*Please let me start the ball rolling by saying that you can use dried okra and Jerusalem artichoke stalks as plant supports. Not as good as bamboo, but good for a season or maybe two.
*JArtichoke branches are just the right size for peppers and eggplants during the first half of the season.
*Dried gourds as planters anyone?
*Willow withes for baskets or other branches for hurdles or fencing. Does anyone do this?
*Garlic and onion leaves are also good for crude basketry and ties for stalks and poles that will last a season.
*Raspberry plant stalks are extremely strong and light. They have gentle branching that seems to be great for tying tomatoes to.
*I have never owned a dibble. I use a section of raspberry stalk of just the right diameter.
*Carving tools out of wood might seem extreme in this day and age of Chinese imports, but can you imagine anything more green than a wooden hay fork or a quick and dirty hand hoe?
*I have an extremely thorny branching tree that I think will coppice properly. It's not barbed wire, but it could be useful as a deterrent. Can I grow enough to surround my compost pile and keep critters out? I am going to try.

Anyone care to list up some others?

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.