Learn to Grow Plants and Food With Beginner Garden Projects @Scott Gardner: Head over to Cornell university's web site for everything you need to know about specific plants. They'll give you the soil requirements, optimum amounts of light, soil temperatures, watering schedule etc for most of your basic garden plants. Next, review your soil condition. Of primary concern are temperature, and pH. Soil consistency is also very important. There are a million gardening books on BitTorrent and NewsGroups, ranging from the Idiot's guides, to the required texts for doctoral studies in agriculture and biochemistry. YouTube, Instructables, HowCast and other how-to sites will walk you through pretty much everything. Contact your extension office, they'll give you tips relative to your geographic location. Remember, you don't need to stop at Vegetables. Good luck.
Nomadic Permaculture & how to make a roof garden (on a narrowboat) A little over a year ago and after several years of living in a rather nomadic way, home for my family and I finally became a 61ft narrowboat. Our reasoning behind this was simple: we wanted to live a smaller, simpler, freer life, more in tune with nature. I love waking up to the sound of birdsong and knowing what the weather is doing before I even open the curtains and I relish the quieter existence we have living along the towpath. Even in a city it provides a place where you are able to retreat back from the hustle and bustle and recline into a slower pace. Visiting our local hardware store for some 'on boat' repairs we spied a box of random pieces of wood and pallets looking forlorn and unwanted at the front door. The next step was to fill the planters with soil. Sand Collected natural soil Water Compost Mulch (collected leaves found in forested areas on the towpath) Mulch These planters are only 10cm deep so I just chucked a small layer of each material in. Watch this space!
Factsheet: mushroom cultivation what is it? It's the same as any other kind of cultivation - but mushrooms are not plants, and they're more fiddly to grow. Mushrooms are grown from 'spawn' - mushroom tissue culture that has been produced from spores grown in sterile / laboratory conditions (contamination is a big problem at this stage). Spawn can be obtained from specialist suppliers, then added to a substrate (compost, a log, coffee grounds etc.) to spread their mycelium (thread-like root system) and produce a crop. There are two major stages in mushroom growth. There are three types of mushrooms that can be cultivated: humus-inhabiting - can be grown in a mix of compost, horse manure, soil and straw; includes the classic button mushroom varieties, as well as others such as blewits or shaggy ink-caps wood-inhabiting - grown in logs, like shiitake, maitake (hen of the woods), ear fungus or monkey's head fungus mycorrhizal - grown in association with tree roots; truffles, in other words history what are the benefits?
DIY non-hub builds, the why and how (part-1) Common hub motor kits have a simple construction, which keeps the price low (especially with Chinese mass-production). The low price and easy installation makes them the big seller by a wide margin. However, if you want a build which has unusually good efficiency (so a smaller battery can provide longer range), or…you want unusually good hill-climbing…a non-hub drive system just might be necessary to deliver your goals. Be aware that a non-hub system will by definition be more complex, probably more expensive, and is likely to be noisier. And…the biggest problem is that a non-hub system will be either very expensive (like the EGO, and the M-Drive), or the more affordable drives have issues with longevity and component breakage (Cyclone and GNG). We’re not knocking Cyclone and GNG, they have no way of knowing if a customer is using their kits for light duty or racing…and non-hubs are often about reaching for exceptional performance. Adam used a Direct-Drive (DD) rear hub-motor.
5 invasive plants you can eat The logic of eating wild plants is obvious; the logic of eating invasive wild plants is even more so. Culling aggressive species that have a negative impact on native plants, while avoiding the environmental pitfalls of agriculture? And free, local and abundant? Yes, please. Invasive plants are non-native species that can thrive in areas beyond their natural range of dispersal. According to the Land Management Bureau, millions of acres of once-healthy, productive rangelands, forestlands and riparian areas have been overrun by noxious or invasive plants. So what can we do? 1. Native range: Old World, probably Southeast Asian in origin Invasive range: Throughout North America Habitat: Rocky bluffs, barnyards, gardens, sidewalk cracks, disturbed areas; widely found in city lots. Because of it is a prolific producer of seeds, common purslane (pictured above) can rapidly take over warm, moist sites. 2. The pretty leaves are alternate, egg shaped; stems are hollow. 3. 4. 5.
