Do you grow you own fruit and vegtables for your guinea pig/s?

[PiggyPigLover]

Do you grow you own fruit and vegtables for your guinea pig/s?
If so what and how long will it take as I'm going to try and start a little garden for my piggies.

[kananaka]

I just grow herbs for them and us. Currently have basil, cilantro, and parsley. In the fall I am going to add dill.

[vania]

I grow tomatoes and bell peppers The only down side is that it takes a while for the plants to mature and you sometimes get the produce in waves, so you may be scarce sometimes. I live in Texas so I wouldn't start now, but depending on where you live, the season to grow might have past already. You can grow herbs indoor though.

[Elthysia]

It really depends on so many things, like how much space you have, climate, money and most of all patience and time.

For small spaces/indoors you can easily grow herbs in pots. Cilantro, parsley, basil etc etc are really easy to grow in pots/inside. Feed to GPs when leaves are young, then let the herbs go to flower and let them die, then catch the seeds from the flowers in a paper bag and replant them. GPs like young/new herbs, not grown ones as they get bitter.

If you are in a hot climate or have a greenhouse, peppers and tomatoes re easy to grow but growing is slow and harvest season is short. If working in a greenhouse you have to be very careful for white fly and other bugs, and as you are feeding produce to your GPs you can't just use pesticides on the plants.

If you have a large garden, you could grow carrots, lettuces, beans etc etc but it takes time and patience to care for plants as much as it does to care for your GPs. It takes a fe hours a week to keep my veggie beds weed free, but if you have a grass area where your pigs can enjoy the outdoors in a run whilst you are weeding the garden it is win-win situation ( DON'T leave your piggies unattended and make sure run is closed at the top as it only takes a few seconds for a bird to swoop them up...)

Growing veggies takes commitment, for example you have to protect carrots from carrot fly and put fly proof mesh over them. Don't use pesticides. Growing veg takes a LOT of time if ou are growing large amounts and half of your crop will be eaten by pests like slugs for lettuces.

If you want it simple, grow some herbs and some strawberrys. Grow things you like to eat too otherwise it is too tempting to feed too much of a crop to your GPs (for example if you have 10 strawberrys and ou don't like them yourself, you still shouldn't feed more than 1 to your piggie but it would be tempting to feed the pig more...)

I hope this helps. I am a new piggy owner but an experienced gardener so I hope this advice is constructive.

Elthysia

[HannibalLecter]

I sometimes grow herbs but find that I rarely use it all up in time, I mainly grow wheat grass. I usually have a few containers in every window.