Growing Your Own Ingredients

I did a quick search and didn't see an existing thread, so I'm creating my own......

Who here has their own garden? What do you grow? How do you maintain?

I'm off to the home improvement store in a bit to pick up some raised beds to start out veg garden. Figured I'd start this discussion in the 'Ingredients' forum since the essence of why I'm gardening is to stock my kitchen.

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All About Ingredients

Comments

michaelnatkin

I'm not much of a gardener, but we have a few raised beds that my wife mostly maintains. To me, the benefit is to grow relatively high value items that are either hard to get fresh enough at stores, or are hard to find, or the store varieties suck. For example:

- unusual heirloom tomato varieties

- zucchini, but mainly for their blossoms

- all the usual herbs, because they are so perfect when picked fresh

- less usual herbs like shiso, epazote

I see a lot less point in growing things like potatoes or broccoli or kale that are relatively sturdy.

DiggingDogFarm_65362

Yes, I try to grow as much stuff as possible.

But, like Michael, I focus on stuff that has superior flavor or is impossible to find at most farmer's markets.

Here are just a few:

Maria Nagy's Transylvanian Pepper (A cayenne type with good flavor, I find most other cayenne's bland.)

Matchbox Pepper (A well flavored hot pepper great for pickling.)

Monnopa Spinach (Sweet and low in oxalic acid.)

Parsley Root (A great addition to chicken or veg stock.)

Opalka and Martino's Roma Paste Tomatoes. (Good flavor. Both are also good sun dried.)

Real Mexico Midget Tomato (Tiny little tomato flavor bombs. Also very early. Unfortunately, not all sources of MMT seed or plants have the real thing.)

Bulgarian Triumph Tomato (A great salad Tomato.)

NuMex Jalmundo Jalapeño Pepper (Large and plump, great for stuffing and drying.)

Parisienne Cornichon de Bourbonne Cucumbers (Real French gherkins.)

French Gray Shallots (Real shallots.)

Cutting Celery (Much easier to grow than regular celery, at least in this area.)

Extrakta Sage (Bold sage flavor.)

Perennial Leek (Perpetual leek crop.)

Egyptian Walking Onion (Perpetual green onion crop.)

Clear Dawn Onion (Dehybridized from the well known Copra onion..)

Seminole Pumpkin (Ugly looking but great pumpkin flavor.)

~Martin

prince_of_porcelain

I agree with Michael's analysis above. Better to grow what you can't otherwise get. I grow mostly heirloom tomatoes and herbs, some fennel, more for the blossoms, seeds and fronds than the bulb, a couple of interesting heirloom bean varieties. This year I have a large number of carrots, mostly because I want to see if I can get a sweeter product through a late harvest or cellaring the product.

FrankM_3301

My fig tree is hitting its stride. 2 -3 lbs a day for a week straight. Next year I will be hitting you all up for fig uses. I've tapped fig knowledge dry.

Also grow Jerusalem artichoke. Keep these suckers contained, they spread like crazy and return each year.

...and lots of zucchini, but mainly for the flowers.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

I follow some of hydroponics forums, been very interested in that and I do have 4 aquaponics

indoor growers, the problem with those is that the volumes are pretty small.

I've been wanting to build a bigger outdoor covered system with tilapia so that I really can

turn up the volume so to say. Given our dry climate here combined with the sunshine it

seems the way to go. And I completely agree with @Michael on things like tater.

Samuel_68313

I only have a balcony, the joys of living in a city!

I grow mostly herbs and chilli peppers on the balcony. Herbs just make sense, they are very easy to grow and in the stores tend to be pretty expensive for what they are. Besides, often I don't know I even need them until I realise a dish is missing something.

Next summer I may well grow micro herbs and edible flowers because they are just insanely expensive for what you actually get. I think I am going to stop growing chilli peppers though. I just don't use them that much anymore.

willybez

I wanted to grow some purple carrot variety like those inthe carrot video. there are some that are purple shell but orange core. I am looking for those that are all purple. Can anyone tell me what variety those may be and where I can get some seeds?

Thanks

DiggingDogFarm_65362

Johnny's has a few purple cultivars..........

