Working Poor

I like things I can stick in the ground and ignore until harvest time. And, of course, things I can save the seeds from to plant for next time, so I'm not rebuying them. As to the apples, I get lots of small ones (because I don't prune enough of them off) but they're all buggy long before they're ripe. I've been told I need to find old pantyhose and make little 'bags' to tie around the flowers as soon as they are fertilized so as to keep bugs from putting eggs into the apples. I'm going to try that next year. I also liked the 'underground gardening' idea, where you dig a (fairly deep and wide ) trench and run plastic tarps over it, but I'm afraid I'd wind up with someone falling into it and injuring themselves. I've used straw for nasty winters for the garlic after I lost half my crop a couple of years back, but I'm hearing we're supposed to have a pretty mild winter where I am this year. Btw, 'carmine jewel' bush cherries are great. I bought two about 4 years ago, and one died almost immediately, but the remaining one just started fruiting out this year in any quantity, and made for a fantastic jelly.