees.

But.

We're in Central Texas. I may have to downsize next summer. This monstrous drought we're in is killing everything - trees, shrubs, wildlife. Gardening is hard here during the best of years, what with the bad soil and the harsh weather conditions, but the past few summers (ironically, this drought started in 2007/08, right around the time we got into raising veggies and fruit, after having just grown ornamentals for many years) have been a disaster. From what I've read, it's not about to improve any time soon; they're talking a ten to fifteen years trend, maybe longer. According to tree ring analysis, it's the worst in five hundred years. We broke every heat/drought related record in the books this year.

So I spent most of the summer watering, despite shade cloth and mulch, with only a small harvest in late spring and June as a reward. After that, everything pretty much shut down into bare survival mode. The tomatoes and peppers came back in September as they always do. Then the first freeze hit right after Halloween, three weeks earlier than average. Now I've seven baskets piled with undersized green tomatoes standing around.

Sigh. Rant over. :) Glad to hear others are doing better!

What a great idea for a thread. We have a small 100 by 100ft lot but the backyard now that our kids are grown is deck and garden with a bit of patio and shed. I put in more raised beds each year and love composting. It's a good feeling to see all our kitchen trimmings turn to soil! Very happy to have discovered this site. Hope to get some help on the garden web regarding slugs, bugs and deer. The deer finally found our street in August while we were away and there went all our fall veggies. Then the slugs came! We freeze our veggies. Back when we were students in Wisconsin we used to can tomatoes. I'm thinking of canning tomato sauce this year. We froze a bunch of pesto but haven't tried it yet. We brought our rosemary in and it is still growing strong.