tomcherry4

Growing Your Own Potatoes At Home.

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:17:45 -0700

Maybe you are like a lot of unfortunate people whom haven’t got a garden and you like to grow your own nice new potatoes . Well here is a way you can ,it doesn’t’t take up to much room as a matter of fact you only need a small area 8 x 2 feet should do it.
I have just purchased 1 grow your own potato kit which exist of four grow bags four sets of potatoes and four sets of Hessian bags for putting your potatoes in after they have finished growing Plus you get enough blood fish and bone Organic feed for your potatoes.
There is four different types of potatoes or chose your own from a large variety
(1) Red magic
New red main crop. Smooth shiny red skins and firm white flesh that's particularly tasty. Red Magic boils well and makes great roast potatoes. Has good resistance to pests
(2) Blue Bell
Very pretty tubers. Stunning large oval tubers with deep violet splash over the eyes. Lovely taste and excellent roasted or boiled. Make superb bakers too. Strong grower with all round resistance to disease.
(3) Charlotte
For tasty salads. Firm sweet tasting waxy flesh. Commonly seen on supermarket shelves. Easy variety to grow. Good crops of yellow, medium sized oval tubers. Delicious eaten warm in salads.
(4) Lady Christl
Attractive first early. Heavy crop of uniform long oval tubers 8 weeks from planting. Creamy light yellow flesh and a delicious taste. Skins are very smooth and eyes are shallow.
Preparation.
A couple of weeks before planting your potatoes you need to chit your potatoes tubers to kick start the process, this is a simple step, place your tubers in egg cartons on a warm window sill, that’s all there is to it, about two weeks later the potatoes will have sprouted when they are about I inch long they are ready for planning into your containers.
Your containers.
Fill your containers three to four inches with your chosen compost, and place 5 or 6 of your tubers of each variety in a separate grow pod (bag) then cover your potatoes with a further four inches of compost fertilize then water until the water comes out the holes in the pods. once the shoots are 2-3” (5 cm-7 cm) tall place a further four inches (10 cm) on top carefully covering these shoots fertilize and water, keep going through the same process until the pods are almost full leaving about one inch gap below the top.
Move out side when all signs of frost has gone.
When your pods are full, top up make sure you water well and regular, as potatoes are very thirsty plants and need plenty of water mind you be careful not to over water, as to water log them causing them to rot.
Harvesting.
Once the foliage starts to turn slightly yellow and begins to die back, you can start harvesting your potatoes, the whole process will take about 8 to 14 weeks from start to finish. Take the pod you wish to harvest and empty the contents all out, collecting your potatoes and store them into your Hessian sacks these will store for a long time.

Warning.
Do not eat green potatoes (which will have turned green through exposure to light) they are poisonous.

How easy is it to build your own wormery?

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:49:14 -0600

Just finished my new wormery it’s a bee hive design and 600 centimetres square it has five sections and is raised of the floor on legs.

A DIY wormery for home composting or fishing is fairly easy to make You do not need to make a bee hive wormery as I have done I made this design because it looks good in my garden and you can have it on show anywhere.

My first wormery was just a ply box with a couple of dividing panels measuring four foot by eighteen inches by eighteen inches,(48x18x18 inches) the ply was untreated .the lid was made from ply and hinged onto the box an Hessian sack was thrown over the lid to keep out light, holes were drilled into the floor and the internal panels of the box for drainage and air circulation and to allow the worms to travel from one compartment to the other, the whole box was raised of the ground on bricks, at a later stage I put some wire mesh over the bottom of the box to stop the rodents.

The advantage of partitioning your wormery is that when a section is getting full you can stop feeding it for 3-4 weeks. As the wormery worms run out of food they will migrate into the other sections. This allows you to remove the finished compost from the rested section without taking all the composting worms with it.

Before you populate your wormery place about three sheets of news paper in the bottom to prevent the worms from crawling out of the bottom before they have a chance to feast onto there supply of food.

A kilo of Red Wiggler Worms will normally be sufficient to populate your new wormery they will soon breed up to the correct numbers for their living space. Therefore the more food waste you want to compost the greater the surface area you need.

If you have any questions or comments on How easy is it to build your own wormery, sign up as a friend or use my contact page, and we can exchange ideas.

How good is Container Growing.

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:54:44 -0600

Pots planters old boots even wheel barrows are good vessels for growing your crops, most vegetables will accept being grown in a container as long that there is plenty of room for them and they are given proper drainage.
Looking to local farmers and producers will help a new gardener to select plants for container vegetable gardening; local nurseries should have good seedlings and advice for a new gardener as well.

