Like Bitcoin has home farming become a lucrative and quite active hobby.
On this page, I share my tips and tricks on all the produce grown to date.
All the lessons learned and some background information for should you want to start growing.
VEGGIES
Onions
The common onion is generally an easy vegetable to grow.
Is to be sown from March to May and can be harvested from August to October
Seeds need to be sown in rows of about 10cm from each other. Seeds at about 1cm deep into the soil.
When these start sprouting do the plants need thinning and within each row will a space of about 6 -10 cm between each sprout be present.
This 6 – 10cm depends on the onion type. For basic white onions is 6cm between each sprout okay.
For the Excelsior (big ones) is 10cm or more a must.
When the foliage is half dried, harvest. Further dry the onions in a ventilated space.
Additional lessons through experience:
- Be sure that the top soil is loose enough. About 15 to 20 cm deep.
–> The problems as to why my onions remained small was a result of a rock hard soil at about 10cm depth which the roots had a hard time penetrating and resulted in small onions.
Pumpkin/Butternut
One of THE easiest vegetables to grow. Seeds can be sown in April-May.
Though you can get some head start by planting them indoors in trays in March up until you have sprouts of about 5 – 10cms before you plant them in full ground.
It’s a plant which can grow on many types of soil (though it doesn’t like grounds in coastal area’s where there’s much sand and the soil kinda acidic/salty).
The plant needs a lot of space to grow. About 1 meter distance should be kept between plants. When growing, regular pruning will be necessary to produce the largest possible fruit and prevent them from taking over the entire vegetable garden.
Harvest season starts in August but will mostly occur through September and October (at overall).
Harvest depends on the seasons and the weather. Harvest in August is possible when sprouts were planted in March and weather, at overall, was good (sunny and with enough rain).
Additional lessons through experience:
- I learned quite quickly these were crawling plants which can suddenly grow at fast rates. Pruning is necessary in order to avoid these plants smothering the other vegetables. Depending on the size of the garden, try to have either 1 plant spawning 2-3 fruits or have 1 pumpkin/butternut per plant.
- DO NOT CROSS BREED pumpkins with butternuts and/or Zucchini’s. Depending on the plant will you get possible toxic vegetables. In my garden, all 3 (pumpkin, butternut and zucchini) were present but I made sure there was no crossing over.
–> resultant “hybrids” can be nice decorative pieces for during Halloween.
Chicory
There’s 2 ways to go about it.
- First is by going from ground zero (i.e. sowing seeds, growing and cultivating its roots and then in October start the ACTUAL growing of the chicory)
- Second is a “shortcut” by buying chircory roots and growing the chicory itself.
My current experience (to date) is with the shortcut. You can plant the roots in a closed bin (or box) with the roots quite closely stacked to each other. Top it off with soil and let the chicory grow in the dark. Chicory harvest will typically occur within 1 – 1.5months time.
This shortcut is an easy method of growing as you forego growing the roots themselves which is more tricky and difficult in order to have good yield. The roots themselves contain all the nutrients though still need to be planted in soil and given water. Chicory, after all, consists out of 80% of water. The central root will form smaller ofshoot roots to absorb the water and allow chicory growth.
Currently growing chicory from scratch (seeds sown, growing the plants and cultivating the roots).
See my 2025 blog as well as my ongoing journaling on X (formerly Twitter).
Additional lessons through experience:
For the shortcut route of growing chicory:
- The roots themselves contain all the nutrients though still need to be planted in soil and given water. Don’t overdo it as there’s risk of the soil getting infested with pathogens which can cause rot. Aerate the box but make sure no light reached the plants.
- Chicory loves a calc-rich soil. Measure it well and make sure that it doesn’t grow too fast (to avoid bad looking crops).
- Try to keep at a temperature between 12-18 degrees Celcius. Above 20 degrees may the chicory grow too fast and you won’t have nice bulbs (one of the reasons my 2024 harvest was a bit odd-looking).
- Roots needed to be trimmed before planting, I made the mistake of cutting them too short which gave rise to multiple slender bulbs per root (instead of 1 nice round bulb).
For the route of growing from 0:
- Plenty of sun needed.
- For optimal root growth does the soil need to be VERY rich.
- To optimize root growth (to bigger up the roots) is pruning a necessity! Roots need place to growth. Not only vertical but horizontal as well.