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-7063-deep-purple-f1-imperator.aspx

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-8957-purple-68-f1-treated.aspx

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-6777-purple-haze-f1.aspx

Here's an open-pollinated cultivar......

http://www.victoryseeds.com/carrot_cosmic-purple.html

Territorial has a cultivar that's deep purple......

http://www.territorialseed.com/product/12052

~Martin

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Rene Redzepi cooks a 'vintage carrot'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjN546QGSMA

Marc_Lyons_64226

http://www.nola.com/dining/index.ssf/2012/11/covey_rise_farms_brings_the_fi.html

DiggingDogFarm_65362

The rainbow carrots are beautiful.

I wish I had sandy soil here so I could grow them like that.

I have heavy soil so long slim carrots don't do well. If grown them as baby carrots they do okay.

I grow mostly Oxheart, French: “Carotte rouge demi-courte obtuse de Guérande” and Scarlet Nantes.

The Oxhearts are short and chubby, great for heavy soils.

The Scarlet Nantes are more tube shaped than regular carrots.....nice for consistent diameter slices.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Okay..... lots of planting today, and I doubt I did any of it right.

In the vein of things that are hard to find at most stores and even farmers markets I got: black salsify, red cabbage, purple cauliflower, cardoons, galangal, oyster plant, red ribbon sorrel, west Indian lemongrass.

Among the more 'regular' plants are: artichokes, chives, fennel, onions (red and Spanish yellow), snap peas, heirloom tomato.

Herbage (to be grown in pots) is comprised of: chives (garlic and onion), rosemary, lemon thyme, purple sage.

I also bought seeds for rainbow carrots, mizuna (Japanese mustard), and regular mustard greens, but I'm not sure if I'll actually plant them.

I think that's about it, but I honestly don't remember at this stage!

Larry_T_17489

I'm glad to see this thread. I have four 4'X4' raised beds in my back yard and I'm growing various tomatoes, Kale, Chard, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. I've got some indoor spaces for growing micro-greens and herbs and have had good luck with some red leaf lettuce, tarragon, basil, and a few others. I'm going to see about some small indoor aquaponics systems, since I have a few aquariums.

I'm on the Paleo diet, so I'm adapting modernist techniques to a diet free of grain, dairy, potatoes, and legumes. It's quite a bit of fun, since I made a gellato replacement using coconut cream, vanilla, pureed mangoes and agar.

Larry

Matthew_Snyder_68770

This was planting day a couple weeks ago.

I think 1/4 of what I planted has already died......

Michael_Lawless_36402

I'm also an urban dweller but get tons of sunlight with some huge windows in my apartment.

Been looking at one of these to mainly try and grow some fresh herbs instead of paying $4 every time I need something:

http://www.windowfarms.com

Saw it on Kickstarter and there were a few other hydroponic projects out there as well. One had an aquarium as the water reservoir.

Gardengirl_424280

Hi everyone. I'm trying to break in to the urban culinery kitchen garden design, installation and maintenance business but i keep hitting a couple of walls. Im a self-taught organic gardener focusing on herbs vegetables and edible flowers.

Firstly is this service something that Chefs would be willing to acquire or would you rather go to a course and learn how to do it yourself.

The fees I'm looking to charge are more in line with a landscape designer fees, so the structure would include a consultation fee, a design fee, an installation fee and a fee for maintenance. I'm also looking at an option to do maintenance training with the chefs so care for the garden can be left to the restaurant. Would this fee structure work for a restaurant, especially the little cafe at the corner trying to cut down on costs?

If my landscape design approach is not suitable what would you consider appropriate for the industry?

I appreciate your assistance in this regard.

vondes_593348

I know that business programs are built on several existing technologies. Saas, for example, is a "cloud" technology, and the software product is on the developer's servers. The customer data is most often stored there. You can receive ongoing maintenance and updates from the developer, help, server space, etc. The payment can be made monthly, with small amounts. What would you think about https://www.managemart.com/lawn-care does it suit the description above?

LangdonJohn_1301879

In order to grow our own ingredients, we all need a greenhouse and other gardening supplies. If you are new to this at the moment, you need to familiarize yourself with this topic in more detail and gardening and landscaping services can help you with this. Growing your own ingredients is very rewarding and exciting. You can keep even a teenager busy with this, and you can end up with delicious fruits and vegetables even in the coldest period of time. Any dish depends on the quality of your produce and what you grow yourself will give the dish the richest and most sumptuous flavor.

LClarck007_1209800

Do these guys provide discounts?