Claire Petersky wrote:
Since we got our guinea pigs a couple of weeks ago, I've been feeding
them
most of their greens from what I have in the winter vegetable garden:
collard greens, chard, and parsley. I also some sugar pea volunteers
(that
came up from the peas I planted this spring), and since there's not
enough
of them to really have peas for the winter, I've been pulling up the
vines
and feeding them to the pigs too.


I have extensive experience with this. They will eat anything green,
including many edible weeds like violet and clover, but when given a
chance between different greens they will always choose bitter greens,
that is dandelions and chicory. In fact, given enough of these they
will eat nothing else, leaving apples, clover, cabbage, and carrots
untouched. If given whole plants, they will eat the root as well. They
spend months at a time eating nothing but bitter greens, and modest
amounts of oats and pellets. They are abviously very healthy. For
dandelions, I just pull the weeds that grow in places my mower won't
reach.

In your area chicory will grow year round (in my area it just survived
-5F under minimal cover, and I picked some yesterday as the temperature
went above feeezing. Some types of chicory have grown substantially
since Thanksgiving). If you want to garden primarily for the pigs, get
the wild chicory selection at Territorial. It makes large, very bitter
plants that will grow a rosette only if cut in september. The seed for
self-heading chicories (radicchio) is somewhat pricey in the US, but
cheaper in Canada. If you want to garden primarily for yourself, they
will eat the outer, tougher leaves while you enjoy the radicchio's
heart.

It is just about the easiest vegetable to grow, unfussy about soil and
drought-resistant, but it prefers to be seeded when the ground is warm
(May through august). Next year in May it will start to go to seed and
that is when you pull it and start anew (pulling it is backbreaking. I
actually cover it with cardboard and compost, and punch holes for the
plants that are taking their place).