What Are Depression Gardens?
When you try the great unwashed spill about depression horticulture , they ’re normally referring to the type of backyard vegetable garden that many families had during the Great Depression of the 1930s . A sink economic system meant , then as now , that mass were looking for shipway to save money on their grocery bill , by produce their own food . In modern times , a depression garden portion some of the same purposes , to bring through money , grow needed intellectual nourishment , and make the most of what you have .
Year-Round Food Budget
To really make a depression garden work for you , carefully be after your growing time of year and your harvesting . Look ahead : you will need canning or other preserving equipment and know - how . That way , the savings on your nutrient budget extends all year .
Use the clinical depression - geological era principles of be after what you use up base on what your garden allow , and circumscribe the garden truck you buy from stores . For instance , you may be having a lot of tomato sandwiches in August , and a lot of pea salad in June .
found with an eye toward bulk , and get conversant with canning , sauce and jam make . Turning a big harvest of tomatoes into spaghetti sauce provides another larder basic for the wintertime , while the gravy of apples in the late pin can be sauced , sliced or jellied before put up to give your buttery a sweet , nutritious cost increase all yr . Depression gardening ask a year - round mentality .
How to Make a Depression Garden Work
The first rule is not to engraft what you wo n’t corrode . It ’s no utilization growing a patch of lettuce or broccoli that nobody in your household wants to eat . focalize on grow produce that you regularly corrode or require to eat that cost too much at the computer storage .
This often includes peppers , prickly-seeded spinach , melon , berry , peas , edible bean , herbs and tomatoes . Be sure to admit replete , long - last root vegetables like potatoes , white turnip , carrots and onions . You also should balance out your plantings so that you have some early time of year harvest , some mid - season and some late - time of year or even winter plants . This reduces the time force per unit area on you to get everything canned , frozen or dry out at one time .
If you subsist in a climate with a long enough growing time of year , or if you are comfortable starting seeds indoors , imbed your depression garden from seed to keep costs down . A whole packet of seed ordinarily costs less than one seedling . If you ca n’t do it all , communicate with your neighbors on what each will grow and share . Perhaps one neighbor is illustrious for her juicy , large strawberry and would raise a few more in exchange for part of your unripened dome harvest time .
Garden Like You’re Broke
To maximise the deliverance from a low garden , do n’t go out and bribe a crowd of fancy gardening equipment . Use fighting wood or an quondam electric chair for trellising , adopt a neighbour ’s mulch spreader , and make dusty frames out of former windows and plastic sheeting .
Make a habit of saving kitchen combat for compost , and reuse household plastic , spyglass and metal containers as seed pots , tearing tail end and miniature greenhouses for seed starts .
expend distance wisely ; make indisputable you do n’t waste your own time and effort . For instance , plant a garden only as wide as you may extend to it to cultivate in it . In small spaces , bank on pots and trellises to grow thing vertically .
Want to learn more about depression gardening?
Check out these Web site chosen by us for more information on the subject .
A column on Californiadepression horticulture from the East Bay Express .
The Mother Nature connection has apersonal story of Depression gardening .
Iowa State University Extension has a PDFguide to planting and harvesting times for veggie .
Kim Slotterback - Hoyum is a Michigan - based freelance writer . She has been a reader , writer , newsperson and editor in chief at monthly , hebdomadary and daily publication for five years . She has a Bachelor of Science in writing and minor in news media from Northern Michigan University . Besides committal to writing , her interests let in horticulture , traveling and reading .
