background preloader

Ten Mistakes New Herb Gardeners Make (and How to Avoid Them!)

Ten Mistakes New Herb Gardeners Make (and How to Avoid Them!)
So you're thinking of herb gardening, or maybe you tried it last year and it was an utter disaster? Have no fear. There are a few simple mistakes that many herb newbies make (and I know, because I made most of 'em myself). Master these simple and practical tips for herb gardening and you'll be using your own fresh herbs like Mario Batali in no time. Fresh herbs are one of the greatest ways to increase the taste of your food healthfully. Let it be known that I have the blackest of thumbs. It surprises me how often I bump into friends who are flummoxed about some aspect of herb gardening. Mistake 1: Growing from seed. Mistake 4: Not cutting early and often. Mistake 5: Taking the leaves from the wrong place. Mistake 6: Letting your plants get too randy. Related:  health

How to get Superpowered Garden Soil Ya’ know what makes me happy? Dirt. I’m not talkin’ about crappy dirt on the side of the road, I’m talkin’ about real, dark, rich & moist dirt. The kind you can dig your fingers into. The kind that when you kneel on it, feels soft and squishy. Know what I’m talkin’ about? Well, if you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about, or you’ve never experienced fabulous dirt, then you’ve come to the right place. Know that brown thumb you’re always complainin’ about? Determining your Soil’s Superpower Capabilities The first thing you must do is find out what kind of soil you have to work with.Is it sandy? Here’s how you find out: Image courtesy of Homesteady ( I’ll wait here while you determine your soil type. Now that you’ve figured out what type of soil you have, let’s go over what all that means: Clay soil is opposite of our sandy soil. Silt is a perfect combination of particles allowing for proper watering and proper draining. Getting your Garden Soil “just right” Share

Square Foot Gardening in South Africa | Square Foot Garden Plant Spacing Guides Now that you have your boxes built and the grids put on, it’s quite easy to visualise the plants growing in it. Maybe you’ve decided to have a trellis along the back or on the end of the box for your vine plants to grow vertically. A good idea is to have your vines at the back (or on one end), bigger and bushier plants in the middle and the smaller leaf and root plants in the front so that you don’t have to battle to reach through a big bushy plant to tend to and harvest your middle squares. You can also alternate your vegetable squares with a few companion flower squares to keep the bugs away and to add a bit of colour to your Square Foot Garden box. Plant Spacing You will see on the back of all seed packets, a spacing guide which usually indicates a recommended ‘Thin To‘ or ‘Final Spacing‘ measurement. Plant Sizes Think of the plants as if they were shirt sizes – They come in small, medium, large and extra large sizes. Dividing the Squares & Sowing the Seed

Milkcrate Composter (vertically stacked) How to make a vertically stacked composter using milkcrates. This instructable is based on Terracotta home composter by artworker and the creators of the terracotta composter, Daily Dump ( ) When I saw the terracotta composter, I though it was the most brilliant composter I have ever seen. Then I though of the perfect substitute, a milkcrate! The only down is the aesthetic of it, the terracotta pots are so beautiful. So here's my milkcrate composter!

How to Make a Square Foot Garden | Alberta Home Gardening I’d like to introduce you to a new way of gardening. It’s called square foot gardening. I planted my first square foot garden last year and I’m hooked. Here’s the basic gist: Most gardens are planted in long rows separated by three foot aisles. Using the square foot gardening method, you divide a 4′ x 4′ box into sixteen 1 foot square gardens. #1. It doesn’t matter what kind of soil you have, because you won’t be using it. Peat MossCompostVermiculite Just mix these three ingredients in equal proportions and you have the finest soil you could imagine. #2. Yup, that’s right. #3. Your square foot garden takes up only 20% of the space required by a traditional garden. #4. I just built two square foot gardens this spring and here were my costs: Lumber: Free (I used scrap)Vermiculite: $20Peat Moss: $8Compost: $20 Total: $48 for two – $24 each. Of course with your own lumber and your own compost, you could cut that cost down to $14 each. Required Materials Building the Square Foot Garden

How To Use Diapers To Create Super Growing Potting Soil - One of the most difficult gardening tasks is managing the water your plants receive. You can easily and cheaply provide the “perfect” mix of soil and water to your plants by taking advantage of diapers amazing absorbency. Filling a diaper with water to its capacity and mixing with fresh soil produces one of the best potting mixes available, full of water and oxygen and nutrients, everything a healthy plant needs. Learn more about using the super-absorbent power of diapers with plants in the video below: Begin with this life changing eBook where you will find: Natural Home Remedies - Discover how to live a healthier life with more natural remedies to treat illness you can make at home using natural ingredients like coconut oil, apple cider vinegar and honey. Every month there are things to do in the garden and November is no different. As the season changes the - garden - is a wonderful place to hang out with lots to do!

