Categories
Garden Tips and Ideas Urban Gardening

Plant-in-a-Bag Garden

Melon Tigger seeds. They are almost other-worldly!

 

So I’ve had this bag of potting soil sitting around for weeks. And I’ve had this package of adorable looking melons waiting patiently for their chance to come alive. Time kept ticking, and those melons wanted planted. Unfortunately time is also very short around here, and though each night before crashing to sleep I’d briefly try to brainstorm where I could put a container and fill it with the soil for the melons, the fact is, nothing was being done. And yet the soil waited. The seeds could be heard crying softly.

 

Today I took advice from a great little gardening book called Home Sweet Home Grown (I just posted a review of the book this yesterday; scroll down or click on the book reviews link) and I bypassed the container all together. The girls and I got those melon seeds planted (3 of them, to ensure germination, then we’ll cull all but one plant), and it took us literally 5 minutes. Voila. The laziest way to container garden! Crossing our fingers it works, and that by end of summer we’ll have some of these crazy-insane adorable tigger melons!

 

 

 

Bag of potting soil, in lower left hand corner. Doing nothing. Note the straw bale: stay tuned for  its destiny.

Three helpers ready to plant the other-worldly melons.

 

 

Bag after being dragged (with help from said three helpers) to the back yard. Holes being stabbed into the bottom for drainage. 

Bag flipped over, and hole cut from center of top.

 

Seed placed into hole. And now we wait!

 

 

 

 

Categories
Garden Tips and Ideas

Fast Friday Tip: Cutworm Collars

What the heck are cutworms? The name is kind of cute. But what they do is not so cute. Here is an image of a cutworm, along with the evidence of what it is they love to do.

 

Add caption

Gardeners loathe these critters. We haven’t had too much trouble with them in our food crops (knock on wood), but last summer they all but thwarted our efforts to make a sunflower house. They’d eat through every new sprout we planted, over and over.

 

There are several ideas out there for helping control cutworms. Here’s a simple one. Make a collar out of a cup by cutting out the bottom, and put it over your baby plant. Or use a toilet paper tube (we all have plenty of those, right?). Plastic containers are good, too, but they will be harder to cut away when your plant outgrows its collar. Check out all these ideas for making cutworm collars, and choose one or two. Protect those babies you worked so hard to get ready to plant in the garden!

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Garden Tips and Ideas

Fast Friday Tip: Mulch Madness

Our heirloom tomatoes, freshly mulched with straw. I just snapped this photo a few minutes ago. 🙂

 

 

Mulch is your best friend. Get ahold of some and make your garden happy! It can be made of wood chips, newspaper, shredded leaves, straw. Mulches help keep soil temperatures even, help soil hold onto its moisture, and help keep down weeds. Another added benefit? Earthworms and microorganisms stay nearby…they prefer mulched soil to bare soil! I didn’t start using mulch until last year, and I noticed a huge difference in the health of the tomato plants, and how often they needed water. We all know we need to conserve water!

 

Our friends at Taking Back the Farm used 4 inches of wood mulch, and barely had to water their plants last summer, even during drought. Such a simple thing to do, with so many benefits.

 

Categories
Garden Tips and Ideas

Fast Friday Tip: Tomatoes in a Cat's Cradle

Here is a strong, sturdy alternative to using cages for your tomato plants.

 

 

Plant tomatoes in a row, about two feet apart, if you will be using this method. Push stakes or rebar at least 12 inches into the ground at each end of your row and between every other tomato plant. Use strong twine to weave in and out among the plants to keep them up off the ground. Every week or so, as the plants grow, add another layer of twine.

 

Click HERE for a more detailed article at Organic Gardening!

Categories
Garden Tips and Ideas

What to Plant Now

Mother’s Day went out with a bang last night, with one more (and hopefully last) freeze. Now I’m itching to get out and start planting everything I can think of! If you feel the same way, hold an a second…peruse this nifty online chart to see what to plant right now in your area. The ground is still too cold and wet for some things! As for me, I’ll be checking out what is safe, and let the planting begin!

What to Plant Now

Not sure what seeds you could be starting right now, or which transplants need to be set outside this season? Our regional planting guides take the guesswork out of garden planning! Click on your region in the list below to find out which garden plants need your attention right now.

regional gardening map new

 

Central/Midwest
Gulf Coast
Maritime Canada & New England
Mid-Atlantic
North Central & Rockies
Pacific Northwest
Southern Interior
Southwest

 

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/what-to-plant-now-zl0z0903zalt.aspx#ixzz2TAYPXqsg

Categories
Garden Tips and Ideas Urban Gardening

Building Raised Garden Beds

 

I am a big fan of raised garden beds. They give you a real advantage when it comes to soil conditions, since you get to control the quality of their contents (think lots and lots of good compost). Our south garden consists of raised beds on top of nothing but rocks, and our plants thrive there! Raised beds can be constructed out of almost anything you can come up with, or even made with nothing at all (you can simply make large mounds of compost/soil over your existing space). Do a Google Image search for ‘raised garden beds’, and you will be amazed at the variety of beds that people come up with.

 

This is a good, basic article on some different ways to make raised garden beds.

 

How to Make a Raised Bed Garden

By Colleen Vanderlinden, About.com Guide

 

What is a Raised Bed Garden?

