whats your plan

[michigander]

With droughts prevalent in the news and the threat of Rising prices next year what plans have you made to cover the added expense of feeding your family?

My garden although small (25 × 30 feet) provides all the tomatoes, cabbage, zucchini, butternut squash, beans, and peppers for my personal needs and yearly preserving.

This year I covered the whole thing in weed barrier which helps retain moisture and makes weeding easier, I think it will allow me to plant my rows closer and expand in variety of produce, but trying to figure out what else I should add isn't an easy decision.

I am interested in hearing what others have considered adding to their list of must haves

[Melissa]

We always plant a big patch of potatoes. It used to be that they were fairly cheap to buy but we planted them anyways because homegrown are so much better. The last few years though potatoes have become increasingly expensive so it really is worthwhile to grow some.

I plant lots of pie pumpkins and winter squash. A few years ago I had one acorn squash plant that had over 50 squash on it!!! I also like butternut squash which often keep until the next spring. You can buy these seeds at Dollar General for a quarter or 50 cents a package. You get a lot of food for the money at that price. I also like to plant a patch of turnips. I once planted a quarter pack and ended up with a wheelbarrow loaded with turnips.

[gran29]

Potatoes dont flourish for us and home grown ones dont keep well, maybe too far south. We have grown them and the taste is so superior
to supermarket ones. We havent grown them in a few years, health reasons keeping our garden smaller.

Sweet potatoes are a different story, however! 15-20 years ago I purchased sweet potatoes around Thanksgiving, one must have rolled under the kitchen cabinet as that is where I found it the following spring, all sprouted out. It was a small one but had 6-7 slips which we planted.
Wonderful sweet potatoes which we have kept going - just planted this years a few weeks ago. Still slips coming which I will offer to the kids/neighbors. And they keep all winter in the garage. A staple.

Kale is another staple, planted in the fall and gives us greens all winter. Bitter cold may nip it back but with a few warm days there will be more fresh leaves. We love it.

[Melissa]

We have an underground root cellar so we are able to keep potatoes for a long time.
I do like to grow sweet potatoes but I did not start any this year. Time seems to get away from me!

[mzgarden]

There are just two of us to feed, so instead of expanding the veg in the garden, we've been adding fruits. They are not annuals of course, so it takes a year or two generally to get much, but we started adding a few years ago. Peach trees are doing well, Quince has had the blooms frozen the last 2 years but the tree is healthy. DH mowed down my fig tree starts so I'll have to think about getting more. The thornless blackberry patch is doing well, the strawberry patch died over the winter. We have seedless table grapes coming along nicely and the elderberries are gangbusters this year. I find growing fruit is more frustrating, delicate and time consuming than annual veg but hopefully we'll get the hang of it and get that going. Oh, we did put in a small asparagus patch 2 years ago and we got asparagus this year and the fronds are huge this summer, so they seem to be doing well.

[mogal]

Mzgarden, give your fig trees a couple of weeks to recover before you get more as the tops can freeze to the ground in winter but the roots will put up new growth. Maybe yours will too. If it's been fairly recently and you can find lengths of stem about 6" long, stick those in water or a potting mix amended with about 1/3 sharp sand. I planted a fig not long ago, managed to break a stem about 1/2" in diameter. I cut it in half, stuck both halves in water and they are in the process of rooting now.

When DH and I were in our first home, we had a bunch of pecan saplings 10-12' tall down in our pasture. DH had just gotten a new to us tractor and bush hog so asked me to mark the trees. He wanted to mow but avoid the trees. I took an old sheet, tore strips about 4" wide and tied them unevenly as high as I could reach so they'd flutter in the breeze. Shortly after DH finished mowing, he came back to the house and asked why I hadn't marked those trees. I explained that I had but he said he hadn't seen any sort of flag. Yep, he'd mowed them all to the ground. Oh, well. Is it any wonder that even today, there are places in the yard I mow myself. And don't get me started on his use of a weed eater! For the most part, he's become a good country boy.

[susannah]

Drought is a really big threat this year - so many places. In my state, it's severe to extreme drought in the southern parts of the state (including a lot of farm country) while up here we're abnormally dry to bordering moderate drought. With such widespread drought, I can only imagine what the crops will be like - and how high the prices might go.

