Plant Gardens 101

Whether for shredding over fresh salads, using in vegetable medleys or casseroles, or simply for healthy anytime of day snacking, carrots are one of the most popular root crops enjoyed and consumed worldwide. A hardy growing vegetable, carrots are excellent growers in nearly all regions of the world, and their fresh taste and snap are so pleasing. Carrots are excellent additions to backyard gardens and container gardens alike, so read on, to find the basics of growing delicious tasting organic carrots year after year. (more…)

If I were a carrot, I would be up at arms; in surveys worldwide, it always comes in second to the potato in popularity. The potato is a delicious and nutritious vegetable, easily adaptable to many ways of cooking and varied recipes, no doubt, but the carrot’s virtues are plentiful as well. Like the potato, the carrot comes in a multitude of eye-pleasing colors: orange, white, yellow, red, and maroon to name a few. While carrots do grow in the wild, most are familiar with the cultivated carrot that most commonly makes its way to the world’s dinner tables. There exist several hundred varieties of carrots with over fifty different kinds of seeds readily available. Carrots are extremely rich in nutritional value and are such hearty growers; no backyard garden should be without them. (more…)

As a rule, we choose to grow bush beans rather than pole beans. I cannot make up my mind whether or not this is from sheer laziness. In a city backyard the tall varieties might perhaps be a problem since it would be difficult to get poles. But these running beans can be trained along old fences and with little urging will run up the stalks of the tallest sunflowers. So that settles the pole question. There is an ornamental side to the bean question. Suppose you plant these tall beans at the extreme rear end of each vegetable row. Make arches with supple tree limbs, binding them over to form the arch. Train the beans over these. When one stands facing the garden, what a beautiful terminus these bean arches make.

Beans like rich, warm, sandy soil. In order to assist the soil be sure to dig deeply, and work it over thoroughly for bean culture. It never does to plant beans before the world has warmed up from its spring chills. There is another advantage in early digging of soil. It brings to the surface eggs and larvae of insects. The birds eager for food will even follow the plough to pick from the soil these choice morsels. A little lime worked in with the soil is helpful in the cultivation of beans. (more…)

Growing your own carrots is reasonably easy. Of note, carrots are actually biennials which are grown as annuals. Carrots produce thin green leaves up to 30cm high, and long orange roots e.g. the carrots.

Carrots are strong in Vitamin A, B and C. Commonly they are orange however lighter coloured varieties do exist. Carrots need good quality soil, well manured from the previous season. The soil should be loose not firm to allow the roots to grow freely downwards.

The soil should be prepared as to be as fine as possible before sowing. Carrot seeds are very small and one trick is to mix it with some fine sand to help spread the seed more evenly and avoid thinning out so much later. The carrot seeds should be sown in drills about 1cm deep with and about 20 cm apart, gently firming over with a thin layer of soil. (more…)