Posted by admin on March 29, 2011
Compost can be created with little effort at home. Items that can be added to compost heaps include tea leaves and tea bags, leaves, eggshells, coffee grounds, vegetables, fruits, wood ash, grass clippings, manure, hay, sawdust, and straw. If wood is to be used in compost, it needs to be shredded. The compost heap should be placed away from the house where soil is well drained and winds are low. A compost heap can be created layering organic material, a compost bin can be built or purchased, or a trench can be dug to dump compost before again topping with soil.
If you don’t have time to build or manage a compost bin, it is always possible to make a new garden bed above ground or below ground with material 5 to 10 inches down which is not yet broken down.
It can be a lot of fun to build a compost bin rather than by one. For example people have used tires piled up, concrete blocks, a water tank, wooden pallets, and other ideas to make compost bins at little or no cost.
Posted by admin on April 26, 2010
After more than 25 years of gardening, I’ve got to suggest 5 top products that almost any gardener can really use. I know these items are very useful for most gardeners I know. To me, a product has to be well built, useful, and have top reviews. These gardening products all fit these specifications.
- Red wiggler worms can be bought here. I’m my case, I just needed one set of red wiggler worms to start. They have multiplied over the months and years. These red, wiggly worms are great for indoor or outdoor worm composting. Yes, a person can buy a worm composting unit (here is our favorite worm composter), or also make one with a plastic container or big pot. Kitchen scraps are broken down over months by the worms and compost is made. We don’t need to buy compost in our garden these days due to quite a few sets of red wiggler worms making their magic.
- A great motion activated sprinkler can be bought here. These are not cheap, but then again to keep dogs, squirrels, birds, or other animals off your grass or garden it is an effective, safe solution. One route is to keep trying cheap solutions, or to just go ahead and do something easier and more effective, which is this.
- A spectacular composter can be bought here. Some nice things about a composting unit such as this is that it will be around for years, it has three stages, and it makes a good amount of compost.
- A reliable cordless grass shear can be bought here. These are so useful. Of course a string trimmer can be used for big areas, and hand weeding can be used for tight areas. But, so many areas can be trimmed with this cordless unit. It is very useful for a home gardener.
- A very affordable, compact home grow light system can be purchased here. The great thing about this unit is that for the price, you get a lot. You can grow seeds, cuttings, or regular plants with this. I especially like it as testing new growing techniques is easy with this system. Since it is so affordable, it it not meant to compete with systems that cost hundreds of dollars. It is what it is, a great priced system that works!
Posted by admin on October 29, 2009
Southern Giant Curled Long Standing Mustard
Southern Giant Curled Long Standing Mustard is a vegetable we’ve test grown in recent months with great success in San Francisco, CA. If it can grow here, with our intermittent fog, it can probably grow for you. As with most vegetables, Southern Giant Curled Long Standing Mustard likes a lot of sun. It can tolerate up to a half day of shade. It is fairly pest and disease resistant. We believe this is due to the rough texture of the leaves, and of course the breeding. This vegetable can have leaves cut consistently and keep producing. Because this is a leafy vegetable, it can be grown for quite a bit of the year in most climates. As with most vegetables, it likes rich aerated soil, not to dry out for too long before next watering, and good air movement. When cooking this vegetable a few ideas are steaming it, cooking it in olive oil until it turns dark green, or including it in a dish. It seems to us to be most similar to Kale due to the texture and flavor of the leaves.
Posted by admin on July 9, 2009
Angel’s Trumpet is quite the rewarding plant to grow. This vigorous plant (also can be trained to grow as a shrub or tree) loves full sun, has fragrant flowers, and grows six to eight feet in height when mature. This plant can grow well in a pot or the ground. It does not like to dry out between waterings, and cannot get colder than 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Here is a beautiful white potted variety that can be transplanted into the ground, a pink one just like the one in our garden photo below you can grow from seed, an orange one that can be grown from seed, and a beautiful potted peach variety.
Pink Angels Trumpet Plant in Our Garden
Posted by admin on July 8, 2009
Sunflowers are quite an amazing annual. They can grow in sunny, somewhat foggy, and partial shade areas. They can be anywhere between 2-14 feet in height, with one to ten flowers on a plant. They grow fast, and many tolerate substandard soils. They are also fairly drought tolerant. Many are so tough, wind does not bother them. They can be used for a privacy screen between your house and that of a neighbor. To do this, we recommend not just one row, but 2-3.
We recommend planting sunflowers in pots or a clearly defined area first. That way, when they sprout, they can be replanted to exactly their final location.
After a sunflower is done blooming, we recommend cutting the head and drying it to keep the seeds. Another way to keep the seeds for later growing is to put a thin cloth around the head and twist tie it. Or, of course if you like you can let birds eat the seeds when it is done flowering.
Below is a photo taken today in our San Francisco California garden. These sunflowers are 3-7 feet in height. They would have grown taller, but we experimented here with letting them all grow in small pots until they were 1-2 feet tall, and then planted them out. This meant they were used to being confined so now will not grow as tall. That is a good way if you like to control the size of your sunflower plants. Click here to see our favorite sunflowers.
One of Many Sunflowers Blooming Right Now in our SF, CA Garden
Sunflowers in our San Francisco California garden