New gardeners fight an uphill battle sometimes when attempting to learn about the plants they are putting in the ground. Each fruit and vegetable plant has unique needs and habits that they must learn about. If their parents did not teach them as children, then they do not even know to ask, can you pick asparagus the first year.
The fact is, you can, but not all season long. The spears do come back each year in most regions, so one needs to allow the roots and tubers to mature. If a harvest is done for only about two weeks, then the plants are allowed to complete their cycle of maturity, the next Spring will see an even better crop.
Plants like broccoli are the opposite. It is an early spring blooming plant that will continue to generate florets until July, depending on what zone one is in. However, it is a plant that must be harvested daily, for if it goes to seed and produces yellow flowers, then no more florets will be forthcoming.
In certain regions broccoli may come back from seed, but if the late summer is too hot, or the winter too bitter cold, it can kill the seeds. If one grows only heirloom varieties of vegetables then seeds can be harvested and saved in a climate-controlled area till next season. Heirloom means it is not a GMO or a hybrid, as those plants will sometimes produce seeds, but the plans produced from those seeds are sterile and will not fruit.
One thing seen in some of the new gardens around the country is a chicken run set up all around the perimeter of the vegetable beds. A chicken run is just what it sounds like. It is an area enclosed, sides and top, with chicken wire and this allows the chickens to roam the area, eating bugs one might not want in the garden, without getting in and damaging the vegetables themselves.
This is still a free-roaming chicken since most of these flightless birds have a small territory they would keep for themselves were they still their wild ancestors, the guinea hen. There are some areas where chickens are not permitted, but if one has adequate privacy fences and no crowing roosters, then the neighbors will be none the wiser. The hens will still produce eggs without the presence of noisy roosters.
Most gardeners are doing so because they want to be able to feed their families in a crisis, and this is an excellent and noble reason. Some people do it so their children will have the experience in their childhood. However, the most informed of the people are growing their own food because they know the GMO foods in the grocery stores may not be as safe as the FDA would like people to think.
Most commercial farms pick fruits and vegetables green and have them ripen in transit. It may have been a good idea, but in practice it has caused our foods to have less flavor than they used to. Young people do not even know what vine-ripened food tastes like, as their tomatoes, peaches, and potatoes do not have any real flavor, and are not as nutritious.
The fact is, you can, but not all season long. The spears do come back each year in most regions, so one needs to allow the roots and tubers to mature. If a harvest is done for only about two weeks, then the plants are allowed to complete their cycle of maturity, the next Spring will see an even better crop.
Plants like broccoli are the opposite. It is an early spring blooming plant that will continue to generate florets until July, depending on what zone one is in. However, it is a plant that must be harvested daily, for if it goes to seed and produces yellow flowers, then no more florets will be forthcoming.
In certain regions broccoli may come back from seed, but if the late summer is too hot, or the winter too bitter cold, it can kill the seeds. If one grows only heirloom varieties of vegetables then seeds can be harvested and saved in a climate-controlled area till next season. Heirloom means it is not a GMO or a hybrid, as those plants will sometimes produce seeds, but the plans produced from those seeds are sterile and will not fruit.
One thing seen in some of the new gardens around the country is a chicken run set up all around the perimeter of the vegetable beds. A chicken run is just what it sounds like. It is an area enclosed, sides and top, with chicken wire and this allows the chickens to roam the area, eating bugs one might not want in the garden, without getting in and damaging the vegetables themselves.
This is still a free-roaming chicken since most of these flightless birds have a small territory they would keep for themselves were they still their wild ancestors, the guinea hen. There are some areas where chickens are not permitted, but if one has adequate privacy fences and no crowing roosters, then the neighbors will be none the wiser. The hens will still produce eggs without the presence of noisy roosters.
Most gardeners are doing so because they want to be able to feed their families in a crisis, and this is an excellent and noble reason. Some people do it so their children will have the experience in their childhood. However, the most informed of the people are growing their own food because they know the GMO foods in the grocery stores may not be as safe as the FDA would like people to think.
Most commercial farms pick fruits and vegetables green and have them ripen in transit. It may have been a good idea, but in practice it has caused our foods to have less flavor than they used to. Young people do not even know what vine-ripened food tastes like, as their tomatoes, peaches, and potatoes do not have any real flavor, and are not as nutritious.
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