Due to being mostly in the woods, our gardening is limited to a big raised bed and a bunch of container gardens. My rain barrels have run dry a few times already. That's never happened before. Normally we start out kind of dry, lower water levels on the lakes - but by this time we've had a few - or more - good, soaking rains. Measured in inches. That's only happened once so far, and it wasn't enough. While the containers hold water pretty well, I am forever watering the raised bed - even though it's partial shade. This is when our incredibly good drainage - sandy/gravelly soil - is a curse for gardens rather than a blessing. Blink and it's dry again and needs more water.

This year, we have more container plants than we did last year. Last year our container planting was limited to maybe 7 or 8 planters that we had on wheeled contraptions so they could be "walked" around the deck to follow the sun. Pain in the...well, this year I only have three containers on the deck and a larger number of them against the south facing side of one of the shed. This was made possible due to the blessing that is deer netting. Between that and the mazes we create to get into that area and the raised bed, the deer have been completely foiled in their attempts to raid the gardens. I expect to have an overabundance of lettuce and greens soon - based on prior years. Herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers - the garden supplies all we need to eat fresh quite nicely and gives us a little extra to preserve each year. But not enough to preserve for a year or anything, unfortunately.

The apple tree has gone absolutely crazy this year, and is covered with little green apples. They're not the best for eating fresh - at least I don't think so although my granddaughter is planning on eating them - so she says. But I'm betting I can put up a good bit of applesauce, which turns out okay with those apples. Honestly, I have never seen the kind of apple "production" I'm seeing this year.

There's rain in the forecast for today - I'm hoping this batch doesn't skip us like the rain earlier this week did. And hoping for rain for so many other areas experiencing drought!

[mogal]

We got 1/2" last night but there are still cracks in some parts of the yard. The extreme northwest part of our county, one county west and one due north had near and upwards of THREE inches in a very short period of time creating flash flooding. Ah, Missouri. If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes.

I just checked radar and there's a nice mass of green, yellow and red from west central Missouri all the way up to the middle of the Iowa/Missouri border. It appears to be heading this way. We can only hope.

One of my neighbors called for a phone visit on Friday afternoon. She asked how our garden was coming and said they hadn't planted anything. They have 2 grown sons living within a mile of their house and is married with 2 children each. My neighbor's husband is a professional farmer and they are "well off." She said that they'd just buy what they needed. Hmmm. With the drought, I wonder how much fresh food/produce, meat, grain will be available in the next year. They have only grown a small salad garden in years past and welcome any excess we give them, especially fruit that will be in short supply this year due to a late frost. Can't save the world, even my corner of it.

[Maura]

I have grown potatoes before. Mostly Yukon Gold and Peruvian Blue. I plan on doing this again, but may use buckets. I have never grown sweet potatoes and our season may be too short for them, but I will give it a try. My typical garden plants are tomatoes, bell peppers, and green beans, but I will be adding dry beans, new sweet peppers, celery, lettuce, and cabbage next year.

[michigander]

My gardening adventure started out mostly a hobby, but with inflation growing and my income stagnant(soc sec) I leaning more towards "defensive gardening" (for lack of a better term).
The drought hasn't hit us here in my part of Michigan, but my lawn is turning brown even after raising the mower deck and having a well I'm not interested in running the pump for anything other than the garden.
Potatoes are sounding like a good addition next year al tho I'm limited for space, I might explore barrel growing ideas on youtube.
For this year, something I've never done before is fall planting and am considering more cabbage, parsnips and beans.
I just want to add the my thoughts and prayers are with all having to deal with the unusual weather.

[mogal]

Michigander, the best potatoes we've ever grown were in plastic cattle protein supplement tubs with drain holes drilled in the bottom. Our tubs hold approximately 20 gal of water to give you an idea of capacity. When the vines began to dry down, we spread a tarp on the ground beside the tub and dumped the soil onto the tarp. After we had picked up all the potatoes, it was easy to use the tarp to dump the soil back into the tub. No potatoes suffered punctures from being dug too.

[Maura]

Mogal, I like the less digging, less work method as you described. There are several u-tube videos and lessons in print that I just have to choose what I think will work for me now that I am gardening by myself.

[vickilynn]

Potatoes are our main crop too. Growing Carola and Kennebec this year. Have a root cellar in this old house, so nice for keeping them. My last peach tree was killed by cold again, so I am not going to try anymore. It’s the cold wind here that they cannot take. I grow lots of what we like, peas, carrots, squash, and others. I only grow cherry tomatoes for the nursing home. I cannot eat them anymore or anything made with tomatoes and Tom doesn’t eat many of them. Not growing tomatoes frees up garden space, so I grow more sunflowers. Still have lots of apples and pears and berries.