I grow most of my crops from seed and they seem to fare better if grown that way, as I am an organic gardener I can be sure that what I grow is organic and over the years I have collected a good quantity of organic seeds, Mind you if you are not an organic gardener there is no need to worry about where your plants come from as long as they look healthy, and they are what you want to grow.

Beans, beets, carrots, lettuce, peas or radishes will flourish if started as seeds, I usually start my seeds off in the conservatory in seed trays covered with a sheets of glass which I had cut for the purpose, then when the seed are ready to go out I put them in the cold frame to harden off before planting them out in the garden or pots (planters.)

Eggplant, tomatoes, and squash will grow better from seedlings generally speaking; they tend to be bushy plants.

I love my home grown produce I love the taste of my fruit and vegetables Do I want to carry on with Gardening Organic? You bet I do, that’s the only way I know that the food I eat is good to eat.
Anyway gardening is fun isn’t it? And should be enjoyed, you WILL have your set backs and you will have your joys, but when you are eating what you have grown, you will know then that it has all been worth while.

If you have any questions or comments, sign up as a friend or use my contact page, and we can exchange ideas.

What are we going to do NOW?

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:10:58 -0600

Well the fall is nearly upon us before we know it, it will be Christmas those long drawn out month when there is not a lot happening out in the garden, but don’t despair, SALES did I just say SALES? This is the best time to buy all those things that you just couldn’t afford for your garden in the summer months

Me I usually take advantage of the cheap flights and hotels and try to get away for a quick little break before Christmas, We usually spoil ourselves by staying in a very good hotel and just forget about the garden until the spring when we start to plant out the seedlings and plant which we have grown in the green house and cold frame.

I’ve got a couple of jobs to do before I leave for my break, do maintenance on my beds and cold frame, clear up all the spent plants and compost them, and cover the raised gardens with straw.

By this time you should have your winter crops in i.e. your winter cabbage Brussels etc.
Before I go I thought you might like a few travel tips as the month of September is a good time to book your breaks before the price rises again for Christmas .

Autumn Travel Tips:

Enjoy the fall colours - you can experience the full beauty of autumn with a road trip to Vermont.
Try going to the Cascade Mountains within the proximity of Washington or any of the mountain towns located in California.
Go to the big cities - most hotels have special autumn rates. Try visiting Chicago and New York during the fall season.
Visit national parks - it is great to visit national parks during autumn because parks are quiet during this time of year and the weather is comfortable
Go to amusement parks - expect to find large discounts on amusement parks because a lot of family travel deals are packaged during this season.

Whatever you deside to do, have a great fall,and enjoy

If you have any questions or comments, sign up as a friend or use my contact page, and we can exchange ideas.

"HydroPonics What Is IT? "

Thu, 3 Sep 2009 01:05:45 -0600

In one of my searches I came across a website on hydroponics, as I’m an Organic Gardener I was very intrigued with the idea.

Hydroponics (from the Greek words hydro water and ponos labor) is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, without soil.

Plants may be grown with their roots in the mineral nutrient solution only or in an inert medium, such as perlite, gravel, or mineral wool.

Hydroponics plants grow about 30% to 50% faster than plants in soil , grown under the same conditions.

The yield of the plant is also a lot greater, its all down to the extra oxygen in the hydroponics growing medium which helps the growth of the roots, which, is why hydroponics plants also requires very little energy to find and break down food.

I am very intrigue with this medium of gardening and plan to investigate it more.

If you have any questions or comments, sign up as a friend or use my contact page, and we can exchange idea’s.

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"We Are What We Eat,Aren't We!"

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:50:52 -0600

Isn’t it nice to eat food from your own garden, not worrying where it has come from, knowing everything from the beginning, the planting to the eating.

No you are not dreaming, it is a fact that we reap what we sow, Just think if you weren’t growing your own produce, where would your food come from? Just imagine those farmers with there 50 foot long spraying arms on their tractors or those planes what fly over and dust their crops against all those pests and diseases.

Just think of all the chemicals that are going all over the leaves of those plants and into the ground to the roots and just imagine what happens when those roots are growing and all that chemical is being siphoned up by the plants so in time we will end up eating it, No it’s not a dream.

I am not a doctor or a scaremonger I am a person whom when I was just a boy growing up in the countryside in the fifties people didn’t have asthma and breathing difficulties like they have today.