Raised Bed Gardening How To Guide For space efficiency and high yields, it’s hard to beat a vegetable garden grown in raised beds. Raised beds can improve production as well as save space, time, and money. They also are the perfect solution for dealing with difficult soils such as heavy clay. In addition, raised beds improve your garden’s appearance and accessibility. Raised gardening beds are higher than ground level, and consist of soil that’s mounded or surrounded by a frame to keep it in place. One reason raised beds are so effective for increasing efficiency and yields is that crops produce better because the soil in the beds is deep, loose, and fertile. Raised beds also save time and money because you need only dig, fertilize, and water the beds, not the paths.

All Praise To Barack Obama For Stiffing The War Party—- Peace Is Finally Being Given A Chance I have rarely found anything President Obama has done to be praiseworthy, and believe his domestic policies of Keynesian borrow and spend and incessant statist intervention in capitalist enterprise to be especially deplorable. But finally he has stood up to the War Party——and that could mark a decisive turning point in rolling back Washington’s destructive interventionism and imperial pretensions in the Middle East and, indeed, around the world. The Iranian nuclear agreement is a decisive refutation of the War Party’s hoary claim that Iran is hell-bent upon obtaining nuclear weapons. This deafening but untruthful narrative was long ago debunked by the 2007 National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs). These authoritative findings were issued by the nation’s 16 top intelligence agencies in November 2007, and they held that what had possibly been a small-scale Iranian weapons research effort was abandoned in 2003 and never restarted. Here’s the thing, folks.

Italian Food Forever - Italian Recipes! Foraging Meetup Groups - Foraging Meetups 50 Slow Cooker Recipes Life is busy around my house. Even though I have young kids, we are working on potty training, sharing, walking and just staying safe :) Toddlers are such a crazy and fun age! School is back in session, or almost back in session, and I am sure life is or will get busy taking kids to school, sporting events, extracurricular activities and pretty much anything that comes with the hustle and bustle of life. Crock Pot Honey Sesame Chicken Slow Cooker Salsa Verde Pork Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Cafe Rio Chicken Slow Cooker Chicken Parmesan Slow Cooker Chile Colorado Southwestern Beef Stew Crock Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup Crock Pot Sweet Apricot Chicken Slow Cooker Sauerkraut Soup Crock Pot Beef and Broccoli Honey Sauced Chicken Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken Slow Cooker Berry Cobbler Slow Cooker Chicken and Mushrooms Slow Cooker Bombay Potatoes Slow Cooker Zucchini and Tomato Pasta Sauce Slow Cooker Lime Chicken Tacos Slow Cooker Cheeseburger Meatloaf Slow Cooker Rocky Road Chocolate Cake Slow Cooker BBQ Chicken

Dr. Axe's Essential Oils Guide - DrAxe.com Essential oils are organic compounds extracted from plants with tremendous healing properties. Using essential oils for healing purposes is often called aromatherapy, which is a holistic treatment seeking to improve physical, mental and emotional health. For over 5,000 years, many different cultures have used these healing plant oils for a variety of health conditions. They are often used for relaxation, beauty care, home cleaning and most often used as natural medicine. Just adding some of the most common essential oils like lavender, frankincense, lemon, peppermint and tea tree oil to your natural medicine cabinet may: Essential oils are extracted directly from the bark, flower, fruit, leaf, seed or root of a plant or tree, and just one drop can have powerful health benefits. Essential oils are highly concentrated oils that have a strong aroma. By concentrating the oils of these plants, you are literally separating the most powerful healing compounds of a plant into a single oil. 1. 2.

Related: