Kathy wrote:
"Troy Lubbers" wrote in message
ink.net...

Kathy wrote:

"Antipodean Bucket Farmer" wrote in
message ...


Hi, Everybody,

My vegetable garden is small, so I want to maximise the
nutrition per square metre of space.

I have about eighty buckets (10-litre/2.5 gal each.)
This area lets me do a "summer mode" with tomatoes,
capsicums, etc, and then a "winter mode" with leafy
greens like spinach, lettuce, etc.



Slightly OT: I'm also maximizing small space and discovered something
interesting last year. Someone gave me a Mennonite cookbook which said
that in poorer cultures, broccoli, bean, and pumpkin leaves are harvested
as vegetables. My crop of broccoli last year yielded enough greens to
make up for their very poor production of heads. I put them in with the
beet greens and used them in vegetable soup. They were great! This year I
saved quite a lot of bolted dark green and red lettuces for soup greens.
That doesn't answer your question - what to plant - but it might point to
a way to get more from what you do plant.

Would that cookbook be 'More With Less' or 'Extending the Table' by any
chance? Those are two of my favorite cookbooks. The MCC (Mennonite
Central Committee) will be or maybe already has released a third cookbook
in the same vein where the theme is seasonal eating which ought to be
perfect for gardeners, called 'Simply in Season'

Troy


I don't have it handy, but I think it was in "More with Less" in one of the
sidebar comments under "vegetables". There's lots of info in that book from
missionaries who describe what they learned in other lands from people who
use every scrap and everything from their small vegetable gardens to
survive. It's a favorite cookbook here too. Now that you've told me there
are others, I'll have to go seek them out.

Kathy



Yes.. I'm not a Mennonite, although I married one. I simply love their
ideals and values. I volunteer on a yearly basis for an auction that
raises money for world relief efforts of the MCC. I run the website for
that sale at www.tcmccreliefsale.org. We've raised about 100,000
dollars this year for those relief efforts from this one sale alone, and
there are sales across the country. You might find one in your area at
www.mcc.org

Troy