Pruning Tomatos



I noticed as I do more and more research that no one can agree about whether or not to prune or pinch back tomato plants of useless branches and/or "suckers". Personally I think it is a good idea to get rid of the branches that are not going to produce in order to save the nutrients for the branches that are going to produce. Suckers are called that because they suck nutrients from the plant before they can get to the fruits.

Suckers are like little branches that begin to grow between the main stem and a branch stem. These little defective branches will not give you any added fruit and can actually take away from the rest of the plant. I would recommend getting rid of these suckers to offer more nutrients for the fruit bearing branches.

Do not go overboard and take off a ton of branches, but if they look "sick" and are not growing any larger, remove them. Do this by using either your finger nails or a sharp knife, and pinching or cutting the useless branches at the base. The plants will heal relatively fast and grow even better than before. There is no need to be too picky. If you miss a couple here and there don't worry, the plants should continue to grow, just maybe not quite as well.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Canning Green Beans

About 1/4 of one day of harvest.

The green beans are growing like crazy and I find myself harvesting more every 2-3 days. I am already canning them even though it is only July. I will have to do this now for the next month or maybe more. I will pickle some and can some plain so we can enjoy them later just as if they were fresh. Much better home canned than factory canned. Here is a guideline of how I go about canning my beans.

First get lids into warm water, sterilize jars, and all the other fun preparations for canning. Cut and clean beans then follow below. (I do not use a pressure canner, ever.)

To Pickle About 4 quarts:

Pack beans into jar, adding spices of your choice. ( I do red pepper flakes, garlic, and dill or any combination of them)

Boil 5 cups of water with 5 cups of vinegar and 2-3tablespoons of canning/pickling salt.

Fill jars with hot liquid leaving an inch of head space (to the bottom of the ring threads)

Cover and finger tighten the ring.

As long as the liquid was at/near boiling temp when cover is added, the jars should seal without hot water bathing, but you can hot water bath for 15minutes if you want to be sure.

Let sit for at least 2 weeks and then enjoy. Sealed they will last 1 year plus in the cupboard.


To Can Plain:

Prepare jars and lids as normal.
Mix 6 cups of water to 1 cup vinegar and 2 tablespoons canning/pickling salt.

Bring mix to a boil and add beans. Boil beans just for 2-4 minutes.

While the liquid is still boiling, add the beans to the jar, and fill with brine you boiled them in leaving the 1 inch again.

Put lid on jar and fingertip tighten.

As long as the beans and brine are very hot when adding to jar there is no need to water bath, or you can hot water bath for 15 minutes just to be certain.


Make sure not to mess with the hot jars for at least 12 hours to prevent a bad seal. Then store them for up to year in a dark cool place. Always be sure to start with clean and sterile jars. Check seal after 12-24 hours by pushing down slightly on cover. If it doesn't move up and down it is good.

Shingles Explained

In the video above I explain why and how I used the shingles in the garden, and also show you the results. After the shingles did their job, I moved them to another area to start the process again.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Shingles Moved

This morning I pulled up the shingles I laid a few weeks back to keep the weeds down in between the rows of plants. As I planned, the weeds were dead and gone leaving behind just nice soil. So, I moved the shingles to another area of the garden to kill off some more weeds.


To understand why I do this, you need to understand why weeds grow. Your plants do not grow naturally, you had to plant them(in most cases). Weeds seem to grow anywhere at anytime without being planted. That is because weeds are natures way to protect the soil. The sun beating on bare soil is actually very harmful to the soil. So, the earth grows weeds to shade the soil and keep the suns rays from beating down on it. To keep the weeds from growing all we need to do is protect the soil from the sun's harmful rays.


After I moved the shingles to another location in the garden, I laid compost mulch where the shingles used to be. The compost will keep the sun from beating down on the soil and I will still have my nice walking path in between the rows. At the end of the season, all I will do is till in the compost mulch I laid and it will increase the quality of the soil in the spring. It is really a win win win situation.


There is one downfall to this method. It does not bother me on bit, but it does have an earthy farm-like smell to it. Typically this only lasts for a few days after, but it can last for a couple weeks. So, if you have a smaller property where the garden is near your house, you may want to try another method like newspaper or some black tarp or garbage bags.


If you are willing and able to use this method I would choose this one over the others. Newspaper will decompose quickly and you will need to lay more down every week or two. The tarp or bag method requires you to pick it up at the end of the season because they will not decompose, plus they both cast money. Compost is basically free. Your going to need to cut your lawn anyway.
Hopefully this can help you control weeds in your garden naturally and cheaply.


Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Planted too much, now what?

My belief is that is you have the room and the time to care for your garden, there is no such thing as planting too much. Most of your veggies can be stored for long periods of time after you harvest them. There are only a handful that do not store very well, but still, you can never plant too much.

Quickly, if you planted too many of something that does not store well, like radishes, you can give them away to family members, friends, or maybe try to sell them at a farmers market or something similar. I found that giving them to friends and family helps encourage others to start a garden, which is always a goal of mine.

Now, when it comes to storing your produce, you have a couple options to choose from. Many people will simply freeze their produce. This is a good way to keep most veggies for up to one year. I will get more specific in a later post, but there are ways to keep the freshness for several months or even a year when freezing.
Maybe you already knew this, but things with a tougher skin can actually store without any preparation. One good example is squash. Squash can be kept in a dark cool place for 6 months to a year and still be very fresh tasting. Actually, we just cooked a squash from last year that was kept in the pantry for about 9 months now. It was delicious.

My favorite way to keep my produce is canning. It is a bit more work than freezing, but the time it will last is increased greatly, maybe indefinitely. I will cover how to can fresh veggies when the harvest season gets a little closer.  