A raised bed garden is a garden built on top of your native soil, sometimes incorporating native soil, sometimes not. These gardens can be contained, such as when you build a wood or stone structure to keep the bed intact, or they can be more free form, with soil and amendments merely piled several inches high. You can plant anything from herbs and vegetables to perennials and shrubs in a raised bed.

Advantages of a Raised Bed Garden

Aside from avoiding the issue of gardening in poor soil, raised beds offer several advantages:

  • They warm more quickly in spring, allowing you to work the soil and plant earlier.
  • they drain better.
  • The soil in raised beds doesn’t get compacted, because they are constructed with accessibility in mind.
  • It’s easy to tailor the soil for your raised bed to the plants you plan to grow there.
  • After the initial construction process, less maintenance is required than there is for conventional garden beds.

How to Make a Raised Bed Garden

Contained raised beds are the most popular type, and they’re great for vegetable and herb gardens, as well as flower gardens. Fruits, such as strawberries, grapes, blueberries, andraspberries, also do very well in a this type of bed.

You can choose from a variety of materials to construct your frame. Wood is a very popular choice, because it is easy to work with and it is inexpensive. Concrete blocks, natural stone, or brick are also nice options, but there is definitely an added expense and labor to consider in using them. Some gardeners go the ultra-simple route, and simply place bales of hay or straw in whatever configuration they desire, then fill it with good soil and compost and plant it up. This solution will only give you a year or so of use, because the straw will decompose, but it’s worth trying if you don’t mind replacing the bales yearly, or if you’re still developing a more permanent solution.

Since most contained raised beds are constructed from wood, here are instructions for building your own wood raised bed garden.

Step One: Select your site. If you know that you’ll be growing vegetables or herbs, or sun-loving flowers in your new garden, select a site that gets at least eight hours of sun per day. A flat, level area is important, and you should also make sure that the area has easy access to water sources as well as room for you to work.

Step Two: Determine the size and shape of your garden. Make sure that you can access all parts of the garden without stepping into the bed. One of the main advantages of a raised bed is that the soil doesn’t get compacted the way it might in a conventional bed because they are planned for accessibility. It is a good idea to keep the garden to around four feet wide, because this way you can access the middle of the bed from either side. If you’re placing your bed against a wall or fence, it should be no more than three feet wide. Any length you like will work, as long as you keep the width in control. In terms of depth, six inches is a good start, and many vegetables grow well in a bed that is six inches deep. As with many things, though, if you can do more, more is better! Ten to twelve inches would be ideal. If you have decent subsoil (not too clayey or rocky) you can simply loosen the soil with a garden fork and build a six to eight inch deep bed. If your soil is bad, or you are planning to grow crops like carrots or parsnips that need a deeper soil, your bed should be at least ten inches deep.

 

Step Three: Prep Your Site. Once you know the size and shape of your bed, you can get to work prepping the site. How much prep you will have to do is determined by the depth of the bed you’re planning, as well as the plants you’re planning to grow there. If you are planning a vegetable or herb garden, a six-inch deep bed is perfect. To save yourself some labor, you can use newspaper, landscape fabric, or cardboard to cover and smother it, then put your soil and amendments right on top. However, to ensure that your plant’s roots have plenty of room to grow, it is a good idea to dig out the existing sod and loosen the soil with a shovel or garden fork to a depth of eight to twelve inches.

Step Four: Construct the Bed. Using rot-resistant lumber such as cedar or one of the newer composite lumbers, construct your bed. Two by six lumber is perfect, as it is easy to work with and will give you six inches of depth. Cut your pieces to the desired size, then attach them together to make a simple frame. You can attach them in a variety of ways. You can make a simple butt joint at each corner, pre-drilling and then screwing the corners together with galvanized screws. You can use a small piece of wood in the corner,and attach each side to it.

Step Five: Level Your Frames. Using a level, make sure your frame is level in all directions. This is a necessary step because if your bed is not level, you will have a situation where water runs off of one part of the garden and sits in another. If part of your frame is high, just remove some of the soil beneath it until you have a level frame.

Step Six: Fill Your Garden. The whole point of a raised bed garden is that it gives you the opportunity to garden in perfect soil. Take this opportunity to fill your bed with a good mixture of quality topsoil, compost, and rotted manure. Once they’re filled and raked level, you’re ready to plant or sow seeds.

Maintaining a Raised Bed Garden

Happily, raised beds require very little maintenance. Each spring or fall, it’s a good idea to top dress with fresh compost and manure, or, if your bed only holds plants for part of the year, go ahead and dig the compost or manure into the top several inches of soil. As with any garden, mulching the top of the soil will help retain moisture and keep weeds down. Moisture retention is important, because raised beds tend to drain faster than conventional beds.

Original Article found HERE

 

Categories
Garden Tips and Ideas

Fast Friday Tip: Sharpen Your Shovel

A sharpened shovel will make your life much easier in the garden.

 

All you need is a flat file. Keep it simple.

 

 

Lay your shovel flat on the ground and step on the neck to keep it steady. Use your file to gently push away from you at the tip of the blade at a 45 degree angle. Follow along the top until you have nice, shiny, sharpened metal edge. Turn the blade over to remove any burrs.

 

 

 

So easy a kid can do it-with supervision, of course! 🙂