Archives for August, 2009
Posted on Aug 29, 2009 under Gardening Tips |
Does anyone have any Gardening Tips for growing bell peppers?
What, is cyanne2ak nuts?? The plant HAS to flower to produce peppers!! The pepper comes from the flower.(a very small white flower about the size of a dime) I have been growing Bell peppers in the N.E. for 40 years. Plant seedlings outside after the threat of your last frost. Water and fertilize with all of your other vegetable plants in the garden. I plant mine right next to my tomato plants. They are very hearty and easy to grow. Good luck and BON APPITITE!
Posted on Aug 29, 2009 under Best Vegetables |
It’s now almost mid-March. I would like to grow vegetables in my back yard. When should I start planting seeds?
Here is a good link http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/VH021
In south Florida the time to plant veges is in the fall August is the earliest. Most planting is in Oct to Nov.
You still may have time for tomatoes. Here’s a link for help.
http://mgonline.com/tomatoes.html
Posted on Aug 29, 2009 under Best Seeds |
Out of only these colours: Pink, Yellow, Green
Which of these colors do seeds grow best in? and Why?
Thanks
Blue and red work best. Plants reflect green light that’s why we see the green color. However, judging from your colors, I will say pink, as it is furthest removed from green.
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Courses/bio104/photosyn.htm
Posted on Aug 29, 2009 under Best Tomatoes |
Hi there ;>
A friend of mine has 5 gallons of green tomatoes and he’s looking to use them up somehow- in recipes that can be preserved or canned for some time to come. Some ideas he gave me included a green tomato relish and/or salsa? Anything goes, as long as it’s good! :>
I’m new to canning, so please mention if you use a certain type of method for canning, and I can look up how to do that, if need be. Thanks!
Thanks, Irina C, but what I’m really looking for are recipes for *green* tomatoes. Thanks :>
Get yourself a pressure cooker/canner. That is THE ONLY FDA APPROVED WAY of safely doing home canning. The old fashioned hot water bath and others methods does not reach the temperature to safely kill the Botulium spores that can cause a case of fatal Botulism. The hot water bath only has a max temperature of 212 degrees F while the pressure canning method goes up to 240 degrees F. Pressure cooker/canners are relatively inexpensive and you will wonder why you never had one in your kitchen it is so fast and safe too. It saves about 80% of conventional cooking times. Make sure you get a stainless steel cooker. They are better than aluminum.
Posted on Aug 29, 2009 under Best Perennials |
I am planning on having a really big flower garden next year. I would like to plant some perennials, but I would want them to last for about a month, more would be better. I have already bought some gladiolis and some other different kinds of mixed bulbs, and these will bloom for about 1-3 monthes. What are some more? Any lillies or anything like that? I don’t care which type of perennial, but as long as it is nice.
Ps. I have a packet of snapdragon seeds and a packet of larkspur seeds that i didn’t get to plant this year, will they still be good for next year, so i can plant them then? Thanks in advance.
I didn’t know that roses bloom that long. I have about 4 roses. What kind would you suggest is the best?
i live in central canada
In my personal and very experienced opinion, nothing can beat the rose. They come in any number of types of bushes, even trees, any number of colors, and bloom from spring to fall with many colorful, fragrant blooms.
Throw the old seeds away, you are doomed to disappoinment planting them.
Posted on Aug 29, 2009 under Best For Garden |
I want to have a small "postage stamp" garden next spring and summer and have horrible soil in my yard. What is the best way to build a small raised bed?
Make a nice ‘postage sized’ frame out of 2×6, 2×8, 0r 2×10 lumber, or whatever boards you have. Put 4 posts in the corners, you can bang them into the dirt with a hammer, then nail the lumber on them, more or less LEVEL from one to the next, and as many ‘rows’ as you want the bed HIGH, —and fill the bed up to the TOP with good soil.
If you can’t FIND good soil, make it by digging up some of your horrible soil, a handful of bags of peat moss, some sand, and even a bit of sawdust, and mix it all together. In the FALL, sprinkle some 17-17-17 (weak) fertilizer on it, or some manure. Dig it in and mix it up. If you have LOTS of leaves falling from trees in the fall in your area, use those also, add LOTS of leaves to the mix . The MORE the better. If you can find some fishworms, throw them in the soil.
In the spring, plant your tiny garden and enjoy your tomatoes. Grow a pumpkin for your kids too.
