• About

• Translator

  
• Main Site
• Winter Warmers

• Occasional Newsletter

  Sign up below

  Your Name:
  Your E-Mail:
  Your Country:

• Recent Posts

  • Almost A Month
  • Potatoes Broad Beans Etc.
  • The Best Tools for Lawn Maintenance
  • Quick Update from North Wales
  • Digging in the Green Stuff

Your Questions About Organic Tomatoes Cost

By guest | December 10, 2011

Powered by Yahoo! Answers

Topics: organic-gardening | Comments;

Planting By The Moon

By guest | November 22, 2011

Planting by the moon has earned itself a certain mystique, for some, it conjures up naked bodies dancing under a moon lit sky. For others, ancient complex ceremonies of secret cults with pagan rituals and unknown symbols.

But in reality, for many centuries for travelers and, in particular, gardeners and farmers it has been a way of life. They firmly believe that vegetables should be planted, cultivated and harvested at certain times of the moon cycle and on particular dates of the lunar cycle in conjunction with the other planets.

Those who plant by the moon attest that, by following ancient traditions handed down through the generations, that the food they cultivate from the land tastes, grows, and looks better. Is there any truth in their beliefs, or is it just hocus pocus?

How Moon Planting Began
As far back as the 15th and 16th centuries astrology was an important part of everyday life. Remember this was a time without modern calendars and personal diaries.

During this time, people would look to the skies for weather predictions, to tell the time and to gleam the best possible time to plant their vegetables.

When you consider that the Earth is covered by oceans, and the tides of those oceans are governed by the moon and its place in relation to the orbiting planets, it makes sense that plants, which are roughly 90% water, would also be affected by the same planetary elements that affect the tides.

Plants were cataloged, if you like, by their specific features and each was given a sign of the zodiac. The process of assigning a sign of the zodiac to the plants was quite deliberate one based on the qualities of each plant.

The astrologers, who were held in the highest esteem by the ruler of the day, and the people they served, would look at the physical attributes of the plant, the illnesses it was used to treat, at the plant’s ‘family’ and finally at the growing conditions which that particular plant needed.

It was a highly complicated process governed by nature and ruled by the moon. For example, plants that needed wet conditions to grow were assigned to the moon. Plants needing arid conditions were assigned to Mars.

What Moon Planting Means For Gardeners
This knowledge has been handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, for a lot of the gardening wisdom was unwritten. Housewives and head gardeners for the rulers of the day, would diligently abide by the ancient’s wisdom, and these beliefs are the same today as they were then.

They all firmly believed that vegetables planted while the moon was waxing (this is when the moon is transitioning between full and new) would mean rapid germination and good strong growth. When seeds are germinating and needing light to grow, they push up to the surface of the soil to get the light. During a waxing moon, the larger part of its surface is illuminated making it look larger in the sky, and the ancients believed that during this time the Earth’s energy was directed upwards towards the large moon. So the connection was made between the upwards energy of the germinating plant and the Earth’s energy being directed upwards towards the moon.

In a similar fashion, vegetables planted when the moon was waning (getting darker and smaller in the sky) would be the kind that needed darkness to grow, such as root vegetables which grow under the soil’s surface.

It is believed that when the moon is waning the Earth’s energy is directed back into the ground, and this is good for anything that grows in the darkness below the surface of the soil.

As you can see the logic of moon planting is relatively simple and understandable. Planting by the moon can be a lot more involved, but it’s food for thought. Oh and by the way, dancing naked under a moon lit sky is optional.

Topics: General, organic-gardening | Comments;

Your Questions About Organic Tomatoes Fertilizer

By guest | November 21, 2011

Powered by Yahoo! Answers

Topics: organic-gardening | Comments;

Going Organic: Common Questions

By admin | November 20, 2011

Organic produce like fruit and vegetables are in demand, but if you want the best-tasting, most nutritious and cheapest organic produce there’s no better way than to grow your own. So what does it take to grow your own organic fruit and vegetables?

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions by people considering growing their own organic fruit and vegetables for the first time.

I want to go organic, but where do I start?

Organic gardening begins with a change of mind-set. You have to think in terms of feeding the soil, not the plants directly. If the soil has all the nutrients available for the plants, they will take up what they need, when they need it, which saves you the work of having to figure it out.

This basic concept underpins all the principles of organic gardening. To feed and nourish the soil, you want to continually add organic materials to the soil in the form of compost, manure and mulch. These raw materials are then broken down by a hidden army of workers in the soil, called ‘microflora’. Microflora consist of bacteria, fungi, and other micro-organisms whose job it is to decompose these raw materials and turn them into nutrients that can be easily absorbed by the roots of the plants.

By doing this you are actually building up and helping nature to create new soil. This is a big advantage if the soil you have to start with is poor quality. It also has the added benefit of ensuring that the produce you grow is nutrient-rich.

