Gardening

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Keyhole Gardens. Keyhole Gardens First made popular in Africa, keyhole gardens are catching on in Texas and other hot, dry places. Keyhole gardens hold moisture and nutrients due to an active compost pile placed in the center of a round bed. Although most helpful in hot and dry locations a keyhole garden will improve growing conditions in just about any climate. From a bird's eye view the garden is shaped as a keyhole. A notch is cut into a round garden bed, the notch makes for easy access to the center compost well. (Note the first diagram below; to see keyhole.) Keyhole Garden in Central Texas, Deb Tolman uses keyhole gardens as the main source of her own food supply, and is working on ways to keep them producing throughout multiple seasons and conditions.

Keyhole garden in Lesotho by Send a Cow, who first popularized keyhole gardens in Africa. Keyhole garden. Keyhole garden by Send a Cow. A keyhole garden in Ethiopia. Keyhole garden in Uganda by Send a Cow. Keyhole garden scheme. How to: What to Plant Now: July: North Central and Rockies Gardening Region. For the Love of: Mason Jars. <div class="greet_block wpgb_cornered"><div class="greet_text"><div class="greet_image"><a href=" rel="nofollow"><img src=" alt="WP Greet Box icon"/></a></div>Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to <a href=" rel="nofollow"><strong>subscribe to the RSS feed</strong></a> for updates on this topic. <div style="clear:both"></div><div class="greet_block_powered_by">Powered by <a href=" title="WP Greet Box WordPress Plugin" style="text-decoration:none;">WP Greet Box</a><a href=" title="WordPress Plugin" style="text-decoration:none;">WordPress Plugin</a></div><div style="clear:both"></div></div></div> Let’s check out some of the beauties I found… mostly with the help of my BFF, Pinterest .

Herb Garden Lights. Growing Calendar - Burpee's Home Garden Advice, When to Grow, Sow, Plant and Harvest atBurpee. How to Install a Paver Patio. How to Make a Patio out of Concrete Pavers. RON HAZELTON: Yes sir, there's not much I enjoy more than cooking outdoors. But you know, what, outdoor grilling really calls for a backyard patio and that's what Tim Terick in Portland, Oregon has asked me to help him build. TIM: Well Ron, I bought this house about a year ago from a little grandma and she didn't do a whole lot of work on the yard. So - RON HAZELTON: Deferred maintenance here huh? TIM: Exactly. I was thinking about putting a patio or something back here, put the barbecue on it and - RON HAZELTON: Kick back, get a little sun. Now this is an electrical line right here. . - right here. Tim begins by hammering in the first corner stake. We decide to make the patio six by eight feet. All right, great and then if you go back down to the last stake there - TIM: All right.

Once the area is completely marked off, we make sure it's square by measuring the two diagonals. What works really well here, go back and forth like this, forward and back. So what have you got, Tim? Ing Articles :: Care :: Soil, Water, & Fertilizer. One of the best natural fertilizers and soil builders is available free.

You make it yourself and solve some environmental problems at the same time. It's compost. Good gardeners have been making their own compost for a long time, but it has recently been "discovered" as one solution to the problem of our shrinking space in landfills. Many communities now forbid yard wastes or charge a premium for taking them. Community composting has arrived on the scene, and you can also do it in your own backyard. Leaves, grass clippings, and even vegetable wastes from the kitchen are the building blocks of compost. Making compost is simple and inexpensive. For equipment, you can use a homemade container made from welded wire mesh, concrete blocks, or wooden shipping pallets -- anything that will allow you to form a pile three to five feet across and not more than five feet high.

The smaller the pieces, the faster they will be broken down by the many types of bacteria that will go to work. Www.calrecycle.ca.gov/publications/organics/44295054.pdf. Utah Preppers » Discussion Board Archive » An attempt to build a rotating compost bin » Utah Preppers. An attempt to build a rotating compost bin I’m fascinated by compost. Watching kitchen scraps turn into dirt in just a few weeks time is exciting and anything I can do to improve my soil is worth the effort. I want the ComposTumbler, but finding $429 in the family budget (the price after you give them an email address) for a barrel that holds dirt is proving difficult. So, this past weekend I decided to build my own. The project was not a success in my mind but I thought I would post this how-to article anyway describing what I tried and the lessons learned in the hope that it will save others of you time and money should you embark on such a project yourself.

