My intentional patch of weeds is growing nicely as long as my wife can’t get to it with the lawnmower before winter 
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@clarkinks I’m at a golf course now, thanks for the compliment!
@disc4tw A lot of his books seem to roughly cover the same stuff, but all have slightly different stuff. The winter harvest handbook has been really informative me.
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There are no coal subsidies. To the contrary, there are penalties
instead of planting regular flowers, plant jeruselum artichoke and ground nut. both are great carbohydrate and protein sources and continue to make tubers whether you use them or not. both have been used as a potato replacement and groundnut was used by the indians and helped early American colonists survive the 1st winters in the new world.
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Purple kale, purple okra, colorful chard, colorful onion blooms, purple mustard greens…there are a lot of options to have ‘flowers’ but also grow food in a yard.
Nasturtiums, pansies, even daylilies, hosta and tulips can serve two purposes.
In zone 7 try growing your tea…having a camellia like bloom and evergreen leaves. Horseradish, rhubarb look nice. Serviceberries, blueberries, gooseberries…red fleshed apples that have reddish leaves and magenta/purple blooms…
instead of regular plants to landscape a place…substitute.
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Jason, your gentle and supportive words are appreciated. That’s precisely how discussing politics started on the forum. Several members wanted to discuss politics for various reasons, stressing the things you mentioned in your post. Unfortunately, the civility didn’t last long, and some members were saying some of the nastiest things to one another.
The political discussions generally followed a pattern. First civility and grace extended toward each other. Then fervent, but generally polite disagreement. Next, insulting each others’ source material with stronger and stronger insults. Finally, insulting each other with stronger insults. Sometimes, steps would be skipped, and participants would rush straight to the end of insulting each other. But most of the time political discussions followed that general outline.
Scott, owner of the forum, was extremely patient in trying to rescue some aspect of free political speech on the forum. But regardless of how many pleadings and warnings we issued, we could not keep political discussion civil. It was with much thought, admin discussion, and input from the membership that the decision was finally made to halt political discussion on the forum.
So while I share and appreciate some of your views regarding the benefits of diversity of political thought, the repeated personal attacks and insults precipitated by political discussions, didn’t fit within the scope and mission of the forum (i.e. A forum community dedicated to enthusiastic discussion about fruits and nuts.)
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I agree 100% with this. Obviously topics such as this generate a large amount of passion from a certain subset of users. Having a variety of opinions on the topic provides a treasure-trove of information for someone like myself who is simply trying to become a little more selfsufficient. What I was saying was more of a general plea to hopefully drive the conversation in a direction that it allows it to stay open and active.
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How much did you spend on those little hoop houses and is this the first season you’ve tried growing winter greens in PA?
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@ampersand … love the hoop house thing. I have two nice beds just recently planted in my garden… they are around 3 x 10 ft.
They have leaf lettuce spinach bck choi and collards in them.
They should be fine here with no protection… for another month or so.
Can you share what materials you used to make your hoop house ?
I need to do that… I may have greens to eat into Jan or later if protected some.
Thanks
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The low tunnels are just 5’ lengths of 1/2" pvc slipped over pieces of rebar hammered into the ground. Frost cloth overtop. I can add a layer of plastic if I feel it’s needed.
I was able to recycle a lot of stuff, most money was spent on compost. Ideally I would have had more time to build the soil the normal way, but I wanted to get this done asap so I bought compost. This is my first time doing this, per Eliot Coleman if covered they should be fine well down into the 20s. Wind dessication is a bigger issue than cold for most of the stuff I planted.
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I think it’s high time to revisit the idea of the “victory garden” (Victory garden - Wikipedia) that was planned and plotted out during the WWII times. The idea was not total self-sufficiency, but to lessen the dependency on the agricultural production through a dispersed, individual production, and it makes sense now, both economically-wise and suply-chain wise. People are slowly turning to preppers I see 
I’m starting one next year, this autumn I’ll build 16 raised beds (size 2 x 1.2 m). Any tips for filling? I thought about filling the lowest part with wood to make a mini hugelkultur, but I’d be grateful for tips. I can’t plant directly, I live on what is basically sand, the soil is in between 5th and 6th class.
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Personally, I wouldn’t spend the money on raised beds. Use the money you would have spent on lumber to buy good compost and set up permanent rows of 30" with 12-18" aisles. Put down a few inches of good compost, till if desired, and you’re good to go.