Posted on Aug 27, 2009 under Gardening Tips |
By December, most gardeners have raked all their leaves, finished planting their spring bulbs and are preparing to patiently wait until spring to visit the garden again. If, however, you don’t mind the snow or freezing temperatures you don’t need to put all those tools away just yet. Winter can be a busy time for gardeners. Planning, of course, is important but there are a few other things which can be done as well which require
Here are a few Gardening Tips to help you get through winter.
Browse through all those gardening catalogs that are lying around or spend a little time online searching for the shrubs and flowers you’ll plant during the upcoming season. First, however, plan your new garden or update your existing one.
Rework your garden design while the ground is frozen. Think about what was missing in the garden during the previous season. Also, walk though the garden and determine what could make the landscape more interesting during the winter months. Often, a large evergreen serving as an anchor or specimen shrub can improve a winter landscape. Deciduous shrubs and trees with winter berries, unique form or colorful bark can also provide the garden with winter interest.
Forethought is essential when planning a successful garden. After you’ve decided what you’d like your new garden to offer, begin a site analysis. Having a clear understanding of your site’s conditions is important as it will enable you to make informed decisions regarding design and plant selection. Determine the following factors; climate & micro-climate, sun & shade conditions, wind exposure, soil composition and existing vegetation.
Plant hardiness zone maps divide the country into zones based on the lowest average winter temperature. A plant that is adapted to your hardiness zone is one that can tolerate the lowest winter temperature your zone typically experiences. Find out the zone in which you live and use it as guide during your plant selection process.
Along with the overall climate conditions of your area, micro-climates within your specific site also determine what is appropriate for your garden. A sunny spot against a brick wall with a southern exposure, for example, will be warmer than its surrounding environment. In a space such as this, plants which are borderline hardy have a better chance at survival than if planted elsewhere in the garden.
The canopy of the existing trees can protect plants by reducing their radiant heat loss. In winter, the micro-climate beneath a tree may be several degrees warmer than the surrounding air, this slight difference in temperature can be beneficial to some plants.
Being aware of the sun and shade conditions in your garden is critical to proper plant placement and, in turn, to the long term health of your plants. Improperly placed plants are a main reason for unnecessary transplants.
Getting to know the conditions of your site before you begin planning and planting can be the difference between success and disappointment. Properly planned gardens ensure the time you invest in you garden is worth it, as each properly placed plant thrives.
Another gardening chore which could be done during the winter is pruning deciduous trees and shrubs. During the winter, while there are no leaves on the trees, you’re able to see more clearly a plant’s branching structure. Prune any branches which are criss crossed or that are growing inward toward the trunk of the tree or shrub. Any upward pointing branches on a weeping plant should also be removed. When pruning, make your cuts slightly above the branch collar. Check on your evergreen shrubs after snow storms and shake off the snow if any has accumulated on the branches.
Check your perennial gardens for heaving, especially in areas prone to repeated freezing and thawing. Recycle your Christmas tree as garden mulch and don’t forget to feed the birds and provide them with some unfrozen water. Remember to sharpen your tools so you’ll be ready to get to work when the ground thaws.
Though you won’t be planting new flowers and cultivating the soil, winter is the perfect time to prepare for next spring whether your preparing for new garden projects or out amongst the trees and shrubs pruning.
anonymous
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/winter-gardening-tips-82194.html
Posted on Aug 27, 2009 under Best Vegetables |
Before taking up the garden vegetables individually, I shall outline the general practice of cultivation, which applies to all.
The purposes of cultivation are three to get rid of weeds, and to stimulate growth by (1) letting air into the soil and freeing unavailable plant food, and (2) by conserving moisture.
As to weeds, the gardener of any experience need not be told the importance of keeping his crops clean. He has learned from bitter and costly experience the price of letting them get anything resembling a start. He knows that one or two days’ growth, after they are well up, followed perhaps by a day or so of rain, may easily double or treble the work of cleaning a patch of onions or carrots, and that where weeds have attained any size they cannot be taken out of sowed crops without doing a great deal of injury. He also realizes, or should, that every day’s growth means just so much available plant food stolen from under the very roots of his legitimate crops.
