Plant Gardens 101

Is there too much digging and not enough harvesting going on in your garden? Try these ideas to make your garden work harder for you without breaking a sweat!

Rotation: When one crop comes out of the ground, quickly turn the earth and plant something else straight away. This could be late summer lettuce or over-wintering salad varieties. Some beans can be successfully planted in the autumn, in particular broad beans, along with late cropping cauliflowers and other brassicas.

Make small cloches to protect the young plants from autumn weather. Cut a clear plastic bottle in half to produce two min-cloches!

What you plant as a second crop will depend heavily on your region, climate and availability of seed. However, when this crop comes out in the Spring, there will be far less weeds than if you had left the patch fallow all winter. (more…)

Mustard family
Cruciferae
Mal-col’mi-a. A small genus of low, grayish herbs.

Description
Stems branching profusely, making a compact plant. Leaves simple, alternate, slightly cut. Flowers white, purple, or reddish, in loose clusters at end of branches, the petals 4, long and narrow.

How to Grow   (more…)

This article describes to you why composting is good to both soil and plants. You learn about the red wiggler worm and about how you can use it to have a 100% natural and beautiful garden.

Red Wiggler Worms (Eisenia foetida) are the most common type of composting worm. As they feed, red wigglers swallow great quantities of organic material, digest it, extract its food value and expel the residue as worm castings, which are very rich in nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. The life of a red wiggler worm in general is hard. Their bodies are about 70% protein; rich food for many predators. Their major enemies are insect eating birds, like robins, and mammals like moles. If you watch a robin hunting, it pauses, cocks it head and then hops. The robin’s ears can actually hear the red wiggler moving under ground. But the red wiggler worm, although sightless and ear-less can feel the vibrations of the bird on the surface. It’s the deadly game of survival.

Red wiggler worms can process large amounts of organic matter and, under ideal conditions, can eat one and half times its body weight every day. They also reproduce rapidly, and are very tolerant of variations in growing conditions.

(more…)

Over the last few years home gardening has become an increasingly popular past-time and hobby. In fact, studies show that home gardening is at an all time high in America right now. In the United States 8 out of 10 households take part in some type of home gardening activity. Obviously from the number of people that are doing it, home gardening is one of the most popular recreational activities in nation.

Most people that try their hand at home gardening plant flowers; at least they start out planting flowers anyway. Roses will probably be the first thought into any gardeners mind, but roses will take extra time and work, and should probably be left to those who have gardened before. When planting flowers many choices are available, such as bulbs, perennials, and annuals. (more…)

In 1912 a small box of Iris bulbs was shipped to the United States from Japan. It found its way quietly across the ocean and was delivered to an unsuspecting home gardener somewhere in New Jersey. Unknown to the shipping company, the postal worker, and the gardner, this small box of iris bulbs also contained a tiny beetle which would eventually cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to plants throughout the United States.

By the 1970s, infestations of this beetle were reported in 22 States, mostly east of the Mississippi. These beetle infestations continue to spread southward and westward, leaving massive damage in their wake.

This notorious pest is called the Japanese Beetle. Today, these beetles destroy more lawns than any other pest, costing more than $460 per year. They also destroy trees, shrubs, and many kinds of plants. (more…)

Advantage of choosing a hydroponics grow box manufacturer that produces custom built units versus one-size-fits-all variety.

Purchasing a hydroponics grow box is much like purchasing a car. When you purchase a car you do your due diligence. You do everything you can to read and research everything about your new car before you buy. You should be all over the Internet looking for reviews and articles, blog posts, research on forums and find out everything you can about that car before you buy it. You should definitely visit the manufacturers website multiple times and really study that car from top to bottom. You should memorize all this specification and attribute that car has. You know how fast it car can accelerate from 0 mph to 60 mph.. You know how much gas that car use is on the highway and how much gas it uses on the road. And you definitely want to know how much horsepower that car has under the hood.

So why would purchasing a hydroponics grow box be any different? You definitely want to take the time to do the same amount of research on a hydroponics grow box that you would when buying a car because buying the right hydroponics grow box certainly is a huge decision as well. If you’re in the market for a new hydroponics grow box the first thing I would do is go to the website of the manufacturer of the grow box are interested in and study the specifications and the features of that grow box from top to bottom. (more…)

The botanical name for chokeberry.