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I got the planks for free so I have to do something with them now, and I like tinkering around the future garden 
I’ll consider the compost, thanks for the tip! I wanted to buy a pallet of soil or just get it from a field of a friend (but his soil is alcaline) so I’m mostly concerned about the types and varieties of fruit and veggies to plant.
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Jason, I had (accidental) success growing arugula and cilantro here in 6b last winter with no protection at all. Seedlings from one of the summer crops just took off - the greens were huge and tasty. They even did fine under the snow - just had to dig them out. We had arugula on burgers all winter into April, until it finally went to seed. I am sure it would do even better under a cold frame.
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Good idea! Supplementing fresh, healthy food and cutting costs is always great—in good times or lean.
For easy, nutrient-packed, fresh greens all season—well into winter if given a little protection—try one of the green cutting chards like Perpetual Spinach. Young leaves work in salads; all sizes of leaves can be cooked into a delicious (and much easier to grow!) spinach substitute. Can be subjected to cut-and-come-again harvest several times in a season.
Chinese cabbage is also easy, and tasty raw or cooked. If you grow one of the bolt-resistant hybrids such as “Blues,” can be grown in succession pretty much all season. Otherwise, principally a fall crop.
Consider disease- and pest-resistant winter squash strains. I abandoned the C. maxima cultivars—tired of fighting the borers—and am now trialing different C. moschatas for production and disease resistance. Canada Crookneck did pretty well this year, it outperformed Waltham butternut. It did get downy mildew (I sprayed very little and only organics such as potassium bicarb), but it didn’t seem to stop production. They did have some problems with splitting however. Depending on how they store, may try something else next year.
For almost bullet-proof squashes that store very well, try either Seminole Pumpkin or Cherokee Tan Pumpkin, which are similar ancient C. moschata strains. Productive, disease- and pest-resistant, these small winter squashes store a long time. Flesh is stringier and not as sweet as butternut types—at least in my garden—but they will grow and fruit almost anywhere. I keep a bunch of Cherokee Tan seeds in my freezer—in case things go really bad. South Anna Butternut—a Seminole-Waltham Butternut cross—is supposed to have the culinary quality of the butternut and the hardiness and growth habit of the Seminole Pumpkin; it’s one I need to try very soon. The old-fashioned cushaws that many of our forebears grew in their corn fields, such such as the common Green Striped (C. mixta / argyrosperma), are another possibility. Borer-resistant, and fairly easy to grow.
Turnips are good, nutritious, and easy to grow for fall/winter. Gilfeather (which may not be pure turnip) is large, excellent in flavor and texture, and, when well-mulched, keeps in the field for longer than average. Another one I like for its mild flavor and ability to keep longer in the field than some cultivars is “Gold Ball” (syn: “Jaune Bol d’Or”)
Some folks find lettuce easy. It usually doesn’t do very well for me. In terms of disease-resistance, I’ve had the best luck with speckled lettuces such as the tender romaine Forellenschluss (aka Freckles). In terms of cutting lettuces, I’ve also had some luck with Thai Oak Leaf; one of the most heat-resistant lettuces, it actually produced some good, tender lettuce mid-summer this year, grown under a shade cloth. Worth trialing as a season-extender.
If you have the space and want a longer-term food investment, consider planting good-quality Chinese chestnut seedlings. Not only do they provide delicious chestnuts for roasting in late summer/early fall, but they can be processed in other ways, including into flour. I put out four of them this year.
Speaking of flour, anybody here processing their own flours/meals? I’ve toyed with the possibility of getting some sort of home mill for processing corn. I’ve also considered experimenting with buckwheat. I’ve only grown it as a cover crop, but it grows very readily here and is a complete source of protein.
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I’ve been strongly considering Jerusalem artichokes. Are the digestive side-effects as bad as commonly reported? I mean, I don’t want to make myself even worse company! 
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Good points.
But, the government plus the media encouraged Victory Gardens…the mass media can’t stop promoting climate, virus, and other agendas long enough to be helpful to the average American.
I encourage people to grow a few things…have for years in a newspaper column I write…but in rural Kentucky, it’s preaching to the choir.
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They definitely can be, but it’s variable, I think based perhaps on how recently they’ve been harvested (more recent seemingly being worse) and how they’re prepared. I definitely haven’t figured out the variables, but I suspect they’re not too complicated.
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