Selfsufficientish.com

I have a very small back garden and after leaving a bit of grass at the wifes request I now have an area that is about 10 ft sq to work with. The trouble my garden is north facing and so does not get much sunlight. Any suggestion on what to grow would be fantastic. I want to be as self sufficientish as possible so high yeild stuff really.

Ramson springs to mind. Raspberries, red currents (woodland fruit)

I know that lettuces do well in partial shade.

Nev

Consulted my husband and chief allotment holder on this and he reckons as long as you get some sun, there is quite a lot you can grow. Onions (spring onions might be best as you haven't much space), courgettes and broad beans should do OK he says, but it's worth trying anything that doesn't obviously depend on a lot of sun to ripen (such as sweetcorn). All these give quite a lot of stuff for the space they take up. Can't think of anything else just now...

Can second the raspberries and red currants, we have a tiny north facing garden and had a massive crop. Tried black currants too, and whilst not as many as at the allotment, we still had quite agood amount. Even if your whole garden is north-facing, you will still have a wall/fence thats south facing - it's useful to think vertical here! Last year we used our south facing wall and covered it with hanging baskets and 'grow pouches' full of herbs, hanging tomatos, strawberries in baskets, chillies in baskets. Windowsills indoors can be south facing? Again, bush tomatoes, peppers (not a bumper crop, but we had a reasonable amount).

Good luck

realwildchild, have you been subcribing to JohnYeoman's newsletter?

No, I haven't - I didn't know there was one!

Please, please....tell me more, now I know it exists I want to join!

who's John yoeman and what's his newsletter. I grew rocket and spinach last year in a shady yard

Hi diver

John Yeoman is an auther of self sufficiency books - two very good ones being 'Self Relience@ and The Lazy Kitchen Gardener'

HTH

realwildchild wrote:Hi diver

John Yeoman is an auther of self sufficiency books - two very good ones being 'Self Relience@ and The Lazy Kitchen Gardener'

HTH

does he have somethig to do with periculture too? ringing a vauge bell.

Don't know about periculture, but he has written for the Permaculture magazine, reall whacky, but good ideas. The newsletter is called 'The Lazy Gardener', BUT is horrendously expensive. If I remember rightly, it was 60ish £ per year for 6 copies of about 11 A4 sheets with somewhat large print, plenty white space and lots of superfluous words (fun if you are not paying £60 for them). But a few very good ideas. However, at that price I was not prepared to take it for very long. The main reason I first took it was the promise of instructions on how to grow spirulina, which I thought would make the subs pay for themselves. Anyway, 'grow pouches' could easily be one of his ideas. He now has a website
http://www.gardeningguild.com/guesthouse/contact/
It has free areas, and the subs are a lot less than the newsletter, but don't know if as useful as I have not explored it yet.
There might be info on there somewhere about the newsletter.

£60 for a newsletter I cannot quite believe that, surely you could buy 6 books for the same price with the same information in them! But I guess he must make his living out of selling his knowledge, maybe he charges so much as 1 person will buy it then put it on kazzar or email it to loads of mates.

spirulina could be a bit dangerous to grow I think, as you might end with one of the poisionus types.

Andy Hamilton wrote:£60 for a newsletter I cannot quite believe that, surely you could buy 6 books for the same price with the same information in them! But I guess he must make his living out of selling his knowledge, maybe he charges so much as 1 person will buy it then put it on kazzar or email it to loads of mates..

Definatly not justified that much, and I had the same thought, you could get a hell of a lot of books for that money, also with good, if different ideas. And his ideas started to become a bit of a variation on the same theme.

Andy Hamilton wrote:spirulina could be a bit dangerous to grow I think, as you might end with one of the poisionus types.

That thought had crossed my mind too. Also it turned out far too complicated, and relied on energy I did not have, and there was no info about where to obtain viable breeding stock. I did not even put the idea on the back burner, would rather get my chlorophyl etc. from juicing grass, much safer, and totally free and energy free too.

£60??? Think I will give the newsletter a miss.

Judyofthewoods - 'Grow Pouches' are these bag type things that are about 2 1/2 foot long and 7in wide with planting gaps going up them, they are made out the same sort of awful plastic stuff that very thick bin liners are made out of. They really are quite horrid things that garden centres charge £9.99 for 3! The only reason that I have some in my possesion is due to the fact I found several packs for sale at a pound for 3 and as I have to garden 'vertically' they seemed worth buying at that price! They have actually lasted quite well and are about to enter thier 3rd (and probably last) year of use.

I'm thinking that next winters project will be to make some sort of wooden version to attatch to my one south facing wall!

John Yeoman's book about self reliance was one of the first books I read when I decided to get out of debt and simplify my life. It was very inspiring, so much so that to spend £60 on a newsletter which is unlikely to contain that much that you couldn't pick up elsewhere for nothing would never be something I would consider!!!!!!!!

I didn't even pay for his book but got it from the library.....(poor man must be struggling to pay his mortgage, LOL)