What makes organic fruit and vegetables different?

Non-organic gardening has evolved around commercially made plant foods in the form of fertilizers, which are ‘fed’ to the plants mixed in water, thus making it readily available for the roots to absorb.

Great in principle, but, in practice this is where the problem begins. With this method the plant roots are only offered the water and food as a mixture. So, every time the roots need water to hydrate the plant cells, they have to take up food as well.

The roots cannot separate the fertilizers from the water, resulting in the plant having ‘excess’ nutrients and the only way they can use these extra nutrients, is, by being forced into growing. So even though the plants might grow quickly, and appear to be thriving, they will have a lowered resistance to pests and they won’t be nearly as nutritious. In addition, most fertilizers only supply a very small number of nutrients out of the wide range of trace minerals that the plants actually need.

Plants are not so different from humans, they have a pre-determined routine. They have natural cycles, and there are times when they are not actively growing. It is during these periods that the roots only need to take up water to keep the cells moist. At other times they have growing phases, this is when the roots will need to find food and water.

Also, like humans, if the plant gets overloaded with food they become unhealthy and sick. Which is what happens in commercial growing conditions because the plants are constantly getting extra food when they do not need it.

Is going organic expensive?

No, not in the least. In fact, going organic will actually save you money since you don’t have to purchase expensive fertilizers and pesticides.

What do I use in place of fertilizers?

In organic gardening you will use animal manure, recycled garden waste like leaves, grass clippings, hedge cuttings and old vegetables. These can be obtained from your existing garden if you have one, by visiting farms and stables, who are usually only too glad to let you haul away some of their manure. While you’re at the stable ask if they have any spoiled hay that they want to get rid of. If hay gets damp it will start to rot and go moldy, at that point they can’t feed it to the animals, but it will make excellent mulch for your garden.

If you can start a worm farm, or start composting you’ll be able to get rid of much of your kitchen waste and turn it into beautiful, nutritious soil for your plants as well.

So hopefully by now you’re starting to understand how organic farming is not only more sustainable than commercial methods, but it’s easy, cheap. The best part is it also helps to recycle a lot of what would otherwise be waste products, into high quality food for your fruit and vegetables, which in turn become high-quality food for you and your family.

Topics: General, organic-gardening | Comments;

Pruning for healthier plants

By admin | October 2, 2011

Most plants will remain healthier and stronger if they are pruned occasionally.

Trees will bear more fruit if they are pruned and plants such as roses will have more blossoms and not become ‘woody’ if they are pruned correctly.

Bushes and hedges can also benefit from pruning as this can reduce or eliminate the possibility of diseases and problems with pests.

By removing the old growth you will allow new growth to flourish as new shoots are allowed to come through.

For many people pruning is a hobby or an art form where they can create interesting shapes with their plants.
This is made easier when done on plants that have smaller more tightly bunched leaves.

For most of us however pruning is all about controlling and improving the health and condition of our plants.
By removing the dead wood and those parts of the plants that are struggling to survive we are allowing the nutrients to be put to better use by the rest of the plant.

You should always use sharp pruning shears to ensure you make clean cuts.
Look for areas of plants that show signs of fungal infection and remove those first.

You can thin out plants to allow more air to flow through them by reducing the incidence of fungus and rot.

Topping trees and trimming hedges will help them to ‘thicken out’ with more lush foliage and stop them getting ‘woody’

Some plants thrive better when they get regular pruning while helping to maintain their shape and condition.

With summer plants it is best to prune them in the winter when they are dormant.
If by chance they flower early the pruning should be left until after they have flowered.

The more pruning you do the more you will get a feel for what is required but if in doubt seek the advice of a garden professional.

Topics: General | Comments;

Organic Vegetable Garden 2012

By admin | September 26, 2011

Now is the time to consider and plan your vegetable garden or plot for 2012, if you live in the U.K.

Having or cultivating a vegetable garden can be rewarding, and a great source of food for you to enjoy eating. You may well have decided what type of vegetables you would like to grow, but not quite sure of the techniques required to be successful.

Already a gardener? Organic? If not now is as good a time as any to change. No more chemical fertiliser and pesticides in your food.

Sometimes people are turned off by vegetable gardening, arguing that they will be too difficult or time-consuming to manage.

In fact, it can be really simple and fun! If you follow some simple steps, and get into the swing of it you can create a great source for enjoyment and have healthy, delicious vegetables your family will enjoy eating.

Design and Planning

The area you choose for your vegetable garden needs lots of bright sunlight at least 6 hours a day. It is fine to pick an area that might be shady for part of the day if you are planning on planting leafy vegetables because most of these can thrive in partly shady areas and can handle the cooler temperature.

