Does anyone on Veeky Forums have their own garden? Herbs or vegetables...

Does anyone on Veeky Forums have their own garden? Herbs or vegetables, I'm wondering if it tastes any better than the store and if it's worth the effort.

I have a few potted plants, Experimented with a few things, the only one that does well here in the desert is cayenne peppers.

Those are better than any red pepper flakes you can find in stores.

Yes. Couple of heirloom tomatoes, peas, rosemary, basil, lemongrass, and some opium.

Fresh herbs are much better than dried, and personally I hate buying them at the store. Either the store doesn't have what I want, or it can be really expensive. And for tomatoes nothing beats home grown.

I just have a couple small pots with herbs that I grow inside. I think it is worth it because you can get fresh herbs year round for almost no effort. Definitely cheaper and easier than buying fresh herbs from the market, and noticeably better tasting than dried herbs in plenty of dishes.

Beans do great in the desert, especially if you do the three sisters thing with corn and squash.

Tomatoes and carrots are definitely worth it. Not very difficult to grow either.

I have tomatoes, jalapenos, and italian and thai basil.

I tried string beans but the fucking rabbits around here are fucking vicious.

Tomatoes are fun to do, pretty easy for the most part, very flavorful, and they can be expensive at the grocery store so its easy to make a good argument for growing them yourself.

I have better boy, lemon boy, and roma varieties going. I would suggest getting a cultivar that you can't easily get at the grocery store no matter what you grow. That way if you get tired of the store stuff, or your own stuff, you can just switch back.

i find that tomatoes and basil go well together. the basil seems to keep the pests away, and the two go well together in italian dishes.

I highly recommend planting in the ground because then you don't have to worry about watering all them all the time. potted plants dry out faster and the temperatures can fry the root ball in hotter climates. I have always gotten smaller fruit off of potted plants as well.

You don't need too much space to plant a garden.. i probably have area that is about 4 by 12 ft.

One day I hope to cut down a ton of trees in my backyard and expand into the back corner of my property with a proper 20*20ft area of crops.

I planted a pomegranate tree in a corner of my yard and in the same plot of dirt, dropped in an onion and a bulb of garlic that sprouted in my pantry. They all seem to be doing well

I don't have a lot of room on my deck, but I have tomatoes (full size and cherry/salad), various chili peppers (ancho, jalapeno, cayenne, etc), strawberries, parsley, garlic, and basil.

It isn't a ton of work - just watering it once every day or two. The cherry tomatoes are nice to toss into pasta or something.

The chilis are the thing I think is most worthwhile. I get a ton of them, so I just dry the chilis and turn them into my chili powder. Homemade dried chili powder tastes so much better than anything from a jar in the store.

This year I'm going to put some of the peppers in the smoker to dry out.

Lettuce/cabbage is really easy to grow, too.

>tomatoes
Filthy fucking plebs.

I'm growing mushrooms under my toe nails.

Dieters can thank me later for supressing their appetite.

I grow weed, hope the fucking neighbors won't find the truth and report me to the fbi.

Tomatoes but don't overwater and you'll be happy
If you live in the PNW like me grow blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries with 0 effort
chard can be nicer home grown too

protip- replace as much of the grass in your lawn with clover as you feel comfortable doing. One of the reasons bee populations are declining is habitat destruction, so planting flowers like clover makes a difference. Also lots of bees in your yard means healthier plants, pollination, and cute little bumblebees.

yes, yes they taste better, yes it's worth it. the effort is mostly upfront as well, but I live in an area that gets ~400mm of rain during the summer and early fall and that's enough that I never need to water my plants

look into permaculture practices. some are bs like all alternative things, but a lot of it works quite well. hugelkultur and a nice layer of mulch do the most good and are the most realistic to do in a small raised bed garden (both help retain water so you don't have to water your plants. a layer of mulch also protects against the sun). no-till and polyculture are also good, but are a bit more difficult to do with raised beds. if you use a large part of your yard those would be more realistic.

the one-straw revolution is a good book to look at.

