Spinach: Planting, Growing and Harvesting Spinach Plants. Botanical name: Spinacia oleracea Plant type: Vegetable. How to Grow Spinach. Spinach is one of the most satisfying cool-weather crops to grow, producing large yields of vitamin-rich, dark green leaves that are excellent for salads and for cooking.
Since both hot weather and long days trigger spinach to bolt (send up a seed stalk) quickly, the secret to success with this crop is to start sowing seeds as soon as possible in spring, to make small, frequent plantings during late spring and summer, and to concentrate on fall as the season for the main crop. Planting: Spinach does best when growing in moist, nitrogen-rich soil.
Spinach plants form a deep taproot; for best growth, loosen the soil at least 1 foot deep before planting. Sow spinach seed as early as 6 weeks before the last frost or as soon as you can work the soil. Prepare the soil the previous autumn, and you can drop the seeds in barely thawed ground. In warm climates, plant spinach in the shade of tall crops such as corn or beans.
Spinach seed doesn’t store well, so buy fresh seeds every year. Grow Your Own: 5 Easiest Vegetables to Grow Without Gardening Skills. The Micro Gardener - making it easy to grow your own in small spaces. Growing Coffee Beans at Home. Growing Coffee Beans at Home Growing coffee plants at home is a rewarding experience that will help you learn and appreciate the work involved in producing coffee.
It is a very easy plant to take care of and is a great conversation piece, especially during flowering or cherry development. Homemade Lotion: Peppermint Whipped Body Butter. Today I excited to share my favorite DIY recipe to date.
Two words: Homemade Lotion. Actually, I take that back. Let’s try FOUR words: Peppermint Whipped Body Butter. Learning to live a life sustainable. 5 Perennial Veggies to Plant Once and Enjoy... Forever. Most of the foods we grow are annuals: Each winter, they disappear and must be replanted in the spring.
A bountiful garden of delicious organic food is worth the work of planning and planting, but smart gardeners also curate a few perennials, which come back year after year with little maintenance required. Here are some classic perennials to plant now for harvest next summer. 1. Edible Landscaping with Charlie Nardozzi. Select citrus tree varieties that naturally stay dwarf in containers.
It will be easier to care for them and move them in and outdoors in cold climates. 'Improved Meyer' lemon is an excellent container citrus selection. The plants stay small and the fruits will grow and mature even indoors in a cold climate. There's nothing like the taste of fresh citrus fruits picked from your own trees. How To Grow An Avocado Tree. (TruthSeekerDaily) The next time you eat an avocado or use one in a recipe, save the stone or pit. Planting your own avocado tree is fun and easy. It is a perfect task for all ages – for the garden, for indoors, and also makes a great project for class or at home! In 10 easy steps, you will see how you too can get a full-grown avocado tree from a little seed, making the whole process very educational and easy to remember. Gardening Projects. FARMING: Growing Food & Raising Animals.
Beginner’s Guide to Veganic Gardening. Vegan-organic gardening avoids not only the use of toxic sprays and chemicals, but also manures and animal remains.
Just as vegans avoid animal products in the rest of our lives, we also avoid using animal products in the garden, as fertilizers such as blood and bone meal, slaughterhouse sludge, fish emulsion, and manures are sourced from industries that exploit and enslave sentient beings. As these products may carry dangerous diseases that breed in intensive animal production operations, vegan-organic gardening is also a safer, healthier way to grow our food. In veganic growing situations, soil fertility is maintained using vegetable compost, green manures, crop rotation, mulching, and other sustainable, ecological methods.
Urban Farming Guidebook: new resource « Milkwood: urban & small farm living skills. The Urban Farming Guidebook is a free pdf resource for helping local governments to plan the growing of food in their cities.
Given that we’re all about bottom-up action, we feel that it’s best placed in the hands of potential growers, so they can get on with creating local food systems! And that means you. This guide was written for Canadian councils in BC, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting, or useful, for the rest of us. There’s 4 case studies of successful urban farms in BC, and plenty of inspiration and workable ideas for more… “Verticrop (above) is a technology that utilizes suspended hydroponic tray systems on a conveyer system to grow leafy greens. Gardening - Gardening Guides. Raised Beds: Preparing your Garden Beds for Spring. This may sound odd to you, but my favorite season in the garden is early spring, after our raised beds are prepared but before anything is growing.
The sight of the raised beds topped up with rich soil, moist and crumbly, free of weeds and ready to plant is a brief moment of perfection, full of promise, a blank canvas awaiting the gardener’s vision. When raised beds are well prepared, the hardest part of gardening is also done. Natural Hebicide. How Weed Killers Work Weed killers, both homemade and commercial products, start by killing the above ground foliage.
Systemic weed killers, like Roundup, are designed to cause injury to the entire plant including the root system so it will not grow back, according to a guide prepared by the University of California available here. Homemade vinegar-based products lack the oomph of commercial products and only desiccate the above ground foliage. 3 Homemade Weed Killer Recipes A quick search on the internet yielded lots of recipes for homemade weed killer with vinegar the primary ingredient.
Weed Killer Recipe #1: Plain vinegar Weed Killer Recipe #2: 1 quart vinegar + 2 tbsp liquid dish soap Weed Killer Recipe #3: 1 quart vinegar + 1 tsp liquid dish soap + 1/4 c salt Application. SproutRobot: The easy way to start a garden. How to: Save Heirloom Tomato Seeds Cubit's Organic Living » Saving your own tomato seeds is rather fun and has all sorts of benefits.
Preserving heirloom seeds, ensuring a supply of your own favourites for next year, helping protect seed diversity, making a giant mess of stinky fermenting goo, it’s all there! It’s also pretty easy. As part of our seed selling business we save fairly large quantities of tomato seed but the process is the same whether you are saving from a pile of heirloom tomatoes or from a paticularily tasty one you just sliced up for lunch. How To: Plant Seeds Using Eggshells. We were excited when our Sprout Robot alert went off that it was time to start broccoli seeds indoors this weekend for our zip code. With the move and being in the midst of colder months, we are seriously lacking in the gardening department, except for our avocado sprouts (which we have an exciting update on coming tomorrow). Vermiculture: How To Build A Worm Bin the Cheap and Easy Way. By Gaye Levy Contributing Writer for Wake Up World A couple of weeks ago I wrote about using worms to create compost.
The 16 Best Healthy, Edible Plants to Grow Indoors. From farmers’ markets and Community Supported Agriculture, to urban farms and rooftop gardens, to produce delivery services, more and more people across the U.S. are embracing farm-fresh food. 16 Foods That’ll Re-Grow from Kitchen Scraps. Fresh Organic Gardening – Growing Onions Vertically On The Windowsill. Homegrown and Handmade. Our food system is dominated by industrial agriculture, and has become economically and environmentally unsustainable. You can grow your own food. We can help. News – Homesteading and Survivalism Store. Gardening. Eco Gardening. Kansha P. Free Interactive Garden Design Tool - No Software Needed! Plan-A-Garden - BHG.com.
3 Common Garden Planning Mistakes (and how to avoid them)