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They almost look like ghosts haunting the fields

And then there's a golden October day... from today at around 8 o'clock. I wish I could just stop time while out there

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Holy FUCK I love September so much. It's getting colder and the sun shines so much more beautifully. There's rain at night and fog in the morning now, and everything is so beautiful. I can't wait for November when the weather is even more like this.

No thoughts only fogged chilly autumn vibes

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Shoppe Black’s Ultimate List of Black Owned Farms and Food Gardens🥦🥬

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sea of bracken

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Blackberries!!

They just grow everywhere. Brambles are pretty hard to get rid of where u live so they just spread and spread. And I just take what I can get. U even got enough to make blackberry-jelly.

That being said, I of course don't pick next to big agriculturally used fields or roads because you never know how much your ground is full of heavy metals like from car exhausts. Be safe!!

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where the hell do yall live that growing your own food is possible for everyone and therefore it's okay to be incredibly condescending about people not already growing their own food

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A foray into foraging

Please forgive the pun but it was absolutely necessary.

Anyway I was on a walk (without anywhere to put either garbage or foraged plants! Shameful!) and came across a most lovely field of ground elder. No signs of pollution, no streets anywhere near, almost a forgotten part of the paths surrounding my small town. So of course I picked a bunch. Two handfuls because that's all that would fit inside my jacket pockets - very unorthodox way to go about it, but at least I have something nice to pair my vegan egg with for lunch.

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So anyways, the point is that we're trying to have a really good garden this year, and overcome the curse on our land.

Therefore, I thought this year would be great to start one of those advice threads where everyone keeps adding on with more tips/information but this year for

Gardening

I'll start:

You can make a greenhouse top for literally anything with a very simple PVC or wood frame plus some plastic. You can hot glue the plastic on or use a nailgun depending on your materials and how long you want it to last.

Don't fertilize too much. Just sprinkling a little bit around every few weeks is usually good

Take care of your soil microbiome. There are lots of good articles on this, here's one I found recently: https://smartpots.com/getting-bac-basics-four-tips-cultivating-soil-bacteria-garden-microbes/

Companion planting is really interesting. The groupings are obviously plant-specific, so if you choose a few plants you really want, you can look up the companion planting for them and design your garden like that

You can renew moderately killed soil by tilling in compost and manure. If you want it to mix really well process the compost by putting it through a woodchipper. Yes it's really messy. But it works. And it's important to note that while dry composting doesn't smell bad and grosses people out less, you lose most of the nutrients by the time it looks like normal soil. Not *all* of the nutrients, it will still be incredibly beneficial, just not as much as wet composting. If you have too much fungus you may want to add the compost in fall rather than too soon before planting.

Worms are your friends and eggshells are good for worms (it boosts worm reproduction!)

Buy heirloom varieties and then collect seeds at the end of the season (if it's something where that's easy, like beans or lettuce. You'll notice the seedpods look dry. Then you can literally just squeeze them with your hand or a bag under them to break them open and let the seeds fall into your container) (for tomatoes specifically, throughout the season, select your best tomatoes and remove the seeds. Place them in a jar with some of the tomato insides. Let them ferment for a week and then dry them out and place them in a paper bag. This will increase your odds of them germinating next season. People probably have further refined methods online, but this is what we do.) (for other plants look it up I guess)

If you plant native varieties, especially from seeds you collected while foraging, it's heirloom and will do well on your land. (don't talk to me about apples.)

Ok besties please add on I KNOW some of you are more knowledgable than me on this subject.

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New favorite method for growing pumpkins & winter squashes:

1. Build a pile of rich compost 2 feet high.

2. Make a hole in the top, fill with soil.

3. Transplant a pumpkin into the hole and water well. Ideally one you grew yourself that's in a newspaper or other compostable pot to eliminate transplant shock.

4. Apply mulch around the pumpkin. Used coffee grounds work well.

5. Water occasionally for the first few weeks if the rains have already stopped and you happen to notice they need it.

6. Ignore all summer.

7. Harvest from the two plants treated this way this year:

Pretty good, considering the near complete neglect they endured. Much better than the ones that weren't planted in a hill of compost certainly. And people, I literally hadn't done anything to them since July- I was too busy with other things.

I already have thoughts about improvements for next year, aimed towards having them thrive without care once planted, reducing the need to water, and getting bigger harvests.

First off, instead of building a tall hill that water will run off of, I'm going to dig a shallow basin with a berm around it, and fill to the original soil line with compost. Not only will the squash roots be closer to the soil water, if it does rain, the water will be directed towards the squash plants and soak in, instead of running off.

To make up for the extra cold from not being on a hill, the compost will be unfinished, so it'll provide extra heat as it finishes decomposing. This is an old English way of doing things, they called it making a hot bed, and used it for growing cucumbers, and my mom used it for squash. I'm sure other cultures also came up with the idea, but that's the lineage of my knowledge.

But seriously, so many pumpkins, for so little effort. I'm quite pleased.

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Appreciation for more mushrooms, this time mostly inedible

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This (soon to again be) beautiful garden is very close to my home and follows a very environmentally friendly strategy. The paper on the fence declares that the garden being created is an eco-friendly kitchen garden with flowers, an untouched part, and a largely-untouched part with bushes, shrubs, and grasses. Also, they explicitly put that they appreciate understanding, even though a lot of people might turn up their noses at these practices. (And they add in parentheses that they don't think that nettles are weeds but very useful, which I personally find really neat.)

Anyway have a photo of what is essentially my backyard with how close it is from my home.

I want this space to be used and am thinking of starting a guerrilla garden there... more on that later

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Appreciation post of edible mushrooms I found last autumn.

Including birch polypore, ink caps, chicken of the woods - I only took a small part of the latter, none of the first two (the birch polypore was situated in a reservoir and the ink caps were too old and there were only two)