bless-my-garden.com » planting

instant garden

Penny — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:15:57 +0000

This was from last year… always learn from year to year, we go back to last year to evaluate and plan.

start with a good fenced garden spot

remove horse

find a good guy with a Ford tractor (aka hubby)

go to co-op and buy plants because you have been too busy planning a wedding to start seeds

point nice tractor guy towards the garden spot and say “pretty please”

go later and tell him “well done and thank you”

put those nice plants in the ground with the help of several children you have birthed for just that reason

pray for rain—-

planting

Penny — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0000

The best day to plant your garden, is a warm sunny day with rain forcasted for the next day. Be sure to pre-soak your seeds, or wet your sprouted seeds or your transplanted seedling. They should go into a nice warm damp home. And they should be mist watered soon. And you should have all of your children helping and there should be lemonade

sprouting part 2

Penny — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:56:00 +0000

After our seeds have soaked for awhile, drain the water. Our homemade draining lid should make things real easy. Pour out the water, and refill and pour out again. This is rinsing. After your seeds are well rinsed, pour out as much water as you can get out, then place your jar in a dark place or cover with a towel. Seeds must be in the dark to germinate. The seeds need to be rinsed 2 or three times a day. After the 3rd day the leaves will start to appear, then you can take the jar out of the dark. If your seeds are for planting, you can now put them in a bowl and one by one plant them in cups or the garden row. If your sprouts are for eating, leave them in the light for another two days still rinsing.

sprouting part 1

Penny — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 03:53:00 +0000

Learning to sprout seeds is worth while even if you don’t garden. With sprouting you can have fresh green goodness anytime. The easiest way I have found is this. Get a quart canning jar. A ring for the top. A plastic needlepoint round form you will find in your craft section of a superstore or fabric store. I am sorry I don’t remember what it is really called but it is plastic and white and has holes in it. Cut the plastic thing down so it fits snugly into the canning jar top ring. Add a small spoon of seeds, and lukewarm water to cover. Let sit for 6 hours. Seeds specifically for sprouting are necessary if you are going to eat your sprouts. Be sure to read part 2 tomorrow.

when to plant

Penny — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 03:51:00 +0000

The old timers around here say to never plant before Mother’s Day. Yet by a week after Mother’s Day they have tomato plants 14 inches tall. Starting your seeds early gives you that head start. We use that well aged compost as a planting medium. Sound fancy huh? What that means is you take some of your piled, cooked, manure and put it in a Styrofoam cup that has a hole punched in the bottom and add a couple pre-soaked seeds and watch! Pre-soaking your seeds makes a very big difference and works with anything bigger than a tomato seed. Some of them I will actually soak and then pour out and then sprout. When you pre-sprout things really get moving fast.

what to plant?

Penny — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 03:50:00 +0000

When choosing the best things to plant it does you well to talk to local folks. If they sell it at your local co-op it is because it grows in your area. Now that doesn’t mean nothing else will, but I wouldn’t invest in a pound of seeds for something exotic. In these days though it never does hurt to have a separate garden a ways off just to grow some heirloom varieties. Most seeds these days are hybrids and you can get the seeds from the produce but it won’t germinate. Is there a plan there? Yes probably. So plant some heirloom basics every year and harvest the seeds and keep in the freezer.

everybody loves strawberries

Penny — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:49:00 +0000

One thing we have not found a solution for is, opossums and rabbits and skunks. My goodness we have a lot of skunks around here. All three of those love my garden goodies, especially the strawberries. Actually everyone loves the strawberries. I cannot tell you how many times the dairy cow has jumped INTO the garden fence to get at the strawberry patch. And how many times the horses have leaned over the fence to eat the strawberries. It is a wonder we get any. It is like first come first served with the strawberries around here. Now I have talked myself right into a strawberry craving. Why does fresh fruit sound so good when you can’t get it?

what to do about weeds

Penny — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:41:00 +0000

If there is anything we usually have an abundance of it is weeds. But we have found a good solution, carpet. Yes carpet, old used carpet. We cut it in strips as long and as wide as the space between our rows. It keeps moisture, mud off your shoes, and does not let the weeds grow. You can usually get some from the dumpster of anywhere that sells carpet or floor coverings. Always asking first is a good practice. Don’t bother with the pad, it will crumble. If your garden spot has not been prepared by a horse or some other hardworking animal then you can get that carpet and before you cut it up spread out in your soon to be garden. It will block the sun that will be here sooner or later and keep those weeds from germinating. And it is a great way to recycle J.

putting in rows

Penny — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:40:00 +0000

We put careful planning in our rows. Our area is on a slight slope and the rows are deigned to go down hill. We do that for a reason. We shouldn’t have to water a garden around here but with the last couple years being a drought we have learned to improvise. Another reason we chose the spot we did is that there is a nice creek right beside it. That is another reason that the rows have a trench down the middle. We have a small submersible pump, ( $60 at your local hardware store ) that we use about 200 feet of extension cord with and drop it in the shallow creek, plug OUT of the water, with a huge rock keeping it that way. The pump connects to about 200 feet of garden hose whose end is placed at the top of a row. Since it is going up hill it moves slow and slowly drenches the row, taking it’s sweet ole time for a good soak. The pump will not last forever using this way but we can get 2-3 seasons out of it. Worth it for us and better than toting buckets.

a time to plant

Penny — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:39:00 +0000

When we first started our garden spot is was really bad soil. But it was a good spot. I figured it was easier to improve the soil than to move the sun or the hill so that is what we have been working n for 4 years. It is now really good. But we still do things the way we used to. For the most part we use the Ford 4000 tractor to turn the soil a bit and put in rows. All we have is a box blade so this requires a little ingenuity but it works. Then we use all of that lovely compost to put on top of each row. We do wide rows with a shallow trench down the middle.