Recycle Plastic Bottles for the Garden Don't Throw them Away! All those empty plastic water and soft drink bottles that you throw into the dustbin each week - whether separated from other rubbish or not - are best held back for a recycling in the garden for a variety of purposes many of which can save your money. Some of our ways of using them are as follows Clodagh & Dick Hanscombe Gardening authors and broadcasters living in Spain. You can visit them and buy their gardening books from Gardening in Spain Growing plants from cuttings Cut the top of all sizes and make a small hole in the bottom and you have a usefully deep flower pot for planting up cuttings from the winter cutback. Moreover if you cut off the top a third of the way down you have a lid that can be taped back on to create a mini green house that will keep cuttings in a constantly moist atmosphere and protected from sold draughts. Heads for scare crows. Telling dogs to move on . Telling white and green fly they are not wanted . Keeping garden twine tidy. Growing vegetables on a mini scale .
Heirloom Cold-Weather Salad Greens - Organic Gardening These heirloom cold-weather salad greens are easy to grow and can be used in a variety of ways. September 18, 2013 By William Woys Weaver Heirloom Vegetable Gardening by William Woys Weaver is the culmination of some thirty years of first-hand knowledge of growing, tasting and cooking with heirloom vegetables. Buy the brand new e-book of Weaver’s gardening classic in the MOTHER EARTH NEWS store: Heirloom Vegetable Gardening. To locate mail order companies that carry these heirloom cold-weather salad greens, use our Custom Seed and Plant Finder. The convenience of supermarket vegetables the year around has led us to forget the dire shortage of green vegetables that many people suffered years ago. 'Buckshorn Plantain' Plantago cornopus Never given much notice in American garden books, this delightful heirloom is nevertheless a garden vegetable of considerable vintage in Europe. 'Chicory' Chicorium intybus specialty and an acquired taste. an eighteenth-century variety. I collect corn salad.
12 Cool Hacks to Get the Most from Your VeggiesHealthy Holistic Living We’ve bred plants to taste better, be more productive, and be easier to harvest, store, and ship, but not to be more nutritious. Here’s are some ways you can fix that. Since man first figured out how to domesticate plants we’ve been trying to make them more palatable. Most edible wild plants are too bitter, sour, astringent, tough, full of seeds, or dry to be enjoyable. Over the course of the last 12,000 years we’ve bred plants to taste better, be more productive, and easy to harvest, store, and transport. Native plants contain more protein, fiber, than crop plants and a lot less sugar. Wild plants also contain a lot more antioxidants, which neutralize free radical damage, and phytonutrients – chemicals we need for health like beta carotene and lycopene Wild tomatoes, for example, contain 15 times more lycopene than supermarket tomatoes. We can’t go back to foraging, but there are tips and tricks you can use to get the most nutrition of out the vegetables you do eat. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
How to Grow a Wire and Moss Lettuce Hanging Basket Not only is this lettuce and moss basket attractive covered in foliage, texture, and color, it looks good enough to eat. Moreover, it is! This edible container is so lovely it can hang in the front entryway; and, it's fantastic to eat and healthy for you. One of the benefits of lettuce growing in a hanging basket is slugs can't get to them! The down side to wire hanging baskets is they dry out easily. If you don't want to make this stunning basket of lettuce (see directions below), you can always plant your lettuce in beautiful hanging pots and containers. Directions Lettuce Seedlings Most times, I start my own lettuce seedlings, but a good garden center will carry many good varieties in six-pack or four-pack containers. Wire basket with hanger. Whiskey barrel liner. Moss soaking in water. Starting from the bottom. First row. Second row. A row after it's planted. Planting complete! After your plant settles in, use a high nitrogen organic fertilizer. Gather your materials Tools you will need:
10 Vegetables More Cold-Hardy than Kale If you think winter gardening involves months of eating kale, think again. A wide variety of garden vegetables tolerate freezing just as well as, and some even better than, most kale varieties. On my quest to select the top vegetables for winter gardening, I invited three other gardeners from around North America to share their favorites, based on their experiences growing in winter. All of these gardeners grow in colder climates than my own here in the Kentucky mountains (zone 6b), so if you think growing in winter is out of your reach, I hope you’ll be inspired to give it a try. Meet the Panel: Anna, from Northern Homestead. Isis, from Little Mountain Haven. Connie, from Urban Overalls. 1) Carrots Cold winter temperatures stimulate sugar accumulation in carrots, acting as a natural antifreeze that protects the roots from freeze damage. A January harvest of young kohlrabi, chard, and carrots. 2) Spinach Although tender in your salads, spinach is actually a tough little plant. 3) Leeks
Vegetables You Can Grow in the Shade | Reclaim, Grow, Sustain Every gardener would like their crops to receive 10 hours of sun every day. And while you can greatly minimize the amount of shade plants will sit in with a little planning, shade is often an unavoidable factor. There's always certain corners of the garden that deal with a fair amount of light limitations: trees, houses, sheds, fences, other crops. But plants need light, right? Well fret not! As a general rule, crops grown for leaves (e.g., lettuce, chard, spinach) or crops grown for roots (e.g., carrots, turnips, parsnips) will manage in a shady environment. Needs 2 hours of sun a day Bok Choy - Bok Choy will do great with only short bursts of strong light. Needs 3-4 hours of sun Arugula - Definitely a vegetable to put in shade, because warm weather and full sun makes Arugula want to bolt. Chard - Chard grown in shade tend to be smaller than chard grown in full light, but the leaves will be more tender. Lettuce - Does well in shade. Spinach - Like lettuce, spinach was made for the shade.
Vintersådd av spenat i januari - Sara Bäckmo I helgen gjorde jag en kul sådd av spenat. Jag har varit helt lyrisk över den fina jorden som finns i bäddarna som täcktes med ull tidigare under säsongen, där jorden är tinad och full av liv. I övriga trädgården är de ju stenfrusen och i allra högsta grad vilande. Jag tänkte ta tillvara på den tinade jorden och så en omgång spenat. Över jorden i den här bädden ligger ett lager tidningar och därpå 10-15 cm ganska kompakt lager med fårull. Läs mer: Vintersådd spenat i Lappland Jag har fått ett litet slags minidrivhus att testa i trädgården och tänkte använda det här. Mojängen kommer från en fransk odlare och jag har fått testa i år för att se om den kan vara något för oss som vill odla på vintern.
Fontana Italian Margherita Outdoor Pizza Oven in South Africa - On The Patio Wood fires change the way you entertain, the way you cook for your family and friends. They remind us of a simpler time when life was a little more laidback, phones were something you had at home instead of in your pocket and filling up with petrol didn’t feel like daylight robbery. The Margherita wood oven’s beauty lies in its simplicity, both in design and functionality, so much more than a pizza oven, it perfectly roasts peppers and veg in minutes and is also ideal for roast meats & breads. It can be used as a conventional oven and reaches optimum temperature in a matter of minutes (10-15 max). If you looking for a bigger cooking area, but want to retain all the mouth watering characteristics of the Margherita, take a look at her bigger brother, the Mangiafuoco. This good-looking little number will keep just about any brood fed, so bust out mom’s old recipes and relive those good old days with a 21st-century twist.