The Modern Victory Garden

Every year I try at least one new vegetable or a new way of growing something that I've grown before.  This year I'm devoting one of my precious beds to Golden Giant Amaranth, a variety that works as a vegetable and a grain.  My biggest concern is that I won't be able to contain all of the seed and I'll have runaway amaranth next year!  But the deciding factor will be if my family will eat the greens!  I've already started "spiking" our homemade bread with amaranth grain that I purchased at the Health Food Store.  But ultimately, it's my family who gets the final say.  They were not the least bit impressed with the turnips I grew this winter so I probably will not be planting those again, although what an extrodinarily easy vegetable to grow!  I just through the turnip seeds in the planter and off they went with very little help on my end. 

I'm also experimenting with a space saving way to grow potatoes but I'll talk about that in a different thread.

What new (to you) vegetables/herbs are you planting this year?

New for me this year is bush pie cherries. Never grown them before so it is an unknown. I have quite a few of them planted because I ordered "3" not realizing it was a "1" order equals 3 plants deal!  Ooops!   So I had 9 and they must have been miscounting when they put the order together because it was actually 10 bareroot plants that arrived in the package!   I found room for all of them though and I think it will be a nice addition to increase our fruit production with something other than berries.  

New technique I am trying is my horizontal pea support trellis.   If your interested in it and missed my blog posting on it - the support can be seen on the "How To" info page on Block Planting.

I will be very curious to hear how the amaranth experiment turns out Andrea.   I have seriously thought about growing this once before - when I was living on our old homestead that had LOTS more acreage than I have at my disposal now.    I hope you will post some updates on how it works out - both in how it was to grow - and how your family responded to it. 

Very Cool!  I've read about the bush cherries and have been intrigued myself but I really don't have much room and went for blueberries instead.  (The amaranth bed is not nearly big enough to provide us with a sustainable amount, but it is fun to play with it and possibly grow enough seed to accidentally "spill" into an unused field near our house!)  Let us know how they turn out!

I love the idea of having a grain in the garden.  I'm so cautious of my garden space that its hard for me to branch out.  This year I am trying Baby Blue Hubbards, Tomatillos and 2 new kinds of hot peppers.  Next year I'm going to have to do another big expansion to add more square footage.