I wish I had something to add here. I just wanted to say what a cool post idea. I hope some others chime in...

I guess the only thing I grow to use in the garden is bunny and chicken poop. Well, if I use the egg shells as a calcium supplement or seed starters, that might count?

Thanks Too Green!

Julia in Woodinville, WA

ditto - neat post. I use willow and red twig dogwood twigs to make loop fencing. Poplar branches are holding down the edges of our floating row covers tonight (but I didn't grow them for that purpose - just using them as they were handy and work well. Planting alfalfa as a compost crop this year. Native roses growing in the front yard on property line helps deter dogs from entering our property by going through a garden bed (they have to walk around to get a pat on the head). Your coppiced critter blocker for your compost pile sounds great. Would enjoy seeing some pics of the tools you have grown and crafted.

Haha OK! I will try to get some pictures going. I think you will laugh at the tools. I actually have some really good actual tools that I use, but especially kids need to have something kind of scaled down.
When the soil gets soft enough, a steel hoe seems like overkill, and I am a compulsive hoe sharpener.

As far as the critter blocker, this crazy tree just appeared in my garden and it has about eight times the number of thorns that roses have. I have not coppiced it, but watching its growth, I think I can do it. It is kind of a nuisance sometimes anyway.

Of course growing compost crops is great. I have three large comfrey plants going, pretty much for that purpose. I also grow large leafy plants for quick and dirty mulching in summer. I just tear off the leaves and put them around plants after watering... a little extra protection for their lower stalks>SPF10000.

I do not think that this counts, but ... well, yeah it does. I made myself a slingshot and some for kids in the neighborhood (dont worry its ok). I use mine to protect the garden from three larger unwelcome intruders. A raccoon type animal, a crow, and a feral cat in the area. They get so scared at any near miss. I live in a place with no guns, so the animals are pretty bold. I shoot old tiny potatoes and mushy Jerusalem artichokes toward them. Crude but effective. Rubber bands, duct tape, and well... tree branches.

JuliaMay, I am impressed. If your rabbits and chickens are part of your system, you are so lucky. They solve so many problems that gardens produce and they are great little food factories.

Let's see...
I have chickens that eat kitchen scraps and make poop that goes on the garden to make more kitchen scraps. Full circle! Bonus! We get eggs and stewing chicken when no longer productive!

Worms crawl up on my patio when it rains and they get "transplanted" to the worm bin to eat scraps, castings will go to the garden.

I have cows that create LOTS of fertilizer and the cows will get the garden "unusables".

If I could just grow coffee, sugar and tobacco, make TP and produce my own electricy, I wouldn't need much else! Maybe a neighbor with a milking cow would be handy!

I don't specifically grow anything for garden supplies, but any waste ends up in the compost pile, grass clippings become mulch, etc.

Deanna

Cool! wow! I can't add anything either but I will! :o) I compost, me and my neighbour are hatching (pun intended) a plan to keep chickens, as in our neighbourhood they are not allowed! neither is a washing line! she has one but I am the only neighbour who can see it and we are hunting for a place where I can put mine! and we plan to use the same hidden "out of sight out of mind" for chickens, we may just get one coupe which we share!, that said the neighbours on the other side are Italian, so I might just ask them if they care about a washing line, I suspect if ours goes up their's will be the next!...sorry just let a train of thought go through to my fingers! my dream for many year's even before the whole going green thing, was to have a self sustaining house and Garden, I saw the most amazing one in Kenya in 1995 and have never stopped thinking about it, they did have coffee and tea! but I don't think that's possible in CT! haha!

You CAN grow Coffee and tea! Plus there are a lot of herbal teas you can grow.

If you get chickens, just don't get a crowing rooster and no one will be the wiser...

I have always wanted to plant in half my garden and put the chickens to free range in the other half, then switch each year. Maybe someday I'll get to that.

I no longer buy straw for coop bedding. I do a deep composting method and throw all the junk mail and paper packaging in the coop that doesn't go in the garden. Occasionally I throw a bag of leaves I picked up curbside to mix. It doesn't smell and I get the most wonderful compost fertilizer from the girls.

You may also want to consider rabbits if someone complains about the chickens. Just say they are pets. I've not raised them, but I read a wonderful article in countryside magazine about how someone survived in the city through the depression with backyard rabbits. The kids were sent out to pick weeds and grass along the railroad tracks each day. They bought no feed.

