10 Killer DIY Garden Hacks Gardening is one of the most rewarding home hobbies you can do. It's fun, sustainable and you get healthy, tasty results. A lot of people like the idea of gardening but find excuses like it's too time consuming, it's too expensive, they don't have enough space, blah blah blah. There's no room for excuses when going green, all you need is a little initiative and a little ingenuity to overcome these so called excuses. Here are 10 killer garden hacks that can help you save time, space and money while satisfying your green thumb... 1. Vertical Gutter Garden When Suzanne Forsling moved to Juneau Alaska from Iowa, she found that it was a little bit harder to get her garden to grow. 2. Reclaimed Tire Garden If you have some old tires laying around that you don't know what to do with, you could burn them... if you hate the environment, or you could put them to work as cool looking raised garden beds. 3. DIY Earth Box An Earth Box is more than just a box with soil. 4. Self-Watering Garden 5. 6. 7.
6,000 Pounds of Food on 1/10 Acre “In danger of being free.” That’s how Jules Dervaes sums up his journey from a small backyard garden to a super-productive microfarm. It’s a low input, highly efficient urban homestead right next to the metropolis of Los Angeles. Jules, his son Justin, and his two daughters Anais and Jordanne live in a 1,500 sq. ft. craftsman bungalow on 1/5 of an acre. Their mission is to live sustainably and simply, and they are doing it. 90% of their vegetarian diet comes from the homestead and 2/3 of their energy comes from solar panels. “Government can’t do it and corporations won’t do it,” says Jules in the short film Homegrown Revolution. With a corporatocracy running the show in Washington and millions of Americans addicted to television and fast food, the Dervaes family provides a model of what can happen if we change our priorities. Not only do they provide a model for suburban-style sustainability, but their efforts are beneficial to the community and local schools. Related Posts
Organic Authority.com: Four Foods That'll Re-Grow From Kitchen Scraps Written by Lacy Boggs Renner You recycle your bottles and newspapers, you upcycle thrift store finds into decor treasures, and you reuse all your plastic bags. But do you upcycle your food scraps? We're not talking compost here, we're talking re-growing food from scraps you might have tossed. Turns out, several odds and ends you might have tossed can be re-grown into more food! Scallions When your recipe only calls for the green part of the scallions, don't toss the white end with the roots. Lemongrass This delicious, aromatic herb is really just a grass and will grow well in a pot in a sunny spot. Celery The next time you're chopping a bunch of celery, save the root end! Ginger Did you know that ginger makes a beautiful (and useful) houseplant?
Square Foot Gardening Growing Food from Kitchen Scraps There's all sorts of growing experiments you can do with your kids just by using food from your kitchen. The possibilities are nearly limitless...take some time to take stalk of the food supplies you have, and decide which ones you'd like to experiment with. To give you an idea of the kinds of things you can plant, here's a quick list: 1. 2. 3. 4. Most of these seeds and roots will grow best by starting them in water. Here's an example of a couple of ways to get some food growing from your kitchen food supply: Celery Take a bunch of celery and cut the bottom root off. Potato Keep a potato around until some eyes start growing on it. If you're really interested in this kind of kitchen food experimentation, you'll be happy to know about a great book on the subject called Grow it, Don't Throw It!
5 Foods You Can Grow From Leftovers Looking for yet another way to get more from your garden? How about regrowing vegetables from the leftover bits and pieces? Reduce, reuse and recycle in your garden with these five foods that you can keep growing (and regrowing) even after you've gotten a good meal or two out of them. Did you know that you can regrow celery from the leftover stalk stub? Whether you already grow ginger in your garden or have a few fresh nubs from the grocery store, it's possible to plant what you have and recycle your ginger roots. Not sure what to do with those couple of tiny garlic cloves that you can't be bothered to peel? Tired of throwing away all of those crazy-shaped ends from your garden-grown sweet potatoes? It just got even easier to grow green onions. (Images graciously provided by fritz018, jeff1980, forwardcom and 13dede .