I personally have spent this past weekend uprooting two small shrubs from a flower bed, digging out the weeds, note I said digging not pulling, and turning the ground over with a full size garden fork all of nine inches deep.

This bed has a hedge to the south of it but at the right time of the year gets between six and seven hours of sunshine a day. I will be planting root vegetables, Brussels sprouts and Broccoli there for 2012.

The soil will be treated long before then, in fact within the next ten days I will be sowing the area with Hungarian Rye (Stock Feed) this will stand through the winter then cut down and turned in during early spring.

There are other things you can do to improve the quality of your soil. For instance, consider adding any of the following: compost, leaf mold, rotted manure, peat moss or other types of organic matter. While it is true that it is difficult to grow things in clay soil, adding vermiculite or humus will enable draining thus making it a more viable option. Squeeze a handful of soil to see if it crumbles while still retaining its shape. If that’s the case, you’re pretty much set and need only to add in basic enriching materials.

During early summer you need to mulch the vegetables that you will be planting. Make the mulch thick and it will help to keep away weeds, it will improve the soil structure, and will help the soil maintain the right amount of moisture. Compost, straw, hay, and shredded bark are great materials for mulch.

As you start planning a vegetable garden, a drip irrigation system may be a smart choice to install for your garden. This will deliver water directly to the roots of the vegetables where it is needed most. A timer can even be installed, automating the times you irrigate your plants and freely you for other activities. I use a watering can and only rainwater.

One of the most important parts of planning a vegetable garden is to choose your vegetables that you want to plant and which will grow well in your garden. You will want to pick out vegetables that you and your family will eat.

Some people like to grow things for the sake of doing it and don’t even like what they are growing. Remember, not all of your neighbours might enjoy them either! I’ve yet to have a complaint from mine.

There really is nothing quite like growing your own produce safe in the knowledge you are feeding your family nothing but pure goodness. Your hard work and effort will pay off so long as you stick to some of the basic rules and tips that people with experience are all too ready to hand out. Don’t try and reinvent the wheel just follow the guides that have brought success to others.

No one person has all the answers to organic gardening, while browsing the web recently I came across ‘Green Thumb Jeff’ quite a character, he has written a book that might interest you.

I will shortly be announcing a change to the blog, stay tuned you may find it of interest and use.

Norman (admin)

Topics: organic-gardening, Uncategorized, Vegetables | Comments;

Preparing Healthy Soil for your Organic Garden

By admin | September 21, 2011

If you’re getting ready to go on a new garden venture, you need to prepare your soil to house your plants.
The best thing you can do in the soil preparation process is to reach the perfect mixture of sand, silt,and clay.

Preferably there would be 40 percent sand, 40 percent silt, and 20 percent clay. There are several tests used by experienced gardeners to tell whether the soil has a good composition. First you can compress it in your hand.

If it doesn’t hold its shape and crumbles without any outside
force, your sand ratio is probably a little high. If you poke the compressed ball with your finger and it doesn’t fall apart easily, your soil contains too much clay.

If you’re still not sure about the content of your soil, you can separate each ingredient by using this simple method. Put a cup or two of dirt into a jar of water.

Shake the water up until the soil is suspended, then let
it set until you see it separate into 3 separate layers. The top layer is clay, the next is silt, and on the bottom is sand. You should be able to judge the presence of each component within your dirt, and act accordingly.

After you’ve analyzed the content of your soil, if you decide that it is low on a certain ingredient then you should definitely do something to fix
it.
If dealing with too much silt or sand, it’s best to add some peat moss or organic compost. If you’ve got too much clay, add a mixture of peat moss and sand.

The peat moss, when moistens, helps for the new ingredient to
infiltrate the mixture better. If you can’t seem to manage to attain a proper mixture, just head down to your local organic gardening store. You should be able to find some kind of product to aid you.

The water content of the soil is another important thing to consider when preparing for your garden. If your garden is at the bottom of an incline,it is most likely going to absorb too much water and drown out the plants.

If this is the case, you should probably elevate your garden a few inches (4 or 5) over the rest of the ground. This will allow for more drainage and less saturation.

Adding nutrients to your soil is also a vital part of the process, as most urban soils have little to no nutrients already in them naturally. One to two weeks prior to planting, you should add a good amount of organic fertilizer to your garden.

Mix it in really well and let it sit for a while. Once you
have done this, your soil will be completely ready for whatever seeds you may plant in it.

Once your seeds are planted, you still want to pay attention to the soil.

The first few weeks, the seeds are desperately using up all the nutrients around them to sprout into a real plant. If they run out of food, how are they supposed to grow?

About a week after planting, you should add the same amount of fertilizer that you added before.After this you should
continue to use fertilizer, but not as often. If you add a tiny bit every couple of weeks, that should be plenty to keep your garden thriving.