Parts list 55 gallon water drum3 treated 2x4sCorner bracesCaster wheelsDraw catchesSuper glueHingesScrews and boltsTextured exterior spray paint Construction First, I cut a door in the side of the barrel with my Dremel tool. I then attached the door with small hinges and draw catches. Here is the finished product in the garden. How to Build a Tumbling Composter: 11 steps (with pictures) Edit Article Edited by Tom Stricker, James Quirk, Tom Viren, Sondra C and 28 others One of the keys to composting is aeration.

The bacteria need oxygen to carry out the aerobic respiration that creates rich compost. One way to aerate your compost is with a pitchfork or a compost turning tool. If you keep your compost in a tumbler, however, all you have to do is turn the container. Ad Steps 1Buy a plastic drum, between 20 and 55 gallons (75-200 liters). 11Check the contents occasionally, and when they are broken down by the bacteria in the drum, remove them to use for soil amending, mulch, and other purposes around your lawn and garden. Tips Warnings Filling your composter with green (fresh cut) lawn trimmings or other material may cause it to generate too much heat, in which case it may begin to smolder, if the container is not rotated occasionally.You may need to add supports for the barrel if you're using a plastic drum, otherwise the barrel may rip off of the axle.

How to Build a Rotating Compost Bin in 4 Easy Steps. November 30, 2007 12:00 AM Composting can be incredibly simple: Just pile up some food and yard scraps, and turn it with a pitchfork now and then. But if you want to speed up the process and keep it rodent-free, a rotating bin is worth a weekend of labor. Once assembled, fill it two-thirds full with scraps, moisten with water and rotate every few days. Step 1 Mark an opening on the side of a food-grade barrel using masking tape.

Step 2 Attach the door to the barrel: Use screws or bolts to fasten metal hinges or make a flap hinge from scraps of bicycle inner tube. Step 3 Make two X-shaped stands using pressure-treated 2 x 4s or scrap lumber. Step 4 Attach a wooden turning lever to the end of the barrel using large sheetmetal screws or a couple of bolts. Www.thevegetablegarden.info/download/Planting_Schedule.pdf. Companion Planting.

Raised-bed vegetables. You don't need lots of space to grow herbs and vegetables. At Sunset's headquarters, test-garden coordinator Bud Stuckey planted this organic vegetable garden in four raised beds, each 4 feet square and made of 2-by-6 composite lumber called Trex. Before planting, he double-dug all beds, turning the soil to a depth of about 22 inches, then amended it with compost. Here's what we grew and liked. QUADRANT 1: 'Blue Lake' bush beans, lettuce (dark red leaf, 'Red Grand Rapids', and dark 'Lollo Rosso' ― located in the shade of the beans' obelisk to prevent bolting), 'Bolero Nantes' carrots (between the lettuce plants), and peppers ('Golden Summer', 'Ariane', and 'Purple Beauty'). QUADRANT 2: 'Celebrity' and 'Early Girl' tomatoes, 'Dark Opal' basil, 'Long Red Cayenne' peppers, 'Sun Gold' cherry tomato, and sweet basil.

QUADRANT 3: 'Ambassador' zucchini, Japanese eggplant, 'Orange Bell' peppers, and sweet basil. QUADRANT 4: Mostly herbs. Seeds and seedlings. Raised Bed Gardening - How to Build a Raised Bed Garden - BHG.com. Vegetable Garden Plans. Grow a Salsa Garden. The Vegetable Garden: Companion Plants: What Grows Well Together. There are some plants that do well together (companion plants) when they are planted next to each other and there are certain combinations of plants that slows the growth of one or both types of plants. Basically, certain plants love each other and certain plants hate each other. Companion planting can be a complex and often overwhelming if you let it.

But as you gain more experience and develop a feeling for gardening, companion planting will become clearer. Just be sure not to let too much planning spoil the fun and excitement of working in the garden! This isn’t to say that you can’t grow these plants together in the same garden, just don’t grow them right next to each other. Below is a guide to help indentify what grows well together and what doesn't. The chart list the compatibility, both the good and the bad, of plants when planted next to each other. Companion planting is a discipline in which further analysis needs to be carried out. Companion Planting Chart for Vegetables.