Self-Seeding Crops You’ll Never Need to Replant One of the characteristics of a truly sustainable garden is that it produces at least some of its own seed. This is most often done when gardeners select, harvest and store seeds until the proper time for planting the following year. But some self-seeding crops produce seeds so readily that as long as you give them time to flower and mature, and set seed, you will always have free plants growing in your garden. You can simply let the seeds fall where they are, or toss pieces of the seed heads into the corners of your garden, or whichever area you want them in — no harvesting, storing or replanting required. With most self-seeding vegetables, herbs and annual flowers, you’ll just need to learn to recognize the seedlings so you don’t hoe them down. In addition to getting all the free garden plants you need (and some to share with family and friends), nurturing self-seeders is also a great way to provide a diversity of flowers that supply pollen and nectar for beneficial insects.
Small Footprint, Big Yield: Create an Easy Micro Organic Urban Garden Today... 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.
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. With that in mind, here are 15 homemade, organic solutions for garden problems. I use them, and they work. Pest Control 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Root 4 Kids - Inspire Kids to Dig Real Food Email Does your kid spend enough time outside? Research shows most kids don’t, but new Root 4 Kids program created by Annie’s organic foods aims to encourage and inspire kids and families to get outside, dig into nature and eat healthier by offering recipes, gardening tips and activities — and we’re happy they’re leading the charge. Be Out There notes that kids spend just half as much time outdoors as they did 20 years ago which makes little sense for green families, since studies show that the best direct route to teaching little ones to care for the environment is to allow them to participate in nature activities before the age of 11. Annie’s new Root 4 Kids program offers a smorgasbord of fun, educational and healthy ideas for families all over the globe. After taking the pledge, get even more involved by visiting the the Eat, Dig, Love and Play sections of Root 4 Kids. + Root 4 Kids Images © Root 4 Kids, just jennifer, Imagebase, Photorious & sxc.
5 Secrets to a ‘No-work’ Garden | Eartheasy Blog It took over 20 years of gardening to realize that I didn’t have to work so hard to achieve a fruitful harvest. As the limitless energy of my youth gradually gave way to the physical realities of mid-life, the slow accretion of experience eventually led to an awareness that less work can result in greater crop yields. Inspired in part by Masanobu Fukuoka’s book, One Straw Revolution, my family experimented with gardening methods which could increase yields with less effort. Fukuoka spent over three decades perfecting his so-called “do-nothing” technique: commonsense, sustainable practices that all but eliminate the use of pesticides, fertilizer, tillage, and perhaps most significantly, wasteful effort. Here are the strategies we used which enabled us to greatly increase our garden yield, while requiring less time and less work. 1. With ‘no-till’ gardening, weeding is largely eliminated. 2. Gardeners are always on the lookout for free sources of clean organic mulch to add to their garden.
4 Simple Steps to Grow a Hundred Pounds of Potatoes in a Barrel Container gardening isn't only for savvy urban gardeners and folks with limited space to grow, it can also be for folks who want to maximize their yields in a controlled environment. Not only does growing potatoes in a barrel reduce the amount of weeding and exposure to pests and fungi, you don't even have to risk shovel-damage to the tender potatoes by digging them out of the ground when they're done, just tip the container over! After extensive research to plan my own potatoes-in-a-barrel, I've boiled all of the recommendations down to 4 simple steps to a winning potato harvest. 1. You'll need to pick out a container such as a 50-gallon trash barrel or one of those half whiskey barrel planters. Good drainage is critical for the cultivation of healthy potatoes so you'll want to cut or drill a series of large drainage holes in the bottom and bottom sides of your container. 2. Fill in the bottom of your container with about 6 inches of loose planting mix and compost. 3. 4.
Visningsträdgårdar, besöksträdgårdar och trädgårdar hittar du på Gardens.se Do it Yourself & Page 2 It’s approaching the end of summer and rather than saying good-bye to your herbs why not go inside and try an indoor vertical herb garden? But, if you live in an apartment and have space restrictions a permanent vertical herb garden might just be the solution for you – where you can have herbs inside all year round. You may also like to get creative and add colour by adding succulents. When growing any vertical garden indoors or outdoors the biggest consideration is choosing the wall and analysing how much light you will get. The light will impact the herbs you can grow inside. What should you grow your herbs in? The best solution when growing herbs inside is to use woolly pockets as they provide the right environment for growing herbs and vegetables. Top Herbs To Grow Inside on Your Vertical Garden Walls Which Don’t Get Much Light If your wall doesn’t get much light there are herbs which will have a better chance of survival indoors. Sun Loving Herbs Share
Trädgård & växter - Trädgårdsdags - Trädgårdsdags Organic Lawn Care For the Cheap and Lazy Lawn care in a nutshell: Must do: Set your mower as high as it will go (3 to 4 inches). Water only when your grass shows signs of drought stress and then water deeply (put a cup in your sprinkler zone and make sure it gets at least an inch of water). Now for the verbose details on lawn care: A little knowledge makes it so damn near anything can qualify for the "cheap and lazy" label. The key to the lawn care game is competition. lawn care must do: mow high There is a fight for sun. MYTH: "If I mow short, it will be longer until I have to mow again." If you have a serious weed infestation, consider mowing twice as frequently as you normally do. Finally, when mowing, be sure to leave the clippings on the lawn. Mowing higher gives the following perks: more shade to the soil leads to less wateringdeeper roots which leads to less wateringthicker turf which leads to fewer weedsslower growth which leads to less mowing Check out this pic. lawn mower My lawn care mower of choice? Update!
How to build a shed, free shed plans, build it yourself! This page contains information on how to build a shed and storage shed plans. Here are a couple of things to consider before you begin this project. Find out before building a storage shed if it will be allowed by zoning regulations. Zoning governs the size, height, and location of your shed. Find out if you need a permit. Your shed may need to be set back a specific distance from the property line, fences, and buildings. Also, you want to check for utility lines. I have included pages with garden/storage shed plans.
How to Grow 100 Pounds of Potatoes in 4 Square Feet | Apartment Therapy Re-Nest On many occasions, we've been tempted to grow our own potatoes. They're fairly low maintenance, can be grown in a pot or in the ground, last a fairly long time if stored properly, and can be very nutritious (high in potassium and vitamin C). Here's more incentive: according to this article, you can grow 100 pounds of potatoes in 4 sq. feet. Learn how after the jump... According to this article from the Seattle Times, potatoes planted inside a box with this method can grow up to 100 pounds of potatoes in just 4 square feet. Lumber Seed potatoes Soil Careful attention to watering The Times' guide for building a potato growing box yields up to a 100 lbs. of potatoes in a mere 4 square feet is shown below: Plant as early as April or as late as August 1, with an approximated 3 month till harvest turnaround time. Here are some pointers from the article: Cut apart larger seed potatoes, making sure there are at least two eyes in each piece you plant. Seattle Times via LifeHacker.