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Garden Article: Growing Ginger

Garden Article: Growing Ginger
Do you love Asian foods, ginger ale and pumpkin pie? It’s the taste of ginger that’s won you over. Zingiber officinale is easy to grow and makes for a great project with kids. And with its attractive foliage, this plant will add beauty to your home and garden, as well. Just pick up a root from your grocery store’s produce section and get growing! Because ginger root tubers grow right near the soil surface, don’t bury them when you transplant them to your garden. Photo Credit: John Buettner Simply lay the ginger root on the top of the potting soil to “plant” it. Pull the roots from the ground and allow them to dry in the open air before removing the stalks and harvesting. Ginger root is sold in a clump that’s often called a “hand.” Planting is easy as pie: Simply pick a pot that’s at least twice the diameter as the length of your root section. Studies say ginger’s peak flavor arrives at 265 days. With proper care, your ginger can reach 2-4 feet tall. Candied Ginger

DIY Succulent Table « Far Out Flora's Blog Matti's Succulent Table Mission DIY succulent table complete. I’ve wanted to make this baby for months. Old shipping crate deconstructed. The next couple of pics show a bit of the process. Center planting box layed out. The outside walls were about the same shape as I wanted the table, and I started to build everything around that size. Table tops getting set in. Randomly walking around looking at gardens in the hood, I spotted a big pile of old scrap lumber. Fastening it together. I really tried to screw everything in so that the screws were hidden from sight. Matti's test of strength. …and it passes the Matti’s strength test. Nearly finished. DIY magic. ...and filled with succulents. Yeah, another project to check off the list.

Building a Rain Barrel If you have a garden or alot of plants then you know that you can use quite a bit of water keeping everything green, especially when there are days or weeks between rain showers. I have noticed rain barrels being sold at Whole Foods for $99 and thought the construction looked simple enough to do on my own and possibly at far less a price. So I undertook the task of doing just that. (1) 3/4″ Male Hose Bibb (I used a no kink bibb)(2) 3/4″ PVC Female Adapter(1) 3/4″ tapped Male Hose to Male adapter(2) 1″ Galvanized or Brass Washers(4) #18 O-rings (1″)Teflon Tape1″ Hole Drill Bit(1) Brass Hose Cap18″x18″ Square Metal Screen(8) Aluminum Self-starting Screws 3/4″ Male No-Kink Hose Bibb 3/4″ Tapped Male Hose to Male Adapter #18 O-Ring (1″) Teflon Tape 3/4″ PVC Female Adapter 1″ Hole Drill Bit First, clean the barrel inside and out. Bottom bibb assembly attached Bottom bibb assembly showing o-ring behind washer Female PVC adapter attached to bottom bibb assembly inside barrel Downspout Tubing

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

Dandelions by Anita Sanchez Whether you love them or hate them, dandelions are among the most familiar plants in the world. They're one species that just about anyone can identify at a glance, as familiar to humans as the dog. Dandelions are, quite possibly, the most successful plants that exist, masters of survival worldwide. Nowadays, they're also the most unpopular plant in the neighborhood – but it wasn't always that way. To get us back on the right dandelion track, here are 10 dandelion-related facts. 1. 2. 3. 4. 6. 7. 10. Dandelions probably will never be eradicated, but we can learn to be more at ease with dandelions and other wild things – and maybe even to love them a little.

Growing a Healing Garden | Mama Knows Rating: 7.9/10 (9 votes cast) When you visit your local market or garden centre, check out their herb selection. You may be surprised at the varieties of herbs that are available. Not only do quite a few of them provide beautiful flowers, but there is an added benefit – you can use them for medicinal purposes without a worry. Here are a few ideas for your own herb garden – easy to grow plants with medicinal properties. Here are 12 the most popular herbs that are easy to grow: Peppermint: Peppermint Peppermint tea is a traditional remedy for an upset stomach or gas,because it supposedly relaxes gut muscles. Echinacea or Coneflower: Echinacea or Coneflower Herbalists use an extract of this common cold preventive to boost the immune system and the production of white blood cells. Sage: Sage In medieval herbals, sage is a cure-all, supposed to heal grief,fever and the nerves. Rosemary: Rosemary Dog Rose: Dog Rose Lavender: Lavender Lemon Balm: Lemon Balm Borage: Borage Sweet Woodruff: Sweet Woodruff Thyme:

Growing Sweet Potatoes Overview: Although the terms sweet potatoes and yams (Dioscorea sp.) are used interchangeably in the U.S., they are two entirely different vegetables. They are also unrelated to regular potatoes. Sweet potatoes are in the same family as Morning Glories (Ipomoea tricolor) and you’ll easily see the similarity in leaves to the sweet potato vines we now grow as ornamentals. Latin Name: Ipomoea batatas Common Name(s): Sweet Potato, Yellow Yam Hardiness Zones: Mature Size: Depends on variety. Exposure: Days to Harvest: Harvest roots in 4 months. Description: Sweet potatoes are the tuberous roots of vining plants. The orange fleshed sweet potatoes are the most familiar, but sweet potatoes can be white, yellow and even purple. Suggested Varieties: Beauregard - Pale reddish skin with dark orange flesh. Harvesting: You can dig your tubers once the foliage starts to yellow. Be gentle when digging. Growing Tips: Soil: Sweet potatoes like a slightly acid soil, prefering a soil pH between 5.0 and 6.5.