6 Easy Ways To Get A Jump On Next Year’s Garden Fall is a wonderful time to look back at your summer garden and evaluate what worked and what didn’t. Reviewing your gardening success from season to season is one of the best ways to design your gardens for next year and beyond. We learn by doing, and you’ve just finished up an entire season of in-the-trenches, hands-on gardening experience. So, whether your gardening experience this past year was good or great, bad or ugly … there’s always something you can learn from it. We gardeners have a slogan we abide by: There’s always next year. Garden Successes … and Failures Think about the things that went well in your garden. Answering these questions will give you a good road map when planning next year’s garden. For vegetable gardens, evaluate which plants produced well and what didn’t. I learned quickly this past year that I need to plant more okra plants, as it is a family favorite, and that my little strawberry patch was a complete disaster and waste of my time and efforts. Rest
7 Habits of Successful Gardeners Originally published January 2009 Or is it the Seven Pillars of Horticultural Wisdom? As everyone's resolutions remind us, we love attaching a number to advice, a number smaller than the one I regard as most realistic: The Twenty Three Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty-Two Things It's Important to Remember Before Getting Out of Bed. So be warned: I haven't really honed it down to only seven; these are just the first seven essentials that came to mind when I decided to do this. Make CompostUse CompostPlant Crops in Wide BedsMulchFeed the Soil, Not the PlantsShare SomethingBe There Photo: The compost bins at Stonecrop Gardens in Cold Spring, N.Y. 1. Short version: Mother Nature never throws anything away. Longer version: Composting is the rare silk purse from sow's ear, something for nothing, win-win. It's easy to fall into thinking that compost's last name is bin, and that careful layering and turning are part of the deal. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. If you've got a garden, you're rich. Got seeds? 7.
Community Supported Agriculture Thinking about signing up for a CSA but want to learn more about the idea before you commit? Read on. For over 25 years, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has become a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer. Here are the basics: a farmer offers a certain number of "shares" to the public. This arrangement creates several rewards for both the farmer and the consumer. Advantages for farmers: Get to spend time marketing the food early in the year, before their 16 hour days in the field begin Receive payment early in the season, which helps with the farm's cash flow Have an opportunity to get to know the people who eat the food they grow Advantages for consumers: It's a simple enough idea, but its impact has been profound. Variations As you might expect with such a successful model, farmers have begun to introduce variations. CSAs aren't confined to produce. Shared Risk
15 Foods That Can Be Regrown From Scraps I love gardening. Well, not actually the work behind the gardening so much – it’s the harvesting that I really look forward to. There is nothing like fresh veggies from your own personal garden! Obviously, we all know about the normal ways to grow plants – from seeds. Let’s count them out – from 1 to 15… 1, 2, 3, & 4. These are the ones I regrow the very most, I always have a mason jar of green onions regrowing above my kitchen sink. 5. You can regrow lemongrass the same way you regrow the green onions. 6. Plant a small chunk off of your piece of ginger in potting soil with the newest buds facing up. 7. Pick a potato that has a lot of good formed eyes, and cut it into 2-3 inch pieces, taking care to be sure that each piece has at least 1-2 eyes on it. 8. You will need sweet potatoes with good formed eyes, just as you would want with a regular potato. 9, 10, 11, & 12. These all are regrown by placing the roots in a dish of water. 13. 14. You can re-grow a plant from a single clove. 15.
Restaurant + REIT = Urban Pop Up Farm on Stalled East Side Construction Site | gbNYC Real Estate Group | Green Building in New York City A stalled construction site in Kips Bay is probably the last place you’d expect to find a 6000-plant farm. But at 430 East 29th Street, Riverpark Farm is making a statement about how urban space can be utilized in innovative ways. A stalled construction site in Kips Bay is probably the last place you’d expect to find a 6000-plant farm. But at 430 East 29th Street, Riverpark Farm is making a statement about how urban space can be utilized in innovative ways. Conceived by the life sciences REIT Alexandria Real Estate Equities, the farm is located on a 15,000-square-foot parcel within the Alexandria Center for Life Science, a $200 million Silver LEED for Core and Shell development. GrowNYC, a New York City-based non-profit that promotes green markets, community gardens, and other educational initiatives, helped create and promote the farm, which could serve as a model – and perhaps a job catalyst – for other stalled construction sites throughout the five boroughs. About Stephen Del Percio
9 Steps To Starting A Survival Garden In a time of economic uncertainty and rising food prices, it it always a good idea to have a garden to provide extra food for you and your family. Besides providing a source of food in an emergency, a garden is also a great source of wonderful vegetables which are MUCH healthier to eat than most of the food you can get at the supermarket. So how do you begin? The following are 9 steps that you can take to get your garden started..... #1) Decide What Your Goals Are - Do you want to grow enough just to add a few vegetables to your dinner once in a while? Some people who want to live "off the grid" end up building a garden large enough that it will provide almost all of the food that their family needs. #2) Evaluate Your Land - Once you know what your goals are, you need to evaluate the land that you are currently living on. If you decide that you want a "mega-garden" but you live in a condo, then you may have to end up moving to achieve your goals. So what is the solution? Comments comments