How to build My 50 Dollar Greenhouse First off – you really can build this thing very cheaply, but to do so you have to recycle, freecycle, and scrounge. If you just go out and buy new everything it will probably cost over $200 – still not bad all in all.This Article is featured in Jan 2010 issue of Birds and Blooms Magazine!Want to find out if this thing works before you read all this? My $50 Greenhouse Welcome Stumbleupon Gardeners! Materials list Construction Steps Hind Sight – What I would do differently The planning is over and construction on my hoop house greenhouse has begun. After some research I’ve decided to build the structure of the hoop house out of 20 ft. joints of three quarter inch PVC plumbing pipe. My hoop house green house is going to be 11 feet wide and 15 feet long, and will be about seven and a half feet tall in the center. If your Greenhouse is too Flat it will collapse! You might be tempted to make your greenhouse wider and lower at this point to get more floor space out of it – but be careful. Thusly
Building Fertile Soil - Organic Gardening Building fertile soil means learning how to feed the soil to feed the plants. It's a fundamental axiom of organic gardening and farming, and once you understand what "feeding the soil" means to building fertile soil, you'll also understand why organic methods, and no-till techniques in particular, work so well. Even though you can't see most of it, a complex soil food web lives in your garden; it's teeming with earthworms, mites, bacteria, fungi — all kinds of mostly microscopic, interdependent organisms that release mineral nutrients and create the loose soil structure crops need to thrive. Beneficial mycorrhizal fungi (see "The Magic of Mycorrhizal Fungi," page 24 in this issue) grow in and around plant roots, mining subsoil for nutrients and water to share with your crops. Other microorganisms prevent diseases and help plants withstand insect attacks. Your crops actually help feed all this underground life. But this complex, mostly invisible soil ecosystem can be damaged easily.
Tips on how to properly store fruits and vegetables Mon. Dec. 23, 2013 by Linda Kordich (NaturalHealth365) Whether we are juicing, blending or eating fresh fruits and vegetables, there’s nothing more frustrating than to witness our produce going bad, either because we forgot about it, or we didn’t store it properly. In this article, I have listed several fruits and vegetables, commonly used, and will show you how to store them effectively – so you can extend their freshness as long as possible. At the end of your weekly food – it’s a great idea to find what you haven’t eaten, blended or juiced and make that last healthy juice or smoothie. Simple storage tips: If you live in the Northern part of the United States, you can usually find a good storage bin to store your produce such as, carrots, beets, turnips, potatoes, apples, celery, Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower. Sometimes, if you have an extra refrigerator in the garage or basement, you can buy in bulk and save up to 50% off your grocery bill. Veggies in the refrigerator 1.
{how to} Cold Storage 101 | FROM SCRATCH CLUB I’ve pretty much wrapped up harvesting crops on Silly Goose Farm. Apples are done, tomatoes are done, and all that’s left to put-up is a couple of cabbages, a few rows of rainbow carrots, and a whole bunch of pears. The pear trees on our farm are over 100 years old and positively drip with fruit. While many of you might partake in canning and freezing the harvest, cold storage is another option that is less familiar for the home preservationist. Where: In a cellar/basement (in a spot free from water… so if your basement floods in the spring, think about investing in shelving to keep produce out of water’s way), in an outdoor shelter/shed that protects from the elements, or in a dark and dry pantry. What You’ll Need: Large container (bushel baskets, 5-gallon plastic buckets, Rubbermaid tubs, clean trash cans, etc. What To Do: Make sure your produce is blemish-free, clean, and dry. Where: A well-drained area that is easy to dig (as you’ll need to dig a deep hole or trench). Like this:
5 New Solutions For Growing Healthy Produce Indoors Jeffrey GreenActivist Post An increasing number of people are moving into urban environments and away from traditional agriculture. As a consequence, those who have a mind for self-sufficiency can find themselves falling short. Storable foods are of course an important part of every emergency prepper's pantry, but storable foods are not a sound long-term solution that contain optimal nutrition. Even produce from farmers markets and store-bought organic food will lose peak freshness faster than one might imagine. Alanna Ketler from Collective-Evolution explains: Most people do not realize that vegetables will lose about half of their nutrients within the first week of being picked. Nothing can beat growing your own fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers. However, several high-tech solutions are becoming available for city dwellers, or those who have a less-than-green thumb. 1. Visit the site here. For restaurateurs, here is what the commercial model looks like: 2. 3. 4. 5.