forêt comestible | La liberté de créer demain Site web: J’arrive à Paï, cette petite ville perdue au milieu des montagnes, et pourtant truffée de touristes. On dirait un village de vacances, les touristes se promenant en minishort dans la rue tandis que les Thaïs tiennent les boutiques. Je retrouve David et Lilly, un couple germano-américain, qui a décidé, il y a trois ans, de créer une forêt comestible sur un terrain auparavant utilisé pour cultiver du riz avec des engrais chimiques. Les journées passent rapidement, les pieds dans la boue ou les mains dans la bousse de buffle. David et Lilly sont toujours prêts à nous faire partager leur expérience, mais aussi les leçons qu’ils ont tirées de leur projet. - La recherche de fonds, facile pour un projet de reforestation - La communauté, où chacun s’occupe d’une tâche spécifique - Les liens sociaux avec le village environnant, pour faciliter le développement du projet Cliquer sur le lien pour voir les photos:
How to Turn a Pallet into a Garden Good news and bad news. I had planned to film a short video showing you how to make a pallet garden, but the weather didn’t cooperate. I was stapling the landscape fabric onto the pallet when it started drizzling and got really windy. That’s the bad news. But I know I promised a tutorial today, so I took photos and have kept my word to share how to make the pallet garden. So keep reading my pallet loving friends, instructions on how to make your own pallet garden are just a few lines away… Find a Pallet The first thing you need to do is–obviously–find a pallet. Don’t just take the first pallet you find. Collect Your Supplies For this project, you’ll need the pallet you found, 2 large bags of potting soil, 16 six packs of annual flowers (one six pack per opening on the face of the pallet, and two six packs per opening on the top of the completed pallet garden), a small roll of landscape fabric, a staple gun, staples, and sand paper. Get Your Pallet into Shape Let the Stapling Begin!
Foraging: 52 Wild Plants You Can Eat Here are a few common North American goodies that are safe to eat if you find yourself stuck in the wild: Blackberries: Many wild berries are not safe to eat, it’s best to stay away from them. Dandelions: The easiest to recognize is the dandelion, in the spring they show their bright yellow buds. Asparagus: The vegetable that makes your pee smell funny grows in the wild in most of Europe and parts of North Africa, West Asia, and North America. Elderberries: An elderberry shrub can grow easily grow about 10 feet and yield tons of food, their leaf structure is usually 7 main leaves on a long stretched out stem, the leaves are long and round and the leaves themselves have jagged edges. Elderberries are known for their flu and cold healing properties, you can make jelly from them and are very sweet and delicious. Gooseberries: Mulberries: Mulberry leaves have two types, one spade shape and a 5 fingered leaf. Pine: There are over a hundred different species of pine. Kudzu: Daylily: Pecans: Hazelnuts:
Désherber de façon écologique ! Adieu les mauvaises herbes Pour de nombreuses personnes, le jardinage est une passion, un moment de détente et de contact avec la nature. Cependant, dans cette activité, le désherbage peut vite devenir une tâche fastidieuse et difficile. Saviez-vous que chaque année nous utilisons pas moins de 5 000 tonnes de produits (pesticides notamment) pour venir à bout de nos mauvaises herbes ! Arrachez les mauvaises herbes à la main ! La manière la plus simple mais répétitive et fastidieuse reste bien évidemment de désherber à la main vos mauvaises herbes en les arrachant avec leurs racines. Utilisez de l’eau bouillante ! L’utilisation de l’eau bouillante est particulièrement efficace pour les petites zones à désherber, comme sur une terrasse ou une allée par exemple. Conseil : Pensez à utiliser l’eau de vos cuissons plutôt que de jeter l’eau dans votre évier ! Associez de l’eau avec du gros sel ! Cette technique fonctionne parfaitement sur des petites surfaces. Paillage - Des billes d’argiles
DIY IKEA Shelf In-Home Aquaponics - Planted Space Dubbed "Malthus," this Ikea-hacked project by Conceptual Devices pieces together a 100g fish tank, plastic grow beds, a pump and piping onto an IKEA Broder shelf, with wheels. Malthus is designed to be an in-home unit, and to grow one meal a day, a portion of fish with a side of salad. If you don't know yet, aquaponics is basically hydroponics + fish in a sustainable loop. The fish provides nutrients and CO2 to the plants, and the plants in turn purifies the water and returns O2 to the fish. Check out our introduction to aquaponics. Forming the width of two small refrigerators, this in-home aquaponics system is designed for "the next generation kitchen or living room," hoping to grow food right next to where you cook it. All elements of the unit can be found in home improvement stores, the shelf and structure are from IKEA, the water pump, LED strips, mechanical timer, and tubing can be found readily in any retail chain. Have your own DIY aquaponics setup you'd like to share with us?