I guess what I’m mostly lost on is how the grow/harvest works, and how to plant what I need and can use. I know it sounds stupid seeing as I can grow plants, but I also grew up in nyc. We didn’t garden much lol. Like, if I plant a bunch of tomato plants, do they all harvest at the same time? Do I just end up with boxes of tomatoes, one shot… that’s rhetorical, don’t actually answer it as I have tons of questions. BUT I am going to put a lot of energy into this so I can have a small veggie garden this year 
cheers to you all
Ever since discovering my greenthumb when I was 14, I try to have a garden every summer. Sunflowers and cannabis plants tend to manifest wherever I go.
My largest garden for food was close to 4000sq ft with over 100 Individual tomato plants, 96lb pumpkins, and more eggplants than I could give away. It’s hard work, but the satisfaction of eating food you grew yourself in my experience, is similar to satisfaction felt from getting mainlined with morphine in the ICU 
For a couple of years, I got really into sunflower breeding 
Have some wild pics from those days.
Last year, the garden was consolidated and I built raised beds attached to my deck. Had about 90 basil plants and made a dickload of pesto.
This summer I’ll be out in the desert. Definitely doing basil again and will have a sunflower plot somewhere.
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Pro-tip: Old totes are great for gardening.
I’ve seen people use totes as raised beds and they are really easy to set up as self watering, sub-irrigated systems
Or you can use the cages as a trellis for vining crops.
The coolest use I’ve seen is an aquaponics system.
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Not sure if still in urban setting, but if so, look into using bales of straw/ hay as a ‘raised bed’. Personally, I always plan on planting an excess of vegetables. Worst case scenario I load up a plastic bag of extra produce, knock on neighbors door and leave out on porch. Even in good times, the neighbors never mind free fresh produce. Will you fuck something up? Yep. Will you make same mistake twice? Hopefully not. There are tons of forums for gardening too
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Most tomato varieties are indeterminate. The vines keep growing, blooming, and setting new fruit. There are also determinate varieties that have a narrow harvest window, often grown commercially. With a typical home gardener growing indeterminates, your tomato plants will usually succumb to foliar disease before frost. Spraying a preventative fungicide helps, could be as simple as a light bleach water solution. Pruning, trellising, and insect control are important, too.
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don’t forget nutrition. Ca++ is important.
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Calcium is important. I use calcium nitrate as my nitrogen fert. But fwiw, ber only displays as a calcium deficiency. Irregular moisture is the real culprit. It is worse in poor soil with lower organic matter. Different varieties get it worse than others. Oblong cherry tomatoes got it the worst in my garden.
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Any advice for someone trying to do this at a personal scale in their basement? Trying to get an herb (non-cannabis) farm going at home.
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I sent out about 22 seed packs last week and have 5-10 more to do this week. You can see the seed packs and my sample garden on this thread.
I sent out way more seeds than I had planned to and people keep asking so I am digging deep! I have ordered more to back fill but it is taking forever to receive them. I am confident that they will get here eventually.
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Lovely pictures! tell me about your sunflower breeding. what were your goals?
Do you have any access to sunlight?
Look up microgreen farming. Theres tons of videos on youtube that cover the basics. If you’ve already got a clone rack and t5’s available you’re over half way there and can have a mixed greens salad ready in 2 weeks from seed.
There are a couple of windows at ground level that let some natural sunlight into the basement, but only during certain times of day. I do have access to lights and building some racking would be a fun woodshop project to work on.
Gonna break ground in the next day or two. Weather just broke. Good project for me and my quaranteam
Edit: for some reason cannot upload photo. Will try again later
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Can you plant outside?
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I could, but we also live in Seattle and there are literally two homeless camps within a few blocks and they try to steal shit off our porch/out of our yard semi-regularly. I have no faith that we would harvest anything we planted outside unfortunately. Seattle property crime rates are wild…
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Did you have a chance to look at that book that I send to @Jresh? She was the OG Urban Farmer. I love that book.
I have access to a TON of tires. What should I do with them?