Im building a garden...

[Evil Genius]

Hi Guys, i finally got my Ass up and decided to build me a garden. What could i plant to make the garden everything a plant lover wants? I like fruit trees, nuts and pretty much everything that has ethnobotanical value. The only limitation i have is the german climate, that sometimes reaches -20 degree celsius in winter. I´d like to plant some frost hardy palms, a few walnut trees as well as some fruit trees and annual vegetables like tomatoes and chili. I already have the tomatoes and the chili going and i hope i get enough adult plants. I also thought about planting some mullberry and im interested in Australian Eucalyptus trees. Not sure if they would survive the winter though. I already tried to plant some frost hardy cacti but they never survived the winter. Next time i try, i´ll probably mulch them very good and plant them very early in spring. That might higher the Chances.

Any suggestions on how to make the garden a great success?

[Auxin]

You know about Benny right? He's the cactus guy in denmark that made a big list of hardinesses of cacti and succulents with a specific designation for being hardy to -20° C

Link

He only lists one agave as that hardy but I've seen a few others claimed.

Why limit to annual vegetables? Biennial can be handy for winter and theres even some perennials. I been following the blog of one guy who harvests fresh salad all through winter in an area colder and snowier than yours. He makes these removable hoop row covers and just sweeps off the snow before its half a meter thick on top.

Link

You should also be able to just mound a bit extra soil over beets (do germans eat borscht?), rutabagas (swede), carrots, and such and dig up as needed in winter.

Antivirals might be a good idea. Many take several years to grow big 'nuf. I planted the seed for my Lomatium dissectums 4 and a half years ago and just this month I got my first two flower buds Scutellaria baicalensis, Echinacea sp., and many others take at least two years for good roots.

Not sure what you like to drink but growing tea herbs can save a bit of money and add to health. After giving up soda completely I got on this thing of, aside from coffee, drinking basically nothing but unsweetened teas- most of which I grew or wild harvested. It took some getting used to but last year I drank right around 3000 cups of tea for $6 USD.

I currently like to mix either strawberry leaf, lemon balm, or grape leaf with sage, thyme, oregano, or the non-bitter kind of Gynostemma pentaphyllum (the $6 bought 960 cups of that, I love asian stores ). I'm working on growing more variety of tea herbs this year too

A variety of edible berries is a good idea too, I figure science will continue to keep finding more health benefits in berries.

Edit: I know your backs a bit gimpy but you should read Gardening When It Counts - Growing Food In Hard Times by Steve Solomon. Its not convenient raised beds with fanatically complex irrigation systems and one turnip per 100 square centimeters like some gardening systems brag about.. its more realistic and drastically cheaper.

Edited March 23, 2011 by Auxin

[Foo]

Plum trees!!!! If i do recal they dig a bit of frost.

There are also some frost tolerant Eucalyptus (how tolerant i dont know)

Goodluck man

[qualia]

snow gums can tolerate snow from what i read, also i think i read some acacias can too can't remember which ones,

kale's a good winter veg, also brussel sprouts

[applesnail]

Theres hundreds of eucalypts that grow in cold climates, tasmania and victoria are full of them, far to many to list and time consuming to research!

[naja naja]

snow apples, like geevstons fanny

[Evil Genius]

Wow, theres definately some nice info in here! Thanks guys! And thanks Auxin for going a little bit more into detail. I´ll spend the evening checking out some of the plants mentioned and looking for seeds. Today i probably get me a Trachycarpus fortunei because Planthelper mentioned in in another thread. Im definately not limited to annual plants. In fact, the perrenial ones are prefered. Up to now, i have a cherry tree as well as a small appletree but it only produces crappy fruit. I might hack that one down once i got me a chainsaw.

I didnt know bennies cactus site but its very useful. Im also thinking about planting some Agaves. I once planted a small escobaria and an american Opuntia but both didnt make it over the winter. Not sure why. Maybe because they werent protected and unmulched. Im about to drive to the garden center in order to get me some mulch and the Palm.

I also have plant that looks like an Agave but i´m not sure what it is. I´ll post pics later in order to find out. Maybe someone here recognizes it. Im pretty sure its frost hardy because it was the only plant that survived the great frost massacre when my heater broke.

Tea would definately be lovely too? I have wild strawberries as well as an insane amount of wild rasperries. They are a very bad weed in my garden. But the worst weed im fighting atm are the Acacias. My hands are literally full of thorns right now because of the insane amount of wild acacias that grow on my land. I wasnt even able to hack all of them down because they were too thick. Easiest thing would have been to burn them all down but i didnt want to do that. I´ll work on them later again...maybe a saw does the trick. bye Eg

[naja naja]

don't hack the apple down EG, just graft onto it and use it as rootstock. That way ur root system is already established and will grow ur apple tree faster. Or make cider from them ;)

If I had the room and ur climate, hazelnuts, many cherry varieties, rons seedling being one of my favourite and Van is a xpllenator I believe and also very good, it is a yellow cherry with a small red blush from mmemory. Multigraft apple tree's chosen with varieties that fruit over the whole season, ie one branch early, one medium one late, u get the idea. Blackberries, raspberries and hybrids of the two like youngberries and boysenberries, red and black currants. Pear's and nashi can also be grafted multi style or on apple trees.

http://www.woodbridg...tml/apples.html

maybe peaches, plums, apricots, pluots, apriums

Edited March 24, 2011 by naja naja

[FancyPants]

Maybe one or two of those citrus trees grafted with orange plus lime, plus lemon, etc in different combinations? I've been thinking about getting one.

[Evil Genius]

Alright, i was just hacking down at least ten very thick acacias with the axe and the handsaw. Im dying. My head was never as red as it is now and i almost hacked away some fingers but it slowly starts to look like a bed. As soon as i got rid of the stumps, i´ll dig around the soil to kill the weeds. Pics are going to follow later today or tomorrow so people can see the progress and what it takes to go from a djungle to a garden. And its a good way to put some pressure on me so i dont lose interest and play with my playstation.

btw, i didnt get the palm i wanted. They only had phoenix palms which arent frost hardy. I already checked the internet and the trachycarpus come pretty cheap around here. Like 20 Bucks a piece.

Edited March 24, 2011 by Evil Genius

[planthelper]

i would aswell grow some kiwi fruit!

with the palms, i think microclimat and winter protection are very important, but i have never done this...

the best methode i'v heard is to place a cage out of wire around the plant and than fill the cage full with autom leaves, and the theory is that the break down of the material will produce a bit of heat.

btw, i planted a coconut in my hopefully frost sheltered aspect, and i noticed her first fronds coming out just a few day's ago. maybe she will grow, but basicly i try the same as you, eg, to push the climat barrier as far as possible.

i noticed this with most plant people, they always wanna grow "as exotic as possible" according to ther own climat.

[Evil Genius]

Alright guys, im ready to roll.

Thats what i dug already

Take a look at those nasty Acacia mofos. The whole garden is full of them and im sure they grew from hell directly into my garden.

And this is what i hacked down already. Naja, do you think i can also use the Acacia stumps for grafting?

Edited March 28, 2011 by Evil Genius