Gardens and Canning

[Njaco]

Since deciding we are going on the road, one of the questions we have concerns gardening. We are avid gardeners and we do alot of canning of our veggies. Since we do hot-water bath canning, that probably won't be a problem - except for storage - but we were curious what others do about any gardening? We were thinking on hanging tomato plants since we have had some success in the past. Does anybody else do "mobile gardening"?

 

[highdesertranger]

I just want to point out transporting some live plants across state lines is a no no. California even has Agriculture Inspection Stations at border crossings, they will confiscate your tomatoes. highdesertranger

 

[Njaco]

Ah-hah! See, that is why I come here. Thanks. I was not aware of that. I knew importing from out-of-country but State-to-State is new to me. Thanks.

 

[eDJ_]

I advocated for doing it once.  Planting fruit trees or the seed of them where I would be staying as I traveled.
(I'm not talking about transporting them distances,  just using what is available locally and known to be healthy)

My thoughts were shot down eagerly.  So it seems I wasn't so aware of "laws".  Now I would just urge people to look about for what is already growing and take advantage of natures bounty.

But yes,  I'm an avid orchard person and have canned fruit and veggies that I've grown.

Today,  I'd suggest not living the traveling life and trying to garden unless you're on your own land.

 

[Almost There]

Does anybody else do "mobile gardening"?

Very few do. For the reasons explained above - crossing even state lines with plant soil, live plants etc can be problematic.

The other problem a lot of us face, other than not having enough space to transport planter gardens, is that plants need specific growing seasons to thrive. Most of us full time nomads move with the weather which isn't conducive to growing plants that need specific seasons.

Planting non-native species and then leaving them to their own devices isn't a good plan either.

What you may be able to do, so as to continue your own fresh produce canning, is to buy locally as fresh produce comes in and then either dehydrate or can. I'd recommend dehydration for space conservation. Canning takes up large amounts of space for the equipment and then you have to have some place to store all the canned goods.

 

[cyndi]

Also live plants will add moisture to the inside of your rig.

Fighting humidity and mold is already a hassle

 

[Annie W]

as a life-long gardener,
with each succeeding "No-No" re Healthy passions, perpetual vanDwelling... appears evermore... remote.

 

[Njaco]

Yes, it does Annie but I shall not be deterred. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome!

 

[Jodietraveller]

I do have a suggestion. This is sprouts, everything from organic sunflower seeds, pea, broccoli and mung beans. Sprouts are highly nutritious and often takes less than 7 days to sprout.
Sprouting can be done easily and cheaply in a quart size canning jar with screen secured by the outer ring. Soak the seed overnight, then drain. Lay jar on its side in a sunny window, rinsing daily until fully sprouted. I would also like to add that dehydrated food is more nutritious and can easily be rehydrated.
Hope this helps, Jodie

 

[GrannyMML]

Follow the growing and picking seasons and find the farms that allow pick your own. Can your items before leaving the locale. My mom canned fish as we caught it in her 23 foot motor home using an 8 quart stove top pressure cooker. We boondocked for most of a week on Kodiak Island AK and the pink salmon were running.

 

[Dingfelder]

I do have a suggestion. This is sprouts, everything from organic sunflower seeds, pea, broccoli  and mung beans. Sprouts are highly nutritious and often takes less than 7 days to sprout.
Sprouting can be done easily and cheaply in a  quart size canning jar with screen secured by the outer ring. Soak the seed overnight, then drain. Lay jar on its side in a sunny window, rinsing daily until fully sprouted. I would also like to add that dehydrated food is more nutritious and can easily be rehydrated.
Hope this helps, Jodie

Re sprouts, jar sprouting is great.  I've grown sprouts for years in all kinds of containers and love them.  You can definitely do it in a van, RV, etc.  Actually by far the hardest part is rinsing off their seed covers, not growing them.

Don't sprout them in the sun, though.  Sun will kill most sprouting seeds.  The sun is for the last day, or even few hours, before harvest, on those sprouts you would like to "green up."  

