Grow Your Own What are some good plants to grow?

[PopcorningPigs]

This summer I am going to have lots of free space and time and thought growing a garden especially for the pigs would be excellent!! But I was wondering what some good plants to start out with would be... I have a strawberry garden already, but guinea pigs can't have too many so what are some other good choices? I would like to have at least 6 different kinds of plants so the pigs can have a wide variety! I think this way will be better so everything will be organic and pesticide free! What are your thoughts?

 

[AnnikasMommy]

I do container gardening because something is wrong with our soil. No one has been able to figure out what so I do container gardens. I have green and red leaf lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes (cherry, black Russian, beef steak), bell peppers and many other veggies which are for the humans. I also started wheatgrass for the boys.

 

[ThePiggiesGotMe]

I have grown cilantro in my garden for a couple of years, and it is easy to grow. The piggies love it!

 

[piggsters]

Bell peppers are my favorite, but also growing carrots, tomatoes, celery, and cucumbers are good options.

 

[LifeAsItMayBe]

I haven't done much gardening since my city has been in a drought about as long as I've been alive, but I did grow bell peppers for my pigs once and it worked out well. I have a stash of seeds right now that I am planning to plant soon, including bell pepper, cilantro, zucchini, and radicchio. I also have a pan of wheat grass seeds which has grown a single blade of grass. Blah.

 

[Soecara]

There are two different ways you could go. You could either grow the things you use the most so you don't have to buy as much, or you could grow things you can't find in the supermarket. Personally I do a bit of both, mainly because my piggies are pellet-free and I like using uncommon vegetables for my own cooking. The best way to decide what to grow is to print off a guinea pig food list and take it with you when you go to look at seeds or seedlings, also consider whether or not you would also use the vegetables.

 

[PopcorningPigs]

Wow! So much to look for! Thanks everyone! I think I'm definitely planting tomatoes, peppers, carrots, cilantro, and lettuce! Boy is my summer gonna be full of weeding!! lol!

 

[PopcorningPigs]

I think I'm also going to try and plant Timothy Grass (Hay) and see how well it does

 

[Rayen]

Last year I grew cilantro, butter lettuce, leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, bell peppers, kale and tomatoes. I had enough growing in a garden roughly 7-8 feet long and wide that I could feed three pigs pretty much every day with very little grocery store assistance. The bell peppers were pretty much a failure though. I only got maybe 3-4 decent sized ones from the entire season. The lettuce, kale and tomatoes grew super well, I had more than I knew what to do with. The cilantro was essentially a weed, it grew everywhere even though I don't remember the last time I had actually planted any (maybe when I started the garden like 5 years ago?). I also have raspberry and strawberry plants (for me) that they get the occasional treat from. Carrots too, I guess, but they take so long to grow!

This year I've started up some tiny pods to prepare for the coming weeks. I've got some peppers growing again, hoping that maybe if I start them now I may get more than one pepper per plant (one can dream!). I've got way more lettuce varieties this year too, I'm going to need to double check that they're all okay for the pigs to eat (are there any darkly coloured lettuce types they can't eat?). I'm excited for when it stays consistently warm out!

 

[JDubs85]

Cilantro and lettuce are my guins favorites!!!

 

[foggycreekcavy]

I grow Swiss chard, lettuce, parsley, cilantro, bok choy, and kale to name a few. Oh, and the pigs LOVE fennel and dill. I let the grass grow long around the edge of the veggie garden so I always have some cut grass for the pigs as well.

 

[Easefirst]

I have a garden, and they seem to like every green I gave them so far: kale, New Zealand Spinach, lambs quarters (weed or cultivated version), chickweed, cleavers, arugula (flowers too), cilantro. I will try parsley, Malabar spinach. I wonder, what about sorrel, is it okay for them? And green beans?

 

[Easefirst]

Personally I do a bit of both, mainly because my piggies are pellet-free and I like using uncommon vegetables for my own cooking.

Can you tell me more about it? I would prefer pellet free way too since I feel that pellets are not a fresh food and not optimal for their health. They are mostly hay anyway. Vitamin C is in every veggie and green, so if we feed them fresh a lot, there should be a lot.

 

[Soecara]

Can you tell me more about it? I would prefer pellet free way too since I feel that pellets are not a fresh food and not optimal for their health. They are mostly hay anyway. Vitamin C is in every veggie and green, so if we feed them fresh a lot, there should be a lot.

I feel the key to a pellet-free diet is variety, personally feed two different kinds of lettuce daily (normally oakleaf and one of the heirloom varieties I grow in my garden), capsicum/bell peppers, and then four other vegetables which varies depending on the season.

Keep in mind I live in Australia so it is currently autumn, here as some examples of what I feed.

Tonight I will feed oakleaf lettuce, red velvet lettuce (from my garden), red capsicum (from my garden), snow pea leaves and pea pods (from my garden), mizuna (from my garden), sweet potato and sweet potato leaves (from my garden), and tomato (from my garden).

Last night I fed oakleaf lettuce, tennis ball lettuce (from my garden), green capsicum/bell pepper (from my garden), mung bean sprouts (sprouted myself from seed), celeriac, wombok (from my garden - may cause gas), and zucchini.

The night before I fed red oakleaf lettuce, cos/romaine lettuce (as none of my pigs have calcium issues), purple capsicum (from my garden), kohl rabi leaves (from my garden - may cause gas), fennel leaves (from my garden), carrot, and cucumber.

 

[Easefirst]

So you just feed more and larger variety of veggies. Do you give any vit D and C supplements, or not?

 

[Soecara]

So you just feed more and larger variety of veggies. Do you give any vit D and C supplements, or not?

I only supplement vitamin C if the pig for some reason stops eating capsicum. I have had one pig who just randomly decided to stop eating capsicum, so I crushed up a vitamin C tablet added a bit of water and syringed her the vitamin C every day, until a week later she just suddenly changed her mind again and started eating capsicum again.

No I have never supplemented vitamin D and my guinea pigs rarely go outside so deficiency is certainly possible.

 

[Xyzpdq0121]

My piggies have their own garden run with Mint, Cilantro, and Basil.. The grass is Bermuda and Wheatgrass:



In my "human" garden, I plant extra purple basil, green basil, sage, cilantro, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and zucchini. A bunch of that does into their food bowl as well. As a side threat, I always have a container of "catgrass"/Wheatgrass growing to pop in their cage and let them mow through but you can often find container of this at an asian or farmers market for cheap too.

 

[Easefirst]

Such sweet garden bed for the piggies! How do you make grids to stay on the bed?

 

[Xyzpdq0121]

I used wire secures.. they are little plastic clips with a nail on one end that are used to secure electrical wire. Foe extra security, I place a screw at each corner of the cage to also hold in place.. works like a champ.

 

[Easefirst]

So how many do you use per enclosure? On each grid?