Do you even garden bro?
I personally love spending time in the garden. The quality of the produce you can grow far surpasses the garbage they sell at the grocery store. Most produce that is commercially grown is bred for shelf life. They aren't concerned with flavor or nutrient content. You have to spend a small fortune to find quality organic vegetables these days. The best solution is to grow your own garden. 
Tomatoes and squash are very prolific producers. The yellow squash pictured are a hybrid cross of a yellow crookneck and a green zucchcini sqaush. When you cross two heirloom varieties you get an F1 hybrid. With some luck they will display a characteristic called "Hybrid Vigor." The hybrids grow faster, stronger, and produce more fruit, or veggie's. These are of particular interest to the cannabis industry, because they yeild more in less space. An "early girl" tomatoe is a popular hybrid tomatoe that you can grow in your garden. 
These beautiful flowers are called snapdragons. It's important to grow some colorful flowers in the garden to help attract bee's and other pollinator species. Maragolds and zinnias are also good "companion plants" to mix amongst your vegetables. The native Americans in the southwest would grown corn, sqaush, and beans together. It was called "the three sister's. " The corn is used instead of a pole, that the beans grow up. The large leaves of the sqaush help shade the patch of beans and corn, so it is more drought hardy. A good gardening book will have a list of plants that are compatable to plant together. 
Pinterest has some interesting gardening tutorials. I found this one about how to make a strawberry tower out of old water bottles. It's a bit of a challenge to keep hydrated in the summer, but it's good to grow veritically to save space. I'll do some blogs on my worm farm in the future. I feed them my compostables and use their waste for fertilizer. Hope you guy's can plant a garden this year and eat the fruits of your labor. Please upvote, follow, and resteem, I would appreciate it.
I'm obsessed with growing giant onions. We have an extended family competition for the heaviest one. All of the family meet to enjoy drink and eats before the official weighing takes place. I have previously grown mine from sets, but this year I am trying seed. Sowed them a couple of weeks ago and they are coming along fine.....sitting on the bedroom windowsill. Wish me luck for September!
I hope you win, that sounds like a fun family competition.
Fresh tomatoes and basil out of the garden in the summer time...makes my mouth water thinking about them. The heirloom varieties always taste better. We will have a huge garden on our homestead this year. Another month and it will be time to start the peas.
Nice. I was just eating some fresh peas off the vine a moment ago. It's been a very warm winter here in California so far. The summer is gonna be crazy hot I bet. Most of my heirloom tomatoes sttuggled in the heat last year. All the cherry tomatoes keep producing despite the heat though...
My 89 year old grandma grew this heirloom tomato last summer. Those are yellow grape tomatoes in the bowl.
Beautiful. I grew a yellow brandywine tomato last year for the first time. I try to grow those yellow pears every year. The oarnge sungold are one of my favorites as well.
I like growing perennial crops the best.
Nice. I like it all lol.
Most of my annual plants don't seem to do so well. :( Spinach is also frustrating because it's programmed to die pretty fast. Fresh spinach is awesome though.
Swiss chard is a pretty good substitute that grows almost like a perrenial. I think it's a biennial technically, but I've had them grow longer. Just keep cutting the flower stalks off and keep them well watered in the summer. It's good steamed like spinach with some lemon juice. I like to add it to soups or just fry it with bacon is good too...
Thank you. I think they sell it at the store. I'll have to try some and then maybe grow it. I did some research into lettuces and there are some northern perennial type lettuces but I never bought any seeds and tried to start growing them. I do have chives grass. Chives taste awesome! lol
I love chives chopped up on a potato. The chard is a good on because not only is it heat resistant it's also pretty frost resistant.
I wish my whole yard was chives instead of regular grass. lol
Wow down to 15F! I need to buy some next time I am at the store. Hopefully it is edible to me. lol I think I had heard of kale being pretty winter resistant but wow!
http://www.motherofahubbard.com/10-vegetables-more-cold-hardy-than-kale/
A chive lawn would be really neat. I've always wanted a lemon thyme lawn. Smells so good...
I like it. It gets kinda tough when leaves mature, that's why I usually steam it. Adding 1-2 inch micro greens from it are a tasty colorful addition to a salad. You should check out Baker Creek heirlooms they have this Rocky Top salad mix that is the best variety I've grown.https://www.rareseeds.com/rocky-top-lettuce-mix-salad-blend-1-oz/ They carry this Tom Thumb breed that is only about 3-4 inches in across when mature. Nice firm little heads of lettuce though and really tasty. Cute as hell too lol...
We spent a lot of time in the garden growing up. My grandmother is nearly obsessed with gardening and it's passed on through the generations. Between my mom, my brother and my grandmother I think they could feed the whole town through winter.
The vegetables grown for the grocery store are grown in severely mineral depleted soil. Artificial fertilizers are used to help the plants grow but they end up lacking vitamins and minerals because of the depleted soil. Between that and being designed for shelf life instead of flavour and nutrition you end up with an inferior product.
Companion gardening is something that has interested me lately. I've read a few articles but I still have some more researching to do. I think there is definitely benefits to it.
Nothing can beat the food you grow yourself. Good post. Thanks for sharing.
I should do a whole post on the evils of Monsanto and commercial gardening practices as a whole. My love for gardening has been passed down through the generations myself. It's something these public schools should be teaching kids more often. I'm starting to see it a bit more often nowadays. I think it's a pretty important survival skill to learn.
Absolutely.
Every school should have a garden. We see some community gardens popping up in Edmonton and it works out that they are always on the edge of a school ground or park. I don't know how many schools have actually set up gardens for the students but it's really stupid if they don't.
Schools are always worried about money. Gardening is a pretty cheap hobby. All you need is dirt, water and seeds. Dirt is free, and water and seeds are cheap. I'm sure you could get tools donated from a local hardware store if you advertised them as a sponsor. You make money on it if you sell the vegetables (I'd have a tough time not eating them myself). The schools could have a farmers market to fund the program and if it's age appropriate they could use some of the fruits and vegetables in whatever home economics program they have.
I really don't see any problems with it. Leave it to bureaucracy to destroy a good thing though. I'm sure there's some reason they don't want to do it. It's likely because no one will pay for it.
I see it more often at elementary schools. I don't think I've ever seen it at a high school which is odd. You have some good ideas. They already have the most expensive part, the land.
It's true. These days we have to be very careful about what we eat. I have seen videos of unscrupulous farmers injecting colours into their produce, and some soaked their produce in dye. Then there are videos which show a layer of wax on the skin of the fruits.... Scary indeed. So, the best way is to plant your own food, if you have a little plot of land.
You have an interesting garden. I am glad that you are making use of space and putting your time to good use. The produce from the garden is motivation, and reward enough for the hard work you put in.
Cheers!
Good for the mind, body, and soul. It is pretty scary but everyone is concerned with making a dollar instead of other peoples well being.
I agree with you, there is nothing better than fresh, organic vegetables and fruits from the garden. Nice harvest you have there! Well done! :)
Thank you
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Oh man...I am so ready to start planting. You talk about it being hit this summer, we are looking to move north. We might need a green house to get the tomatoes to turn haha. 🙃
good your post brother
I love spending time in the garden, too. In Hungary, we grow many kind of fruits andd veggies in our garden. However, currently I live in Mexico, so I have no garden here, but at least I can have all the wonderful tropical fruits in winter :)
You can't beat that. Hope you get a garden going again soon.