I do tomatoes and basil. The basil tastes the same I just don't have to pay for it,the tomatoes are significantly better than store bought. If you've never had a home grown tom I couldn't recommend it more strongly.

Opium? How does that work, like is it just a poppy plant? I've always wondered about that because you can just buy poppy seeds right?

This. Thank you for writing what I was gonna write.

That smoked chili thing sounds good. Maybe you can make your own Chipotle / adobo. I thing they're just smoked jollys.

>he doesn't live in a legal state

>like is it just a poppy plant?

Yeah

>> I've always wondered about that because you can just buy poppy seeds right?
Yep. Poppies are common ornamental plants.

Vegetables from the store are better than fruits from the store. It depends on your country as well. Here in the US, supermarket fruit is of lower quality than perhaps any region that isn't stricken with famine.

I have not purchased fruit from a grocery store in at least 6 years. It is deliberately bred to be firm (i.e. tasteless) and picked while under-ripe. This is so that it can be shipped hundreds of miles in giant trucks.

I grow tomatoes and peaches, among other things. If you stack 5 of them on top of each other, they will break. This is the nature of ripe fruits. Imagine trying to transport those on an industrial scale. Please support your farmers markets and eat local produce. I don't even care about all the environmental stuff, I just don't want tasty fruit to go extinct.

I have a fairly large garden. I own about 3.5 acres and I rotate crops yearly. Lots of tomatoes, squash, melons, peppers, peas, corn, some herbs as well. Obviously the larger the garden, the more work it'll need, but it's well worth it. You save money, and it just feels good eating food you've grown or killed yourself. Chickens are great too. Lots of eggs for free. There is a bit of a taste difference, but it's only if you're eating them fresh. Other than that, no real taste difference, but major satisfaction.

>I've always wondered about that because you can just buy poppy seeds right?
Just like you can buy hemo rope everywhere. Doesn't mean it's a type of hemp you can smoke, just like the poppies you buy can be used to extract opium in meaningfull quantities.

That's not a valid analogy. You can indeed buy the same exact seeds used to grow opium-producing poppies.

You can also extract opium from seeds sold for culinary purposes, and you can buy dried poppies "for floral arrangements", which can then be used to make opium tea.

When Monsanto own the patent on every species of fruit and vegetable you won't be allowed to have a private vegetable patch in your own backyard without the appropriate licence to do so.

Really makes you think.

Yeah, you can either try poppy seeds (they're supposed to be neutral, but 90% aren't).

Or what I did, go to independent flower shops, ask for poppy pods. They'll usually have them below the counter if they carry them. You then take them home, make tea with the pods, and save the seeds to sprout. Once the poppies grow, you can harvest opium.

You can also order poppy seeds, but that's a little too much trail for my tastes.

There's a meh book on this called Opium for the Masses.

Hey, that's pretty good.

i grow a few different vegetables every year.
do they 'taste better', no not really. i guess my mind has persuaded me they are better because i put in the time and effort to grow them, also its fun to eat stuff that you watched grow for weeks.

>beware the frankenfood

also with growing your own tomatoes, you have easy access to green tomatoes if you're into them

Yes it does taste a lot better and it's worth the effort. I would even go as far as to advice you get a dehydrator if you live in an area were you can't do things like "sun dried fruit" or dehydrate things like oregano, thyme &c.

If you're watering them, then almost anything does really well in the desert. I live in the desert (California) and the plants love the amount of sunlight. The heat doesn't even bother them much only dry hot wind. I have experimented with almost everything edible, and it grows fine in the desert. The only thing I don't have is citrus because it gets too cold in the winter.

I would fuck that ass if you know what I mean

>also its fun to eat stuff that you watched grow for weeks.

you are a sick person.

trump voter no doubt.

Veeky Forums used to have a guy with acres of land to garden. I miss those threads. I think they moved to /out/.