4 Ways to Grow Spinach Edit Article Choosing a VarietyPrepping Your Planting AreaPlanting Your SpinachCaring for Your Spinach Plants Edited by Flickety, Eric, Nathan Wong, Scott Cushman and 2 others A cool-weather loving green, spinach is a fast-growing relative of beets and Swiss chard. Ad Steps Part 1 of 4: Choosing a Variety 1Grow spinach in USDA Hardiness Zones three through nine. 3Choose smooth-leafed spinach for a fast growing time. Part 2 of 4: Prepping Your Planting Area 1Choose an area with full sun. 4Fertilize the soil thoroughly. Part 3 of 4: Planting Your Spinach 1Decide whether you want a spring or fall harvest, or both. 5Water the planting area thoroughly. Part 4 of 4: Caring for Your Spinach Plants 1Thin your plants. 5Harvest your spinach. Tips Always wash spinach before eating.Be aware that spinach shrinks when cooked. Warnings Be wary of flea beetles, spider mites, and aphids, which feed on spinach leaves.Heat and long days will kill your crop.
Healthy News and Information There is nothing better than plant to mouth in 1 second flat from your own backyard, but sometimes we don’t have a spare moment to prune, water or till. Every year there’s so much to do it makes my head spin! So any chance to save some time or effort is a real lifesaver. Here are 9 cool hacks that will not only save you time but will transform your backyard into an oasis of greenery! 1. Vacation Watering For potted plants: this trick will save your plants when away for a few days. 2. Mixing your old eggshells and coffee grinds into your soil as compost will not only boost the nutrients in the ground, but can help prevent blossom rot. 3. That’s right, I said sweetener, but this one is all natural. Another use for baking soda with tomatoes is to make an organic spray for fungal diseases. 4. Using the stems of roses, you can regrow a whole rosebush by simply poking them into potatoes before planting them in the ground. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Share: Comments
How To Plant Cuttings Of Potatoes Overview Potatoes are starchy, tasty root vegetables that are easy to start from cuttings of other potatoes. From French fries to scalloped to baked, potatoes have a wide range of uses in many different types of dishes. If you have an area of your garden that has light, deep, slightly acid, well-drained soil, consider starting a potato patch. Planting Potato Cuttings Step 1 Purchase potatoes called "seed" potatoes from a nursery, seed catalog or Internet site for the best results in sprouting and growing potatoes to maturity. Step 2 Expose your seed potatoes to direct sunlight and temperatures ranging from 60 to 70 degrees F for two weeks before you plant them in spring. Step 3 Cut your seed potatoes into pieces about 2 inches square, making certain to include one or two eyes in each chunk. Step 4 Prepare your planting area by digging in at least a third the volume of soil with compost and other organic materials. Step 5 Step 6 Fill the trench half full with additional soil/compost/straw.
Garden Planning for Preservation: Best Foods to Freeze, Can, Dehydrate and Ferment Our vegetable gardens offer us beautiful, fresh bounty during the growing season — and they also have the potential to increase our food security the rest of the year. When you craft a plan to put up some of the crops you grow, you’re preparing for the future, simplifying winter meals, reducing waste, and saving money, too. As you plan your garden with preservation in mind, consider what your family loves to eat versus what they merely tolerate. Talk with your household members about what you want your meals to look like for the following year. If you’re aiming for year-round veggie self-sufficiency, calculate how many times per week on average your family eats a particular crop, and multiply that figure by 52 (number of weeks in a year). Easy Crops and Preservation Projects From a preservation perspective, some vegetables are much more flexible to work with than others. So how many tomatoes should you sow? Cucumbers are a classic crop to pickle. Year-to-Year Garden Planning
Growing Your Own Garlic As far as I'm concerned, garlic gets the blue ribbon for growing your own. It's absurdly easy to plant and care for; it tastes great; it looks beautiful and it takes up so little ground that even those with very small gardens can raise enough to be self-sufficient in garlic for a good part of the year. All you have to do is choose the right varieties; plant at the right time, in the right soil; then harvest when just right and store correctly. 1. If you look in a specialist catalog like the one at Gourmet Garlic Gardens, you'll find dozens of varieties of garlic listed. You see where this is going – and you can see a lot more types of garlic on either of those websites, but for general purposes the most important difference is the one between softneck and hardneck. Softnecks are so called because the whole green plant dies down to pliancy, leaving nothing but the bulb and flexible stems that are easy to braid. Gardeners in most of the U.S. can try some of both. 2. 3. 1. 2. 4. 5. 6.
Small Yard, Big Yield: Growing Vegetables In A Limited Space You are trying to take care as a family, and you have decided to start recycling more, eat healthier, produce less waste, start exercising more, you are watching what you buy and the ingredients they contain and are purchasing organic produce and products from companies that are responsible and fair trade. But you have come to realize how expensive buying organic groceries can get and find yourself in a dilemma: How can feed your family fresh, healthy, organic vegetables without spending a fortune. You'd grow them yourself, but you have a very small yard and limited time. Grow those vegetables anyway! First of all, let me say this: even with a space of only 100 square feet (10 feet by 10 feet) you can grow enough vegetables for a steady supply of salad greens for a family. With a space of 400 square feet (20 by 20) you'll have more than enough veggies for your family without a lot of plant swapping. To get your garden started, you'll first need to answer a few questions: via Yardshare
Shady Veg. Garden Most people envision their gardens as being in full sun all day long, and yet there may be some of us that have more shade in our yards than full sunshine. Is it still possible to have a vegetable garden? I say yes, you can! You may not be able to have all of your favorites, but then again you may be able to grow plants that others cannot. Then you can barter with those in your community that need what you have grown for what you are not able to raise in your own garden – see my article “Bartering.” So what can you grow in a shady garden? There are plants that hate shade: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and all varieties of squash. If your garden area is only partially shady during the daylight hours, there are plants that will work well for you. I think that all homegrown vegetables taste much better than their store bought relatives. Help your garden out by knowing what it needs. Enjoy the fruits of God’s blessing and your labors!