- Butterflies/caterpillars love the green leaves. Cover up with nets and keep the insects out! The flowers/plants were eaten overnight. I am in luck the plants recovered after removing the pests and giving them better protection… at the expense of the roots remaining rather small.
Garlic
Garlic is a bulbous flowering plant which is closely related to the onions and leeks.
It is a plant with a multitude of uses and has some medicinal uses as well.
Quite an easy plant to grow. Needs winter in order to get fully rounded.
The garlic cloves need to be planted into the soil, pointy side upwards (and may stick out of the soil).
This plant needs some space to fully develop (around and underneath it) for its root system to develop. Exists in different varieties. The ones I planted are plain white garlic (from the local shop) and elephant garlic (which gives bigger cloves).
Additional lessons through experience:
- Had to learn about spacing the hard way. Both for the 2024 harvest as the 2025 one.
I planted more cloves across different beds but the lack of depth of the bins (15cm) was a growth limiter. Still great taste. Just rather small.
Cucumber
Ongoing. The first planting in 2024 was a failure due to rain.
Now in the 2025 garden did some of the seeds take a hold and are plants growing.
Like pumpkins/butternuts, a creeping vine plant which needs pruning in order for it to bear fruit and not strangle/take over the entire garden or vegetable patch.
–> No luck this year as well. The plants didn’t take and were overtaken by the melons and pumpkins.
Tomatoes
- Coeur de Boeuf
In 2025, these proved to be a success despite, for some reasons, the plants staying rather small despite treated soil and watering for a prolonged time. This might be due to weather conditions (warm and sunny but not enough water in the soil).
The fruit is thick and meaty. Needs regular pruning to really develop fruit growth. I can state these were a success! - Minibel
Small “snack” tomato. Mixed success. I had a few plants which bore fruit.
Hearty fruit. Tasted quite sweet. Just like the Coeur de Boeuf did I have difficulties growing them due to the weather (hot and sunny, dry soil). The harvest wasn’t as great due to me raising them mainly on the small green house for too long. Once I moved them outside did they all really came to shine (but a tad too late). - Hybrid Coeur de Boeuf and white potato
I learned about grafting some time ago. Decicded to give it a try.
The hybrids are growing in the potato/tomato patch.
Outlook? Top is like a regular tomato plant. Root system is all white potatoes.
The advantage of this hybrid is the use of less garden space while cultivating more produce on an equal space.
Lessons learned:
– The hybrids are “tougher” in regards to drought resistance. Where some of the regular tomatoplants have difficulties after a few days of dry and hot weather does the hybrids seem to thrive. The hybrids really bore A LOT of fruit to the extend I needed to perform weekly harvests (while the regular plants were once every 2 weeks).
Peppers
- Habanero
– Slow beginnings. The plants I grew in pots quickly bore fruit. The one plat I put in the ground failed to grow. - California reaper
– Ongoing. Is growing. At first, seemed to be doing better in pots than in the vegetable patch. Those in the vegetable patch REALLY took off after we had a few days of rain. - Minibel bell pepper
Ongoing. Not much luck. Only 1 small plant (out of 6) is grew. It failed to bear any fruit.
Bush beans
Bush beans are green beans which are planted in the months of April – July.
Healthy green crunchy vegetables.
For some reason did the seeds fail to produce any saplings.
Will be re-attempted next year.
Cauliflower
Family of the cabbage (both regular as well as white cabbage).
Ongoing.
The current one I am (trying to) cultivate is winter cauliflower.
This needs to be sown in July-August. Will be (hopefully) harvested in April 2026
FRUIT
Raspberries
Ongoing. Needs pruning for optimal fruit yield.
Bought in 2024, is currently growing in (big) plant pots.
One of the plants already gave some fruit (which tasted nice).
Real yield will come in a few years time through the forming of the bush (and regular watering and pruning).
Cherry (tree)
When I bought the home, it came with a 60+ years old cherry tree.
It still bears fruit in high quantity. Though in the last couple of years (before we bought the house) has the tree allowed to grow too wild. Over the spanning of a few years are we cutting down dead branches and regularly pruning the tree for optimal health and (cherry) growth.
We had multiple good harvests from the tree.
Since 2024 do I regularly make yam from its fruits.
Of course do we love snacking on the cherries itself during the month of June when its fruits are ripe and ready.
HERBS
Rosemary
Ongoing
Thyme
Ongoing
Mint
Ongoing
Basilicum
Ongoing
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