10 Interesting Facts About Earthworms By Roger Di Silvestro As winter draws to a close, gardeners begin their spring migration into the outdoors, leaving winter dens behind and coming into contact with the harbingers of the shifting seasons: shovels, hoes and trowels. Oh, and earthworms. Anyone prone to working the soil knows that upturning the earth exposes these shiny, wigging, pinkish-brownish tubular life forms, sending them thrashing in hasty retreat into the comforting, moist darkness of the soil. Earthworms: A Garden’s Friend or Foe? That depends. 1. One of the most familiar of them, the sort you may see in your garden, is commonly known as the night crawler (it typically surfaces after dark), the angleworm (its makes popular bait for fishing) or the rain worm (it leaves waterlogged soil after storms). 2. 3. 4. 5. They mate on the surface of the earth, pressing their bodies together and exchanging sperm before separating. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Visit EcoWatch’s BIODIVERSITY page for more related news on this topic.
The Underground, Year Round, Ever Growing Greenhouse! Make no mistake, the world is coming into major transition and change. Economies are inflating like helium filled balloons, debt is escalating like runaway trains and it's unlikely to be long before big shifts happen. If not the back end of this year, then I would say certainly in the next three. That's why growing your own food is important, especially as GMO, chemtrails and pesticides continue to decimate topsoils and contaminate the food chain. The "Walipini" I came across this idea recently on Wake Up World. "The Walipini, in simplest terms, is a rectangular hole in the ground 6′ to 8′ deep covered by plastic sheeting. Energy and light from the sun enter the Walipini through the plastic covered roof and are reflected and absorbed throughout the underground structure. Designed to inspire Here's a video from LaPaz, Bolivia, narrated in Spanish but with great music accompaniment! If you'd like to see some other general designs, here's a very useful website I came across...
Keyhole Gardens Keyhole Gardens First made popular in Africa, keyhole gardens are catching on in Texas and other hot, dry places. Keyhole gardens hold moisture and nutrients due to an active compost pile placed in the center of a round bed. From a bird's eye view the garden is shaped as a keyhole. Keyhole Garden in Central Texas, Deb Tolman uses keyhole gardens as the main source of her own food supply, and is working on ways to keep them producing throughout multiple seasons and conditions. Keyhole garden in Lesotho by Send a Cow, who first popularized keyhole gardens in Africa. Keyhole garden. Keyhole garden by Send a Cow. A keyhole garden in Ethiopia. Keyhole garden in Uganda by Send a Cow. Keyhole garden scheme. When it rains or when you water your compost, the nutrients will seep into the surrounding bed. Step by step photos of a keyhole garden build. libertygarden.us Students building a keyhole garden. Keyhole garden in Rwanda by Send a Cow. www.sendacow.org.uk Keyhole garden in Texas. How to:
Small-scale gardens provide sustainable food without damaging soil - NaturalNews.com Thursday, May 22, 2014 by: Julie Wilson Tags: gardens, sustainable growing, soil damage (NaturalNews) Urban and small-scale farming is a growing trend that's healthy and sustainable for the environment. Luckily, this trend is catching on fast, not just in the U.S. but in Europe too. Today there is a waiting list of more 90,000 people attempting to acquire allotments, or plots of land used for small-scale gardening. Applicants are excited to participate in a practice that produces healthy food and is better for the environment. Alpha Galileo, the world's independent source of breaking research news, revealed soil in Britain's allotments was "significantly healthier than intensively farmed soils." The findings published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, discovered small-scale crop growing in urban areas produced "food sustainability without damaging the soil." Conventional versus organic Organic farmer, Jamey Gage, operates a small family owned farm located outside of Austin, Texas.