I'd like to recommend this book for sprouting:

https://www.amazon.com/Sprout-Garde...8&qid=1530681572&sr=8-13&keywords=sprout+book

It gives lots of info and most importantly, detailed info in the back pages in the form of charts showing how long different sprouts should be soaked, how often they should be watered and rinsed, what temperature they should be soaked at, etc.  Very important info, some of it, which is unfortunately overlooked usually, such as that the seed covers on beans can be toxic, so you need to scrupulously wash and or pick them away.  A lot of people don't know that many beans are toxic; the same can apply to their seed covers.  Best to check in with a real expert on this, which the book provides.

____________________

I would love to garden again(fruits and mostly vegetables are the main thing I care about gardening) and after a long time thinking about alternatives realized the only practical thing in my region would be to use cloth bags and a good vegetable potting soil.  I'm a huge fan of Square Foot Gardening and Bio-intensive gardening, but no need to get into that here.  

Anyway, the bags fold flat and so can be easily moved when you move.  This is one of the things that makes them superior to similar reusable, transportable above-ground systems like five-gallon buckets, which take up a lot of room even when you stack them.  

Grow bag virtues include:

1.  Grow bags can have their sides rolled up or down to turn, say, a 10 gallon into a five-gallon, or to match the amount of soil you have.
2.  They "air prune" roots, which keeps them from circling and never properly developing.  Roots will progress toward the outside of the bag, and when they come in contact with its edges, will not turn about as they do in ordinary pots.  They instead send out root hairs to fill the space and slowly thicken as needed.  As the plant needs more roots, it starts new branches, eventually filling the grow bag.  A pot will keep a taproot or a few main roots circling, never becoming efficient.
3.  They weigh just about nothing, so easy on the gas mileage when transporting.
4.  As mentioned above, fold flat for storage.
5. The air exposure on all sides makes it much harder to overheat a plant in hot weather.  Regular pots trap heat.

One real trouble is soil.  Unless you regularly travel between spots that let you store your soil, you will pay more for soil than you are likely to get in produce value in a season.  Top quality soil can pay off, with supplementation every year with fresh compost and perhaps a touch of lime, etc., as the years go by, but the initial price to get a successful garden going can be considerable.  

That's not to mention other major costs.  Tools, soil, pots, seeds (please don't use grocery store seeds), fertilizer, stakes, cages, strings, wire, etc etc.  And the major one:  critters.  Around where I live, it's a given that anything not perfectly, and I mean perfectly, fenced off is for the critters, not for you.  It's charity.  You would be very lucky to keep 20% of it on a good year.  And proper fencing is extremely expensive.  Extremely.  The posts alone, high enough to hold fencing to keep out deer, costed out at over $1,000.00 for me when I was planning a small enclosure with a few raised beds.  And what nomad is going to build fenced enclosures in the first place?

So ... any alternative to spending a ton of money and just having the deer, squirrels, rabbits, birds, bugs, and underground dwellers eat everything you planted anyway?

This year I've tried to plant inedibles.  There are some of them that are not deer and critter-friendly, and especially can be bug-proof.  Think: herbs.  Not a bad return on investment, as truly tiny amounts of them can go for 3 to 5 bucks at the store and at home they can grow big, fast, and all but free.  (There's that soil thing ...)  Oregano and usually basil are left alone, as is lemon balm, thyme, tarragon, mint, and chives.  All highly desirable.  

And then there's peppers.  This year, I'm growing the nasty kind.  Hot enough that the deer and squirrels will not want them.  That probably doesn't work for you, if you're like most people.  But I bet the herbs would.  And there's nothing quite so amazing as the breeze blowing past you once it has ruffled and tousled its way through a couple of peppermint plants.  If heaven has a smell, that's it.  

I'm still searching for indoor house plants that truly don't need much sun.  Anyone with some expertise or experience in that, please chime in.

If anyone has the patience for it, late fall and winter growing can be wonderful.  Snow peas, snap peas, for the fall; lettuce and kale all through reasonably mild winters (a little snow never hurts anyone), can be managed.  Some lettuce actually takes to the cold surprisingly well; it's not being well-positioned for the angle of the sun that hurts most.  Other crops too, but this post is becoming too long.

Hope it helped!