Instead of letting the weeds get away with any plant food, he should be furnishing more, for clean and frequent cultivation will not only break the soil up mechanically, but let in air, moisture and heat all essential in effecting those chemical changes necessary to convert non- available into available plant food. Long before the science in the case was discovered, the soil cultivators had learned by observation the necessity of keeping the soil nicely loosened about their growing crops. Even the lanky and untutored aborigine saw to it that his squaw not only put a bad fish under the hill of maize but plied her shell hoe over it. Plants need to breathe. Their roots need air. You might as well expect to find the rosy glow of happiness on the wan cheeks of a cotton-mill child slave as to expect to see the luxuriant dark green of healthy plant life in a suffocated garden.
Important as the question of air is, that of water ranks beside it. You may not see at first what the matter of frequent cultivation has to do with water. But let us stop a moment and look into it. Take a strip of blotting paper, dip one end in water, and watch the moisture run up hill, soak up through the blotter. The scientists have labeled that “capillary attraction” the water crawls up little invisible tubes formed by the texture of the blotter. Now take a similar piece, cut it across, hold the two cut edges firmly together, and try it again. The moisture refuses to cross the line: the connection has been severed.
In the same way the water stored in the soil after a rain begins at once to escape again into the atmosphere. That on the surface evaporates first, and that which has soaked in begins to soak in through the soil to the surface. It is leaving your garden, through the millions of soil tubes, just as surely as if you had a two-inch pipe and a gasoline engine, pumping it into the gutter night and day! Save your garden by stopping the waste. It is the easiest thing in the world to do cut the pipe in two. By frequent cultivation of the surface soil not more than one or two inches deep for most small vegetables the soil tubes are kept broken, and a mulch of dust is maintained. Try to get over every part of your garden, especially where it is not shaded, once in every ten days or two weeks. Does that seem like too much work? You can push your wheel hoe through, and thus keep the dust mulch as a constant protection, as fast as you can walk. If you wait for the weeds, you will nearly have to crawl through, doing more or less harm by disturbing your growing plants, losing all the plant food (and they will take the cream) which they have consumed, and actually putting in more hours of infinitely more disagreeable work. If the beginner at gardening has not been convinced by the facts given, there is only one thing left to convince him experience.
Having given so much space to the reason for constant care in this matter, the question of methods naturally follows. Get a wheel hoe. The simplest sorts will not only save you an infinite amount of time and work, but do the work better, very much better than it can be done by hand. You can grow good vegetables, especially if your garden is a very small one, without one of these labor-savers, but I can assure you that you will never regret the small investment necessary to procure it.
With a wheel hoe, the work of preserving the soil mulch becomes very simple. If one has not a wheel hoe, for small areas very rapid work can be done with the scuffle hoe.
The matter of keeping weeds cleaned out of the rows and between the plants in the rows is not so quickly accomplished. Where hand-work is necessary, let it be done at once. Here are a few practical suggestions that will reduce this work to a minimum, (1) Get at this work while the ground is soft; as soon as the soil begins to dry out after a rain is the best time. Under such conditions the weeds will pull out by the roots, without breaking off. (2) Immediately before weeding, go over the rows with a wheel hoe, cutting shallow, but just as close as possible, leaving a narrow, plainly visible strip which must be hand- weeded. The best tool for this purpose is the double wheel hoe with disc attachment, or hoes for large plants. (3) See to it that not only the weeds are pulled but that every inch of soil surface is broken up. It is fully as important that the weeds just sprouting be destroyed, as that the larger ones be pulled up. One stroke of the weeder or the fingers will destroy a hundred weed seedlings in less time than one weed can be pulled out after it gets a good start. (4) Use one of the small hand-weeders until you become skilled with it. Not only may more work be done but the fingers will be saved unnecessary wear.
The skilful use of the wheel hoe can be acquired through practice only. The first thing to learn is that it is necessary to watch the wheels only: the blades, disc or rakes will take care of themselves.
The operation of “hilling” consists in drawing up the soil about the stems of growing plants, usually at the time of second or third hoeing. It used to be the practice to hill everything that could be hilled “up to the eyebrows,” but it has gradually been discarded for what is termed “level culture”; and you will readily see the reason, from what has been said about the escape of moisture from the surface of the soil; for of course the two upper sides of the hill, which may be represented by an equilateral triangle with one side horizontal, give more exposed surface than the level surface represented by the base. In wet soils or seasons hilling may be advisable, but very seldom otherwise. It has the additional disadvantage of making it difficult to maintain the soil mulch which is so desirable.