If you do rabbits, consider a worm bin beneath them for extra oomph to your self sustainability.

Happy Gardening.

good plan about the chickens as pets idea, and they are actually lovely to keep, real personalities, I have never kept them but looked after my neightbours in the UK every other weekend and when they took vaccation, I used to be sad when one ended in the pot! that said, still tasty, and there in lies the problem I think, although I have killed a chicken in kenya, and also a rabbit, so know, I now know to do it! could I kill a pet? I have had cats put down, but with my own hands? but I suppose this would add to the arguement they are pets? with fringe benefits!
Can't do rabbits as have phobia! seriously! don't realy know why? that's why when I killed one I was amazed that I even touched it! having said that it was suffering from myxamatosis and I couldn't bare to see it suffer, so I just put my work head on! and got on with it.
I am looking into v-composting I think its called? but using some old stacker bins, following a thread on this site.
and how do I grow tea and coffee? must know?, teas would make an attractive hedge and coffee and its bright red berries would be an attractive tree, but I seem to remember they take a while to establish? but then go on forever?
thanks

OK. I hate to be the frugal police, but

growing straw for bedding... check.
growing animals to produce poo and compost... check.

but coffee? is that a garden supply? hmm. maybe it could be.

Here are some more, but they are just ideas. I have to admit I am really reaching.
Growing corn for the stalks to use for supports.
Growing pumpkins, then using the vines to support early pea growth. I think I know of a way to do this by drying them in a certain shape.
Growing hot peppers and garlic for use in insectide sprays.. I guess everyone does this.
Growing extra tomato and potato plants to make insecticides.
I think that OKRA fibers are strong enough and long enough that if you beat an okra stalk and twist it, you will get rope. Can anyone confirm that?
OK, if coffee counts, then how about this? Growing small bamboo shoots as straws so that I can sip a Margarita while I plant beans?

A note to mid TN mama: Michael Moore made a movie a long time ago called ROGER AND ME. There is a long segment in the movie about a woman in Detroit who kept rabbits. I do not think people in Detroit are too concerned about zoning anymore, but anyway, that was in the eighties.

Wow! I feel like a real slacker compared to some of you and your ideas. The only thing we've done is make fence posts and rails from fir trees. Posts don't last very many years tho and are very labor intensive so we now use treated posts and stock or barb wire. I've used twigs to support short pea vines and long thin tree trunks for a vine teepee. Have also used willow twigs to make wreaths and swags but that's more in the decorating realm. Didn't deliberately plant any of these but we live in a forest.

Does my wild dandelion crop count when added to the compost bins?

I have used tree dahlias for support of green beans. "The attractive stems grow to 4" thick and are hollow like bamboo. The stems were actually used by the ancient Aztecs as pipes to carry drinking water!
Clare

I'm new to this. TooGreen, how do you make insecticides with Tomatos or Potatos?

Hi off course tea and coffee are a garden supply, they sustain me in my gardening activiety! tea mainly :)

My neighbor's red cedar fell on our fence and smashed a decorative plum tree that I had planned to cut someday. I saved the branches from these two trees to tie-up my tomatoes.

We also grow our own insecticides. By planting native wildflowers with our veggies, we have healthy populations of predatory wasps and bees. These do not sting humans, but are death on leaf-eating bugs, slugs, and other garden pests. Every spring we see holes form on our leafy greens, and then presto! the pests all disappear.

Our farmer friend has diary goats, but does not have time to make cheese. We want to make cheese, but lack the space/time for goats. We have arranged a daily delivery of milk in exchange for cheese.

We compost.

Many "weeds" were actually introduced because they were edible greens. Young dandelion leaves, purslane, sheep sorrel, and wood sorrel are very tasty and make great and nutritious additions to salads.

Here is a link that might be useful: Weeds as Food

Cut bamboo and arundo growing on the property for poles and pea sticks (bamboo twig tops).

Herd of sheep produce manure and compost.

Cut hay in pastures for feed and mulch (whatever the sheep don't need).

Dredge muck from the bottom of a pond on the property for soil amendment.

Pump out septic tank every 5 years and compost thuroughly for soil amendment.