Basically, the entire process of soil care can be compressed into just several steps… ensure the makeup of the soil is satisfactory, make sure you have proper drainage in your garden, add fertilizer before and after planting, then add fertilizer regularly after that.

Follow these simple steps, and you’ll have a plethora of healthy plants in no time. And if you need any more details on an individual step, just go to your local organic nursery
and enquire there. Most of the employees will be more than happy to give you advice.

Topics: Compost, General, organic-gardening | Comments;

Garden Safety

By admin | September 16, 2011

We often overlook the possibility of danger that can lurk in the garden.
Everything from rotten limbs on trees that can fall on top of us to slippery surfaces that are covered in moss can present dangers.

There are certain times of the year when there seem to be more problems of safety in the garden and these are generally the wetter months.

This is the time when moss can grow on walkways cause dangerously slippery surfaces.

There are products on the market that can eliminate moss but some of these can also cause damage to your plants.
Water blasting will get rid the slippery surfaces and it is possible to buy relatively cheap and good quality water blasters that are suitable for the home handy person.

Once again you will need to take care not to damage plants as the pressure from the water blaster can destroy a garden in a matter of minutes.

Even the weight of plants can change over the wetter months particularly those in hanging containers and the additional weight from the water might just be enough to cause them to come crashing down.

Palm fronds can have very sharp and potentially dangerous spikes that can be lethal if you happen to get one in your eye while leaning into the garden.
It is always recommended that you wear safety glasses when getting amongst your plants in the garden because it is so easy to damage your eyes.

Wearing gloves is something that goes without saying to protect your hands, not only from cuts and scrapes, but also from potential infection.

And you might be quite surprised to learn that the biggest danger in the garden and the cause of most injuries is from garden implements that are left lying around in the garden causing injury when someone falls or stands on them.

A tidy garden is generally a safer garden.

Topics: General | Comments;

Maintaining Your Garden for the Winter

By admin | September 13, 2011

Some people believe that when the weather starts getting colder and the
leaves start to fall, it is time to put away the gardening tools and wait
until next spring before work starts on their garden again. Wrong. Winter is an
important time to maintain your garden’s health and assure yourself of good
plants next year. You may think that it will take to long to prepare your
garden, but the truth is that it could take less than one day to prepare your
garden for the oncoming winter.

When the temperature at night drops to less than forty-five degrees
Fahrenheit for more than four days in a row, or frost is forecasted for
your area (usually around late October or November) you know its time to
begin the maintenance on your garden. You should begin by evaluating your garden
design; check which plants grew well in the past season, and which plants
did not. Fall is a good time to decide which floral plants will remain in
you garden next year, and which ones should go.

It is also a good time to decide which new plants you want to grow. To
make your garden more productive; be sure only to plant the more
hardy plants during the fall so that they can withstand the winter.
You may have some over wintering stock in your vegetable plot, be sure that they are weed free.

After you have finished this you should begin cleaning up your garden.
Begin by digging out weeds that are showing, and raking up the fallen
leaves. Weeds and rotten leaves can carry insects and diseases that might
be harmful to your garden. You should also harvest your vegetables and other plants that cannot withstand the winter weather.

After fall has come and gone, the leaves will be off your trees and you can see the rotten branches. Trimming off the unwanted branches from your trees isn’t necessary to your gardens health, but may help later on by not dropping branches on your plants and not blocking out too much of the sun.

This is also a good time to quickly sow a green manure on the areas that you will be using to grow crops next year. I personally use Agricultural Mustard (sinapsis alba) I have found over the years this to be the best all-round green manure. It is quick to germinate and can be turned in at four to five inches high usually, before the first frosts.

Once you are finished with your gardening tools you should clean them and
make sure they are in a safe place where they won’t rust and you know
where they’ll be for next year. Before winter comes you should always set
out slug repellent, as slugs are one of the worst pests to have in your garden.
Organic of course.

Topics: General, organic-gardening, Seeds | Comments;

Tomato Sweet Million F1

By admin | September 5, 2011

We have had one or two posts about organic tomatoes before.
I have been growing them myself for many years.

A couple of years ago, three years in fact, I came accross ‘sweet million F1′ in my regular catalogue and decided to grow it against my old favourite ‘gardeners Delight’. In greenhouse conditions both types have given me an abundance of fruit this year.

The photograph was taken on the 3rd Sept. 2011 just 4days ago, as you can see on the truss the fruit at the bottom has yet to ripen.

The picture is a link to the catalogue where I buy all my organic seeds and plants. no it’s not an affiliate link, they do not have one. Just my way of saying thank you for being Organic.

Topics: Gardeners Friends, organic-gardening, Tomatoes | Comments;

« Previous Entries Next Entries »

Clean Copy 2 by Cory Miller | An Internet Enterprises Website By Norman Macey