Small Footprint, Big Yield: Create an Easy Micro Organic Urban Garden Today! | Urban Gardens | Unlimited Thinking For Limited Spaces April 28, 2009 by Robin Plaskoff Horton There are two things urban gardeners are short on: space and time. The Urban Garden, brainchild of Bill Arquitt, resolves both of these issues, making it efficient and simple to plant a vegetable garden with up to 55 plants in a 3-foot deep by 4-foot wide footprint. The contained six level tiered system is nearly maintenance-free, eliminating heavy weeding, and its northwestern cedar construction renders it naturally bug repellent. How to Turn a Pallet into a Garden Good news and bad news. I had planned to film a short video showing you how to make a pallet garden, but the weather didn’t cooperate. I was stapling the landscape fabric onto the pallet when it started drizzling and got really windy. That’s the bad news. But I know I promised a tutorial today, so I took photos and have kept my word to share how to make the pallet garden. So keep reading my pallet loving friends, instructions on how to make your own pallet garden are just a few lines away… Find a Pallet The first thing you need to do is–obviously–find a pallet. Don’t just take the first pallet you find. Collect Your Supplies For this project, you’ll need the pallet you found, 2 large bags of potting soil, 16 six packs of annual flowers (one six pack per opening on the face of the pallet, and two six packs per opening on the top of the completed pallet garden), a small roll of landscape fabric, a staple gun, staples, and sand paper. Get Your Pallet into Shape Let the Stapling Begin!
The Mulch - What are Microgreens and How to Grow Them Written by Chris Eirschele Microgreens are tiny leafed vegetables that are grown from seed and require very little space. Microgreens are not sprouts or simply young vegetables but grown from plant seeds such as beets, broccoli, Chinese cabbage, kohlrabi, mustards, or radishes, then harvested when less than two inches tall. Microgreens can be planted outside in mild climates all year. In colder regions, these seeds can grow outdoors, except during winter. Indoors, microgreen plants should be placed in bright light. In both situations, sow seeds approximately 1/8 inch deep and keep soil moist. Soon after sprouting, from 6 – 10 days old, plants can be harvested with a small cutter. Nutrient packed microgreens can be used in a variety ways when cooking. Each type of microgreen plant has a different flavor and appearance. Storing microgreens is easy, simply enclose in sealed plastic bags and place in the refrigerator for up to five days. Trackback(0)
15 Homemade Organic Pesticides Back when I started my first garden, a certain celebrity gardener and his books of gardening concoctions were all the rage. You could tell when it was fundraising time on our local PBS station because they'd have him live in the studio, telling us that all we had to do was use items such as baby shampoo, instant tea, and whiskey, and we'd be able to grow our best garden ever. Those claims seemed pretty far-fetched to me back then, and now that I know a little more, I know that several of those concoctions were either just plain bad ideas or that one item in his recipe was the one that was actually doing the work while the rest were either unnecessary or possibly harmful to plants, insects and other soil-dwelling organisms. So please know that my b.s. radar is at high alert when I see anything about homemade gardening sprays and the like. Pest Control 1. 2. 3. 4. Why does this work? 5.
How to start a vegetable garden Spring has sprung, and even if you have a black thumb, you may be feeling inspired to dig in the dirt. How about starting a vegetable garden? Though the process involves more than picking a random spot, making holes and planting seeds, taking these simple steps can help ensure a successful growing season. Plan your plot. Test the soil. Purchase the right tools. Prep the soil. Choose the right seeds. Plant your seeds. Keep it up. Have other ideas on how to start a vegetable garden? See also: MNN homepage photo: tboard/Flickr
Apartment Gardening: Turn a Filing Cabinet Into a Planter Yes you can have a garden, even in an urban home. No yard is no excuse. "Apartment Gardening: Plants, Projects, and Recipes for Growing Food in Your Urban Home" is what every city-dweller with a green thumb needs. Author Amy Pennington explains how to make recycled planters from everything -- wine boxes to milk crates. And she even provides recipes so we know what to do with our edible blossoms. Even if you're not living in an urban environment, you'll love the recipes and can easily use the project ideas for deck and indoor planting. Luckily, Pennington and the crew behind "Apartment Gardening" was kind enough to share a sneak peak of one of our favorite projects from the book. My friend Matthew Parker is one of those people who has vision. They don't cost much-in the neighborhood of fifty bucks-and while they are ugly to look at, if you remove the drawers and turn them onto their backs, they make an awesome planter. Directions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
How to build My 50 Dollar Greenhouse First off – you really can build this thing very cheaply, but to do so you have to recycle, freecycle, and scrounge. If you just go out and buy new everything it will probably cost over $200 – still not bad all in all.This Article is featured in Jan 2010 issue of Birds and Blooms Magazine!Want to find out if this thing works before you read all this? Read 6 months in the Greenhouse first.Want to see what happens when a few inches of wet snow accumulates on this? Collapse!Building the Greenhouse Doors is addressed in a separate article – isn’t this enough for one weekend? My $50 Greenhouse Welcome Stumbleupon Gardeners! Materials list Construction Steps Hind Sight – What I would do differently The planning is over and construction on my hoop house greenhouse has begun. After some research I’ve decided to build the structure of the hoop house out of 20 ft. joints of three quarter inch PVC plumbing pipe. If your Greenhouse is too Flat it will collapse! How to Build the $50 Hoop House Thusly
Seeds, Plants, Bulbs, and Accessories | Harris Seeds Aluminum Can Plant Markers Thank you for visiting Little House in the Suburbs. Please subscribe and you'll get great simple living tips and how-to articles delivered to your inbox, for free! This is not the easiest way to mark your seedlings. It’s not the most gorgeous. But it’s free, lasts indefinitely and it’s kinda fun. Besides, I gotta keep up my aluminum can skilz. Supplies & Equipment: Aluminum Drink Cans Cheap scissors Dried up ball point pen Straight edge (for the straight plant markers) Impressionable work surface, like the cork back of a place mat or coaster, mouse pad, etc. 1. 2. 3. This is how it will look on the right side now. 4. 6. You can make them any shape you can think of besides the typical “stake”: Soda can aluminum is relatively soft. If you are not feeling up to aluminum can cutting–and I understand completely, a lovely reader sent in her way of using old mini-blind slats, cut into stake form, and labeled with a Sharpie marker.