Rotation of crops.
——————
There is another thing to be considered in making each vegetable do its best, and that is crop rotation, or the following of any vegetable with a different sort at the next planting.
With some vegetables, such as cabbage, this is almost imperative, and practically all are helped by it. Even onions, which are popularly supposed to be the proving exception to the rule, are healthier, and do as well after some other crop, provided the soil is as finely pulverized and rich as a previous crop of onions would leave it.
Here are the fundamental rules of crop rotation:
(1) Crops of the same vegetable, or vegetables of the same family (such as turnips and cabbage) should not follow each other.
(2) Vegetables that feed near the surface, like corn, should follow deep-rooting crops.
(3) Vines or leaf crops should follow root crops.
(4) Quick-growing crops should follow those occupying the land all season.
These are the principles which should determine the rotations to be followed in individual cases. The proper way to attend to this matter is when making the planting plan. You will then have time to do it properly, and will need to give it no further thought for a year.
With the above suggestions in mind, and put to use , it will not be difficult to give the crops those special attentions which are needed to make them do their very best.
John Ugoshowa
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/the-cultivation-of-vegetables-73848.html
Posted on Aug 27, 2009 under Best Tomatoes |
Posted on Aug 27, 2009 under Best Seeds |
Thinking of using natural food to lower cholesterol? Then, it is a great idea!
As many people know, cholesterol is a waxy lipid (a fat) that naturally circulates in the blood. It is an important substance for many bodily functions including digestion, the manufacturing of vitamin D and the making of sex hormones.
It is found in every cell of the body as part of the cell’s wall. However, like anything else, cholesterol levels that are too high are a danger signal. How high is too high? Total cholesterol levels should be less than 200, with total cholesterol being a combination of LDL (bad) cholesterol and HDL (good) cholesterol.
As in many things, having an excess is normally bad. Too much cholesterol is bad for heart health. The extra cholesterol will build up on the walls of the arteries, clogging them. This will often result in a stroke or a heart attack.
So, how do you watch out for signs of high cholesterol?
Some common factors include chest pain, obesity, smoking, a family history of high cholesterol, a sedentary lifestyle, and a diet high in saturated fats. If any of these risk factors are present, especially in combination, a visit to the doctor to determine cholesterol levels is recommended.
One good way to lower high cholesterol is adopting a diet to lower cholesterol. Certain diet plans (e.g. Atkins, Weight Watchers diets…) can be adapted to function as a diet to lower high cholesterol.
The key lies in ensuring that the diet includes the following things: low-fat foods, high-fiber foods, fresh fruits and vegetables, reduced salt and sugar, legumes and nuts.
Enjoy processed meats, whole milk products, eggs, fatty meats, bakery goods and fried foods in moderation. Or better yet, avoid them. Eating food like baked fish, whole-grain products, oatmeal, oat bran, artichokes, and unsaturated oils will benefit both heart health and cholesterol levels.
Switching to a diet to lower high cholesterol does not mean that you cannot enjoy your meals any more. Simple substitutes for less desirable foods are readily available in any supermarket.
Try low-fat cheese, fat-free milk, and butter substitutes instead of whole milk products. Lean cuts of meat, baked fish, fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, soy products, beans and peas, green and seeds all fortify the diet to lower cholesterol, giving the heart one of the best types of protection.
Simple changes in cooking techniques can also make a huge difference. Drain grease when cooking, regulate portion sizes, bake or broil foods instead of frying them. Use vegetable oil when cooking, trim off fats and avoid adding extra salt or sugar.
To enhance the effectiveness of using natural food to lower cholesterol, include other ways to help lower cholesterol. Follow a balanced aerobic exercise routine. It has important benefits like weight loss and better circulation. Walking, running and swimming are all good forms of exercise. In addition, they burn excess fats or calories at the same time.
If you smoke, quit! It will improve the health of blood vessels and decrease the risk of stroke. Medications, such as Lipitor, to lower high cholesterol are used as a last resort.
Usually, a natural ndiet to lower high cholesterol combined with exercise will do the trick. So, take the first step to heart health now and go have a cholesterol level check done. It just may be the best thing you’ve done for your body in a long time. And who knows, there may still be time to work on prevention, starting with a natural diet to lower cholesterol levels.
George Peters
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/best-natural-food-to-lower-cholesterol-125030.html