I re-read my post after and I totally thought the same thing!

 

I have fruit trees and a herb patch, that's about my limit. Last year I made a large raised bed to grow veg, but unfortunately went on holiday just as everything was ready to be harvested. When I returned I had courgettes (zucchini) over two feet long (technically that's a marrow, but I don't like marrow); the butternut squash plant had grown out of the bed and run across the lawn for about 15 feet ,(and not one single butternut squash did it yield); the lettuce had bolted and gone to seed; and the tomatoes had been hit with blight. All in all a bit of a disaster. All I got out of it was a few beans - I tried trading them for a cow but no one was interested.

After years of eating home-grown tomatoes I am now at the point where supermarket tomatoes are tasteless blobs.

 

I also have a patch for strawberrys (the small wood-growing ones) and raspeberries in my Ardennes hideout

 

I did have some fruit tree, but not planted by me

 

 

 

 

Cilantro (also AKA Coriander) is very much like parsley >>> the idea is to stop it from flowering (pinch it) and growing into seeds  >> if you do that the plants don't fan out, and you can harvest it for two years ... But if you do let it grow to seeds and collect them, you can replant it >> but somewhere else... it doesn't grow well in the same spot ..; but you're right, the flat leave parsley (aka Italian) is much tastier

 

One plant you should let flower is chives >>> the flowers are delicious, when sniped in a salad >>> like a perfumed fruity shallot

 

 

Rosemary.... you get the same kind of scent in thyme (or its variant the savory) and sage ... I find thart it is thyme that does not like cold and humid winters >> especially the critus-thymes (lovely smell , perfect for Thai foods).... Rosemary grows in bushes somtimes 1.5 meters high  and keep gren during cold winters  (it's probably the easiest to grow >>> don't mess (other than cuttting a branch or two) with it and it can live for 10 or 15 years >> superb blue flowers too....

 

All of these can be grown on a blaconny, but the fresh herbs (the ones that don't really dry up) should not be grown in full sunlight exposition, except maybe for basil

 

 

 

In the summer time when the tomatoes are ripe, caprese salad is a regular at my house.

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I put a pond in our back yard many years ago.  Over the years, I've stocked it with many fish, from feeder goldfish to fairly expensive koi.  I've learned the fairly expensive koi are an extremely expensive way to feed racoons, or worse, blue herons, who have a refuge 'bout five miles east of here and make regular visits in the spring.  I still stock the pond, just not so expensively.

 

I do always put in a garden, with results varying by year.  Nothing yer average farmer has not dealt with since farming became popular, say for many centuries.  That said, I've had many a year where I canned enough tomatoes (or sauce thereof) to last an entire winter.  And the apple tree out in the back yard produces apples which make a very nice apple sauce, though they are not good for eating.  Cinammon and sugar cures many ills when it comes to apples.  Here in the Pacific NW planting a garden is an act of faith; one must be steeled to the possibility that there will be no harvest, or this or that slug will slime the finest zucchini. 

 

^ Last year was a not year.  We ate a few cherry tomatoes; everything else (larger tomatoes, peppers, even the strawberries) ended up as compost.  As you point out, it will not stop us from trying it again this year. 

Cilantro (also AKA Coriander) is very much like parsley"


Arabian parsley, to be precise. But the taste is very oriental compared to its western cousin.

 

Hey Olivier,

 

I'm glad to see your love of homegrown smokables developped into vegetables as well.

 

Lemon Miringue pie would be nice I guess

 

They are fairly hard lemons witrh very little juiciness

 

I pick them when we have fish as a garnish

 

http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/gordon-ramsay/lamb-tagine-with-herb-couscous-recipe" rel="nofollow - http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/gordon-ramsay/lamb-tagine-with-herb-couscous-recipe

 

or a chicken one:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/chickentaginewithpre_85459" rel="nofollow - http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/chickentaginewithpre_85459  

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/lemon_cake_29430" rel="nofollow - http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/lemon_cake_29430  

 

So I made a herb table just outside the kitchen door using a cheap http://www.amazon.co.uk/Botanico-Lets-Grow-Potting-Bench/dp/B004CYEHPY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1340554885&sr=8-2" rel="nofollow - wooden potting-bench and a http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stewart-100cm-Growbag-Tray-2320005/dp/B0055QZWWK/ref=sr_1_3?s=outdoors&ie=UTF8&qid=1340554969&sr=1-3" rel="nofollow - plastic "grow-bag" tray I  bought from the local DIY store then filled it with pots of herbs and a few pepper plants:

 

In this appallingly bad photograph there is: parsley, three kind of thyme, two kinds of mint, three rosemary plants, two chili peppers and 12 chili pepper seedlings in three varieties, garlic, fennel, marjoram, oregano and Greek basil.

 

I've also a raised bed for vegetables that we've had to cover in a net to keep the cats off:

In there are butternut squash, mange-tout, runner beans, beetroot, edamame beans, leaks, pak choy, rocket and some unknown variety of "salad leaves" mostly all harvested.

