Garden calendar to keep your kitchen garden growing - vegetables and herbs to sow and plant right now 10 Killer DIY Garden Hacks Gardening is one of the most rewarding home hobbies you can do. It's fun, sustainable and you get healthy, tasty results. A lot of people like the idea of gardening but find excuses like it's too time consuming, it's too expensive, they don't have enough space, blah blah blah. There's no room for excuses when going green, all you need is a little initiative and a little ingenuity to overcome these so called excuses. Here are 10 killer garden hacks that can help you save time, space and money while satisfying your green thumb... 1. Vertical Gutter Garden When Suzanne Forsling moved to Juneau Alaska from Iowa, she found that it was a little bit harder to get her garden to grow. 2. Reclaimed Tire Garden If you have some old tires laying around that you don't know what to do with, you could burn them... if you hate the environment, or you could put them to work as cool looking raised garden beds. 3. DIY Earth Box An Earth Box is more than just a box with soil. 4. Self-Watering Garden 5. 6. 7.
Vegetables to grow in winter With the help of a bit of cover, and carefully selected varieties of seeds, it is possible to grow vegetables and herbs all year round in the United Kingdom, and presumably therefore in other temperate countries that have frosty winters.In my corner of Scotland, away from the sea and up in the hills, there is only one month of the year that can be guaranteed to be frost free and that is July. Most years we cannot grow courgettes or runner beans outside without cover. In our case, experimenting has paid off and we often have more produce in winter than in summer. Last year by the end of winter we were fed up with salad! Why grow vegetables in winter? There are a number of advantages to growing vegetables in winter: Mature overwintered veg keeps growing until December under cover, stands for the winter then comes away fast in February. Protecting plants from frost We had great success last year with an old caravan window found in a lay-by which we put on top of some lamb's lettuce.
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. 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.
How to: create a Planting Calendar I must say that while I’m finding this market garden experiment very exciting, it’s also rather daunting. What are we planting today? What are we planting next week? Where are we going? Joyce Wilkie devised this garden card system firstly for her market garden at Allsun Farm, but happily she’s the kind of lady that likes to share. The Allsun Farm planting calendar system works in a simple but powerful way: Each month has a designated card. It’s disarmingly simple, and powerful too. Each month has three columns: Grow Seedlings (ie plant them into pots), Sow into Ground, and Pick. If you don’t know how to plant the crop in question, that bit of research should be done first. 12 months of planting and picking at Allsun Farm, all in your pocket September is busy! The cards are also great because you can jot down important notes on them (numbers of plants, unexpected frost date, etc) and cross things off as they get done. So what are you waiting for? >> Allsun Planting Calendar pdf
Best Shade-Tolerant Vegetables - Organic Gardening Even in shady conditions, you can bask in great garden harvests if you choose the right crops and make a few easy adjustments. By Colleen Vanderlinden When considering which crops to grow in shady areas, think of them in terms of leaves and roots. Crops we grow for their leaves (kale, lettuce, spinach) and those we grow for their roots (beets, carrots, turnips) will do fairly well in partially shady conditions. (The crops we grow for their fruits — such as eggplants, peppers and tomatoes — really do need at least six hours of full sun per day.) To learn more about how to grow crops in shady gardens, check out Best Vegetables to Grow in the Shade. The estimates in this chart are based on the experiences of the author and the experts mentioned in Best Vegetables to Grow in the Shade.
When to Plant App When to Plant App The When to Plant app is available now for $1.99! Knowing the best times to start seeds, direct sow and transplant garden crops is key to growing a successful garden. By using your ZIP code and a database of almost 5,000 weather stations across North America, the When to Plant app locates average frost dates for your garden from the nearest station, and calculates the best range of planting dates for each crop. This app is a helpful tool for spring, summer and fall planting. The When to Plant app is available in the Apple App Store for $1.99 and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Here is a glimpse of the When to Plant app, plus more about what it can do: From the app’s home page, you can choose to view plants alphabetically (by clicking “All Plants”), by sowing month or by crops that can be planted immediately in your area. The When to Plant app also includes growing information on each of the dozens of crops and plants included. Don't have a phone?
DIY Greenwalls Venelin.Petkov said... "Can you post a list of the plants you used and what nutrients are you using (I imagine you are not using pure water, since there are no minerals in the felt substrate). Thanks" Llazar said... "It would be great if could list the plants you used. Also, isn't there a problem of light? People have asked me a few times now what plants I used and how I care for them. Each wall builder will need to decide how much light, water, and nutrients they want to provide. Light I have pretty good light in the room but I decided to add some supplemental light from compact fluorescent bulbs. Water I water my wall 4x a day for 10 minutes a day (by drip tube on a timer). Nutrients I added fertilizer to my wall once in the time I have had it (just because a friend gave me some to try). Work with your local plant dealer to determine the plants that are right for your wall. Here's a partial list of plants I have on my wall listed in order of quantity. Philodendron (35%) Pothos (35%) Ivy (5%)
Lunar Planting What if we told you that mowing your lawn on certain days would mean you could mow less often? Before you roll your eyes, think about it. The moon influences more than the ocean tides. Just ask any bar worker, clergyman or nurse. In fact, my friend Emma braces herself before going to work. Many scientists insist that the myth that a full moon affects the behavior of humans, animals and plants is a bunch of baloney. Before I go further, let me tease you with a possibility: What if mowing your lawn during certain phases of the moon retarded growth which meant you didn't have to mow as often? According to a National Geographic news article more gardeners today are turning to the moon for sage advice on the best time to plant, prune, weed, and harvest. Gardening by the moon is as old as time. Moon gardening has been passed down through many generations. The moon controls ocean tides, influences the groundwater tables beneath our feet and the movement of fluids in plants.