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.
13 Vegetables That Magically Regrow Themselves 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.
Survival Gardening And a Way to Relax and De-Stress Survival gardening can be fun, relaxing and actually quite simple… Many people seem to think they don’t have enough space for a garden but the areas where you can learn how to grow a basic vegetable garden are endless. Yep, I am talking about those spaces we try to fill in with all kinds of flowers, shrubs, and even in some cases, gravel, so that it looks nice…. :) Plant your veggies there. Along Side Your House The area alongside the house is perfect for plants as it is protected from many things, such as: Frost, will stay frost-free longer in the fallcritters, we have to protect everything we grow here in Montana from hungry deerhail, heavy rains, strong wind… plus the plants seem to grow faster and I think it may be because heat is magnified. You may want to use non-hybrid seeds to do gardening as you will be able to harvest your own seeds for the following year this way. Visit our Survival Garden Ebooks page for simple green thumb helpsbooks..
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.
Survival Garden: Part 1 Growing A Survival Garden May Soon Become A Necessity! Have you considered that... survival gardening may soon be a true matter of survival and not just a choice? With the rapid decline of our financial system and food supply, grocery store produce and other products, may soon be at a crisis level shortage like we have never seen. At that point, gardening would no longer be a "choice" for a more self sufficient lifestyle, it would be a matter of survival for everyone! This scenario is fast-becoming very probable and real. With the costs of living rising all the time, you can see the practical benefits of growing your own garden... you can save money, increase your family's health, and become more self sufficient all at the same time by growing vegetables in your backyard. Take advantage of whatever garden space you have, even if your garden may not provide all the food that you need, it will have a dramatic effect in reducing your food bill. 1. Small Garden Space All Seeds are NOT alike...
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!
Survival Gardening: Part 2 Survival Cache The answer to everyone’s question is “No”, we are not too late to get started on our Survival Garden for this year, not for most of the population living in the United States and Canada. It keeps snowing on me here in Utah, so I’m still waiting. This is the 2nd post in a series on Survival Gardening Read Part 1: Survival Gardening I just moved into a new place and so I haven’t been able to do my fall preparation like I normally would, but that’s just the way it is sometimes, so don’t sweat the small stuff. Just like survival in the woods, we start wherever we are and go from there, we do the very best we can under the circumstances. Many times people are frustrated because they hear the radio shows, read the books, view the Emergency Foodvideos, and find their situation doesn’t match up to what they are hearing from the experts. So with that aside, you can start your garden with me, and we’ll do the best we can, and we WILL have a nice garden. Read the rest of the article
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:
Survival Seeds Vault Seeds may become more valuable than GOLD in an economic collapse... **Notice** If using Internet Explorer and the "Add to Cart" button does not work, click inside the quantity field and push the "Enter" key on your keyboard. Why should you buy the Survival Seed Vault™ from Heirloom Organics Non-Hybrid Seeds? This seed pack is processed for long term storage according to the US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) methods for maximum shelf life, increasing the shelf-life of our seeds by many years. Each Survival Seed Vault™ has a total of 25 varieties of NON-HYBRID seeds. Each Survival Seed Vault™ Contains These Hand Picked, Open Pollinated Varieties: *Important: We are in a very real non-hybrid seed shortage. Now you can grow your Survival Garden for bountiful harvest anywhere in the country. If the economy worsens, one of the first things to be affected will be our country’s food supply. causing soaring prices and severe shortages. Can You Take Charge Of Your Family’s Food Supply? P.S. P.P.S.