Blog » 5 Secrets to a ‘No-work’ Garden 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. Here are the strategies we used which enabled us to greatly increase our garden yield, while requiring less time and less work. 1. ‘No-till’ gardening is a series of methods in which the soil is never disturbed, thereby protecting the complex subsoil environment for the benefit of growing plants. With ‘no-till’ gardening, weeding is largely eliminated. By switching to ‘no-till’ methods, you won’t have to do the heavy tilling or shovel work which so many gardeners suffer through each spring. 2. 3. Displaces weeds. 4.

Perennials Butterflies Love Want to bring butterflies to your backyard? Butterflies need good sources of nectar, and these twelve perennials are butterfly favorites. If you plant it, they will come. Butterfly gardens should be planted in a sunny area of your yard, since butterflies require the sun's warmth to fly. All of these perennials do well in the sun. For more information on how to grow the perennials butterflies love, click your way over to About.com's gardening site, where you will find plenty of information by Marie Ionnatti, the About.com Guide to Gardening. 1. Photo: © Marie Iannotti, About.com Guide to Gardening Garden phlox may be old school gardening, but the butterflies don't seem to care. 2. In my yard, blanket flower is a "plant and ignore" flower. 3. Photo: © Debbie Hadley, WILD Jersey A few plants go by the name butterfly weed, but Asclepias tuberosa deserves the name like no others. 4. 5. Asters are the flowers you drew as a child, many-petaled blossoms with a button-like disk in the center. 6. 7.

Tree Tape Measures the Climate Benefits of Your Backyard Trees - Environment Want to know how much that big oak in your front yard is helping in the climate fight? Designer Nitipak Samsen created this very cool—and educational—tool that helps put the carbon sequestering ability of trees into context. The Tree Tape can be customized for specific types of trees—rainforest, native hardwood, or softwood—and will tell you the amount of carbon dioxide that is absorbed in terms of a more common activities like air travel, electricity consumed, and even cheeseburgers eaten. You can download Tree Tape here. Samsen writes: Ever wondered how much CO2 absorbed in a tree? I think this could be really useful for kids and adults alike.

Beneficial Insects As a gardener, there's nothing more frustrating than finding a prized vegetable crop being devoured by insect pests. A couple of hornworms can level a row of tomatoes overnight. Fortunately, every pest has a predator, and we can use that natural food chain to our advantage. A sufficient number of beneficial insects will keep garden pests to manageable numbers. You just have to know how to attract those beneficial insects to your garden. Beneficial Insects, Nature's Pest Control: Put simply, a beneficial insect is an insect (or other arthropod) that helps you grow healthy plants. Don't Use Pesticides in Your Garden: Pesticides can't distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. When you're first trying to attract beneficial insects to your garden, you may find the pest population skyrockets for a bit. Plant an Insectary to Invite Insects to Your Garden: An insectary is a garden plot just for the insects. So what do you plant in an insectary? Provide Water for Insects:

Backyard Farming W e e k - veggies & herbs Hello, friends! We're home from Colorado, rested and centered. I can't wait to share some of the pictures we took along the way- camping, hiking, and spending time on the open road. Before we left, I started Backyard Farming Week. I believe the Veggies & Herbs are where I left off. This year, I planted radishes, carrots, jalapenos, beans, sweet banana peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, strawberries, and a handful of herbs: basil, rosemary, patchouli, mint, dill, parsley, cilantro, and cat nip. My cucumbers I planted from seeds that I got from Grandma. In no time you'll be making salads, or filling jars to make pickles. My jalepenos are out of control. Most types of peppers grow under the same conditions. My beans were incredibly short lived: In fact, that one bean is the only bean I got from the entire batch. My tomato plants took off, like always. Give them a couple feet of space, a cage to grow on, and let them get busy on their own. Guilt. Sure enough, my fears were confirmed.

Edible Gardening Containers My presentation on the “Beautiful Edible Garden” at Epcot’s International Flower and Garden Festival was a hit last week in Florida! After a detailed 45-minute presentation, my audiences stuck around for another 30 minutes or so to take photos of the demonstration gardens. What a compliment. Shirley giving away Baker Heirloom Seeds Some of the biggest hits were edible garden containers that we found at the local dollar store and repurposed as planters! Take a look. <p>Hanging onion basket repurposed as edible garden container! This is an onion rack repurposed as a hanging herb planter! Another hanging delight, fresh herbs are planted in a $1 wreath frame. Packed in moss and lightweight soil, the wreath maintains a neat appearance through occasional herb harvesting. Make sure you hang this one where the sun DOES shine! Kitchen colander $1 already has drain holes! I’m sure you can find an unused colander in your kitchen cabinet or at the dollar store to transform into a countertop salad garden!

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