Shazam for Plants Will Identify Any Plant From a Picture Well that time has come! For plants, anyway. The app “PlantNet" works by using an image search engine, with information collected through a large social network. The users of PlantNet regularly collect field data and then share their findings, which help to identify and add information about the quality of images and the plants' nuanced patterns. Their newest project, IdentiPlante, actually allows you to use the database to quickly receive data about the plant which you have taken a picture of. How cool is that? UPDATE: Since it seems a few of our readers were confused, the PlantNet app is still in development. via Someecards Related articles in Green Recent articles
All About Tomatoes May 19th, 2010 Email 72 users recommend Photo: Danielle Sherry Tomatoes are the favorite food crop of America's home gardeners. I like my greens and beans, but tomatoes are at the top of my gardening food pyramid. For an entertaining video overview of planting, pruning, staking, preserving, and cooking with tomatoes, watch Homegrown/Homemade: Tomatoes. posted in: tomatoes, trellis, pruning Get special offers, FREE eLetters and your FREE PDF bonus now. Find us on:
Everything You Need For The Garden Is In Your Kitchen If you’re starting a new garden this spring, or just reviving an old one, it doesn’t mean you need to spend a fortune on tools. Almost everything you need for your garden is in your kitchen! Muffin Tin Grid Maker To plant perfectly-spaced seeds and plants, press a muffin tin into your soil. athriftymom.com Wine Bottle Edging Keep the kids from trampling your seedlings with wine bottles. fleamarketgardening.com Spoon Garden Markers Rather than taking that old silverware to the thrift store, give it new life in your garden! turningclockback.com Paint ‘Em Pretty Paint your flattened spoons according to the herbs in your garden. Or Use Plastic! Those plastic takeout spoons are easy to rinse and reuse. craftsbyamanda.com Open Up A Soda Using a can opener, remove the lid from a soda can like so… Screenshot via YouTube Spray Away Using your favorite colors, spray paint the cans until any logos and text are completely covered. Watch Them Grow! Give Your Garden A Drink thegardenglove.com Keep Critters Out
5 Best Carrot Growing Tips December 17th, 2013 Email 2 users recommend Phot by ccharmon under the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0. Photo by WordRidden under the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0. One of my favorite gardening memories is the morning that my 3-year-old son wrapped his little hands around some greens in our garden and tugged. That cool, spring morning when the orange root slid out of the ground, he held it up like a prize and said "Look! Carrot Growing Tip #1 -- Looking back, my son most likely forgot what we had even planted as carrot seeds seem to take forever to germinate (sometimes 15-17 days). I'm not buying it. For some reason they germinate much later than any other vegetable I've ever grown. Anyway, whether I plant them in late summer for a fall/early winter harvest or late winter for a spring one, my carrots have zero sense of urgency and seem to lollygag along. (I do realize having said that, someone will comment that their carrots shoot up with lightening speed.
He Puts A Toilet Paper Roll In A Flower Pot. The Results? Brilliant! Ready to be the best gardener you can possibly be? Successfully growing your own plants and food is a constant process of learning which techniques work best for you and your plants, but it’s easier than you may think. The goal here is more harvest, less effort…and if you can save a few bucks along the way, perfect! YouTube channel Grow Veg is here to provide you with a few simple bits of advice and shortcuts to achieving success in any garden. This video demonstrates 10 quick tips handed down from experienced gardeners that save time, increase your growing space, and reduce costs, such as using the water in which you boil vegetables to feed your plants, and using small flower pots to shield seedlings from frost.
How To Grow Favas, The Cool-Season Bean August 6th, 2008 Email 19 users recommend Lumpy pods mean harvest time. Ruth Lively Time out for a snack. Favas are handsome plants with striking flowers. Inoculating seeds with rhizobium bacteria results in stronger growth and higher yields. To keep favas upright, gird the planting with string. Photo: Ruth Lively by Ed MillerJune 1997from issue #9 I’d never met a fava bean until I moved to northern California in the early 1980s and started my market garden. And so they are. The fava (Vicia faba) is actually not a bean at all, but a vetch (another type of legume) that originated in western Asia. Grow favas as you would peasMost varieties of fava grow 2 ft. to 4 ft. tall, making a bushy plant with several stems. In moderate winter areas, plant from early fall through late winter. Where winters are cold and summers are hot, plant as early as possible in spring. Inoculate seeds for better growthFavas do not require high soil fertility. Favas grow with few problems in moderate temperatures.
12 Insanely Clever Gardening Hacks Gardening can be both fun and annoying, but with the right tips and tricks you will only notice the fun and pleasant moments. If gardening is your passion, but you feel it a bit challenging at times, this next list of tips will make your life and your gardening activities a little bit easier. Garden weeds are the ones that will give you the most headaches, but you can make your own weed killer and it will be super-efficient. 1. more details here… 2. more details here… 3. more details here… 4. 5. 6. more details here…