Yes I know that we as a Nation had to produce more food, and the only way forward at the time was through man made chemicals and fertilizers, and as we all know,what is easy, why change it? We know the answer why don’t we? and it not people,It’s money!

Anyway must get of my high horse, what is done is done ,but its not to late to change your life style by knowing what you are eating and becoming organic gardeners

If you have any questions or comments, sign up as a friend or use my contact page, and we can exchange idea’s.

"How Good Is My Soil"

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:01:22 -0600

That depends where you live in your country, I live in the fenlands of Britain, The soil that I have is very rich in nutrients owing to the history of the fens, In the beginning it was all forest, then it was flooded killing all the trees, which as we know today is rich black bog land where now and again the farmers plough up the old bog oaks

As we know plants draw nutrients from the soil so we must make sure that our soil has all the nutrients that it needs to sustain our plants. Knowing the precise composition of the soil allows you to provide better growth conditions to plants.

You can test your soil with a PH metre, or you may wish to send soil samples away to be tested
A PH metre is a device which measures the acidity or the alkalinity of the soil.

Scale: 4 (very acidic) 8 (very alkaline) 7(being neutral) so Plants in general require a balance between 6, 0 and 6, 5.

The ideal soil for vegetables is loam-a mixture of sand silt, clay and humus. Good loam has these in sufficient proportions to ensure that it does not dry out quickly, does not get waterlogged and has an open spongy texture Good loam is easily worked and needs only the regular replacement of plant food in form of manure and organic fertilizers.

One way of recognizing good loam is by the weed it produces-such as sow thistles, groundsel, chick weed and fat hen. Another is by working the soil in the palm of your hand, moist loam can be easily moulded and easily crumbled.

Soil Testing Services (US) PDF

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"The Art Of Watering"

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 05:20:55 -0600

As we all know all living things requires water, mind you how much water they need depend on a number of factors, A. knowing when to water, B. How much water each species of plant requires, is a very essential part of Gardening Organic, as knowing these factors can promote a more healthy plant and a better yield if you do this correctly, too little water your plants may die of dehydration, too much can lead to disease.

When I first started Gardening Organic I didn’t get the above mentioned correctly and my first year was a complete disaster. If it wasn’t for taking simple watering advice from my gardening friend, I don’t think for a start I would be writing this blog now.

The technique I use I deeply water my plants in the morning This allows the water to penetrate down to the roots which encourages a healthy root system and will allow them to survive through any drought conditions, If your not using raised bed like myself you may want to think about forming a well round the base of your plants this holds the water while the water gradually soaks down to the roots, its always a good idea to mulch around your plants also, this will retain the moisture around your plants.

As I mentioned earlier watering in the morning is very important as this allows the water to penetrate before the temperatures of the day, causing evaporation of the water.
Watering in the evening is a no, no, as evaporation doesn’t occur and all the excess moisture can lead to your plants becoming diseased.

If you have any questions or comments on The Art of Watering, sign up as a friend or use my contact page, and we can exchange ideas.

The Good Of Starting Your Composting Now.

Mon, 3 Aug 2009 03:25:19 -0600

Now the summer is here and you are starting to get the benefits from you gardening organic, it’s a good time to start thinking about your composting.

I usually chose a part of my garden where I am going to have my next planting area and start my compost heap, this gives a quick boost to the population of micro-organisms, when it’s time to plant out.

The heat of the compost pile will kill most of the grasses and seed, and the soil life will bury down under the hot surface area to survive, there will be enough nutrients leach down into the soil under the heap for them to feed on.

Now that you have started your compost pile, keep your garden tidy by putting all your garden waste and lawn cuttings onto your compost pile.

If you have any questions or comments on starting a compost pile, sign up as a friend or use my contact page, and we can exchange idea’s.

The good the bad and the ugly of gardening organic.

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:43:50 -0600

The Good The Bad And The Ugly.

My first entry on my blog. It is summer time most of the work on my gardening organic has been done and I’m am reaping the harvest, over time I will explain the good bad and the ugly of gardening organic.

I will be taking you through my experience of worm gardening, composting, propagation of the seeds, and the thing that are not so good.

Hopefully I shall have photographs of my progress through the different seasons, and a story to tell of my pitfalls.

I would love to hear any suggestions or comments you may have.

I am looking forward to my next entry in this blog. The Good the Bad and the Ugly, of gardening Organic.