3.19.2013

Vegetable growing attempt for the guineas


Picked up a few seed packets over the weekend from a local nursery: lettuce for pigs, tomatoes for both humans and pigs, marigolds as a tomato companion plant, sunflowers to brighten up the yard, and alpine strawberries as a fanciful whim.

Of course, this might be overly ambitious given that neither of us are skilled gardeners (my experiences are limited to fruit trees, de-weeding, and maintaining an organic pig-friendly lawn while the piggy dad is more comfortable creating a 3D planter box design rather than actually growing anything inside it).

With luck, the pigs will be eating home grown lettuce and tomatoes in a few months. If not, there's always the grass.

130319

7 comments:

  1. It's always worth a try. I tried sweet peas one year - I ate the peas, and I let them eat the plant.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good luck! We grow a few things for our pigs - Jaina is a pro pepper picker, she likes to eat the leaves off the pepper plant and snag any low-hanging peppers she can get her chompers on!

    I will be interested to see how it goes, especially the lettuce. That one seems harder to me for some reason...

    ReplyDelete
  3. We've grown Romaine Lettuce, Cucumber, Tomatoes and Zucchini to name but a few for our peegs.

    While the Cucumber and Zucchini plants grow, before, during & after any fruit appears, the leaves go down a treat too. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great idea, I'll have to remember to save some of the strawberry plant itself for piggy consumption! Makes me wish I had chosen bell peppers instead of tomatoes (the leaves and stems are poisonous to pigs).

    Tricia_TD, what a list! Your peegs must be very appreciative of your impressive gardening skills.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I had a chive and a cabbage plant on the counter, and my peeg was on the counter too (drying off after a bath) and he a ate all the cabbage. He did't touch the chives though.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nope. Squirrels rampaged on through before the pigs got their hungry mouths on any of the greens. Back to the grocery store and farmers market for me!


    Of course, gardening is worth a try if you're interested. I wrote a tutorial for wheatgrass - it can be grown indoors (out of reach of berserk squirrels). Plus, I haven't heard of a single pig who doesn't love the stuff!
    http://www.calicavycollective.com/2013/04/grow-wheatgrass.html

    ReplyDelete
  7. Did it end up well? The only plant I grow for the pigs are mint (and they were already grown when I bought them), and Cocoa and Cookie hates it. I want to try planting myself, but I'm no good at gardening.

    ReplyDelete