 

And growing across the roof of our "veranda" (aka car-port now used as a covered patio) is a white grape vine that's doing rather well (though it was only planted to provide shade):

...and yes I do have a mirror-ball and several tea-light lanterns hanging beneath it.

 

 

if you want to have your own home grown  the only thing you need is a field,and patient 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/18612661

Plants grown in pots can never reach their full potential. Strawberry plants grown in pots can never work better than in the ground because the way strawberry plants reproduce is by putting out runners which then lay on the ground and become rooted. This is elementary gardening.

Huh? Plants become root-bound in pots - well I never, I used to grow bonsai trees, I did wonder why they got so small. My garden has got 2 inches of top soil before I hit solid clay and flint - if I grow carrots direct into the ground they are stunted - if I grow them in my raised bed (a giant container-pot) they get to "normal" size. Potatoes grown in garbage bins, bags, sacks and large pots crop more than potatoes sown direct into the dirt because you can "earth them up" more in a container than you can on the ground. If I grow potatoes in my soil I need a pickaxe (I actually use a mattock) to dig deep enough to plant them and need to replace most of the clay with organic matter - the net result is a poor yeild of small potatoes - too much "effort" for too little return. Growing tomatoes in "growbags" is the method many people use, and I know this restricts root growth but with plants as vigorous as tomatoes this is not a bad thing - it results in less nipping out of side shoots and does not restrict fruit production. I break with tradition here and split my growbags in two and stand them on end, planting 1 plant in each half - this creates deeper, more stable roots so the plants require less support. I ye id enough runner beans from my three plants growing up a small pyramid of canes to supply the table and have some left over for the freezer - I used to do that in a large pot, I now do it in the raised bed - I don't need a whole row of beans growing in the garden, I don't deliberately set out to grow more than we need.

 

All of the herbs I grow in pots are doing just fine - when they get too big for the pot I'll transplant them into either bigger pots, put them in the old herb bed or split them into smaller plants - what I want for cooking and in salads are the tender young stems and leaves - not the old wooden bits - thyme and oregano in the ground gets woody too quickly for my use. We've been using the herbs from the herb-table every day since day-one and we'll be using them for a while longer yet. Many gardeners have grown mint in a container (usually a pot sunk into the soil) since forever because it is invasive so it stops it spreading across the garden.

 

Elementary gardening, (have another "huh?") - strawberries reproduce by two methods - seeds and runners - both take energy from the plant, a plant that makes runners is going to produce less strawberries hence fewer seeds, a plant produces too many runners and no strawberries because it's not happy with it's lot and wants to "move" elsewhere (parasites, disease, not enough food, too much water, not being pollinated, etc.) - elementary gardening says you remove all runners if you want to yield fruit, elementary gardening says if you want to propagate strawberries you allow one or two runners to set themselves by pinning them down so they root and remove the rest - if growing in a container you can do this with seperate pots and it works just fine.

 

I do know gardening - I helped my dad, granddad and uncle in their gardens and alotments enough to know the elementary stuff, I'm a member of the RHS and I've a reasonable collection of gardening and plant books so I can quickly find out the advanced stuff if I need it. Gardening does not have to be difficult or hardwork, it does need to be enjoyable and fun. Even so, it took a lot to convince me that growing my own was worth the effort because of the amount of work it entailed doing it the "elementary" way... as my dad once said: I ain't growing peas just to feed the birds.

 

I wouldn't leave them in the ground unless you like eating the sprouting leaves - allowing them to grow-on to bulbs will not be as good if left in the ground becase the cloves seperate but not enough to produce individual bulbs - you can dig them up later, just before they start to re-grow, and split them but the hardest part of that is remembering to do it in time. Garlic does not like being transplanted once it's started growing.

 

If nature knew best we wouldn't need to help it along the way and it wouldn't be work at all - if nature knew best there wouldn't be weeds, bugs and diseases and the plants would grow regardless of the weather conditions, but nature is passive and unknowing - nature couldn't give a crap which plant grows best as long a something grows. Gardening is bending nature to our needs, agriculture is man enforcing his will on nature. What nature does best in my garden is grass, dandelions, wild strawberries, ground elder, brambles and stinging nettles, (all of which encroach from outside my boundary into my garden - If I stop, nature keeps encroaching relentlessly), nature needs a lot of help to grow what I want to grow - just keeping my raspberry canes clear of nettles was an endless task until I realised that nature was winning - just let the buggers grow, only pulling up the nettles once they flower but before they seed and the raspberries will still fruit. Lazy? You bet, but it's efficient.

 

I don't get the dignity in labour kick - there is no dignity in labour - a potato tastes the same regardless of the effort involved in growing it, if container gardening can be successful for those who do not want to work too hard at gardening then where is the problem? If more people can grow their own by whatever method works for them then we are all allies.