I was trying to find the article I read a few months ago but was unable to locate it for a link. Somewhere in the U.S. there was a home canned mason jar of mushrooms found from the 1920's. I can't recall who or why they did it, but they had scientists test the canned fungus to see if it was still safe to eat. Surprisingly, it was reported that there would be no harm done if they were consumed. That's 80+ years later and they are still edible.

I don't think I would have the guts to eat something that old, but it goes to show that canned goods can stay for a very long time. I am sure they would lose some flavor over all the decades, but what are the chances that yours will be stored that long?

Don't worry about planting too much because you can enjoy this years garden for years to come, if you have enough. I know they wouldn't last that long in this house. Plant away and just store the extras for later.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Bean & Pea First Harvet

The first few sweet peas that I picked today (7-2-12). They are super sweet and delicious. Even the pod itself is as sweet as the peas lurking within. I want to point out one thing regarding the peas and their harvest. You can see in the picture that I left the flower part and just a little stem on the pod when I plucked it from the plant. By using a sharp knife or some scissors, I cut them off of the plant about 1/4"-1/2" above where the flower was. The reason I do this is to slow the post harvest ripening. If you are going to eat them right away this is not so important, but you will notice the sweetness will start diminishing just hours after harvest if the stem is not left partially intact. 

I also harvested about 1 pound of beans today (there are a lot more than pictured). We were going to eat these right away so I cut the ends and rinsed them off immediately after harvest. I also do this before canning them, but don't do it too far ahead as they will begin to dry out.Trim the ends and rinse them to be sure no dirt particles are still on the beans and then either can, freeze, or enjoy.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Water, Water, Water

We need to talk about watering the garden. I have been reading different areas on the web about gardening. One big disagreement I have with many gardeners is the amount of water needed to have a plentiful garden. I read a few articles that said once per day was plenty, and then another that said something about making sure the soil dries out between watering.
Depending on the weather, once per day may be okay. If that's all you have time to do, don't worry your garden will still grow, it just may not produce as well as it could. I know not everyone can spend as much time as I do in the garden, so if I tell you I water 3 times a day, you may think I'm nuts. But, 3 times daily is my routine unless it rains or for some other reason I feel it doesn't need it.
The statement I read about letting the soil dry out in between came from someone that works full-time at a chain home improvement store as a garden specialist. I was astonished when I read to let the soil dry out. I do not let my soil get "dried out" ever. Vegetables need a lot of water to grow properly.
Why so much water? Let's consider what a vegetable is made of. Vegetables are made up of anywhere from 80-95% water. Cucumbers and other water-logged veggies are something like 95-97% water. They need lots of water to grow correctly because that is what they are, water.
So, the moral of this post is not to be stingy with your water. Your veggies will love you for the water and you will love them back once harvest time comes. No one wants to eat a dried out cucumber or a tomato with no juice in it. Keep your soil moist, just don't flood them out.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Harvesting; Note For Future

Today, I harvested a single pea pod for my wife and son to try. Just a little taste of what is to come in the next few weeks. There was one pod that was beautifully green, long, and plump. They ate it right when I gave it to them with great eagerness. Then, I was asked by my wife why the ones we bought at the store tasted so much different. She said the ones I grew were much sweeter.

Now keep in mind what I am going to tell you goes for most item bought in the produce section that can be grown at home. Nearly everything in the fresh produce section is sold to the consumer by weight. This is the reason most items are overgrown when they are sold to stores for consumer purchase.

You have no choice when the produce you buy in the store is harvested for sale. You do have the choice when it is growing in your garden at home. At home, you can harvest the produce a little earlier in the plants life cycle. They have way more flavor when they are not "overgrown" for weight purposes.

Another very noticeable one is carrots. Carrots from the produce section at the store are often close, if not more, than a foot long and they tend to be very firm in the center. I harvest at home when they are about 6-8 inches long. They are very tender and have a certain sweetness that I do not taste from the store. 

This is just something to keep in mind later in the season when it is time to harvest the veggies. Do you want a larger vegetable or a much better tasting vegetable? Size is not the most important thing here. So, let your crop mature, but be sure to harvest it while it is fairly young. When the time gets closer, I will go over each crop seperately regarding harvesting. This is just a guidline to keep in mind for the future.

Remember, Mother Earth smile when when you garden!  

Proof Compost Mulch & Tea Work

I am always writing about how important I think compost is in the garden without actually showing in works. Sure, all my plants are growing great, but is it really from the compost items I use? I did a little experiment to give myself, and you, proof that it does work.

As you can see in the picture, I have 2 rows of sweet corn with compost mulch around them and the rest have nothing but soil around them. All of the plants get the same amount of sun and water. I did everything the same with them all, other then using the compost mulch and compost tea on the 2 left rows only.

The results are clear as day. Those 2 rows have almost doubled the rest of the plants. Actually, they have more than doubled because the next two rows to the right are a little bigger than the last 5 rows. I think they were able to reach some of the nutrients from the compost products from being fairly close. Anyway, it works wonders as you can see in the picture above.

I have now compost mulched around the rest of the sweet corn and will give them the compost tea once a week along with the rest of the garden. We will see if the final ears of corn are any larger on the first 2 rows or if the others can catch up to those. So, there it is, the results are clear, compost works wonders in the garden.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Compost Mulching How-To

The picture above is how my corn was beginning to look. It is actually somewhat difficult to see the corn among all those weeds. The look of this makes me sick, all those weeds trying to take over the area of my sweet corn. I am going to show you how I take care of this using the organic mulch I wrote about making. You can see near the mottom left where I started to pull out the weeds. I pull out as many weeds as I can before laying the mulch. Missing a few of the little ones isn't too big of a deal as the mulch will takes care of them.

In this picture you can see I got it cleared out from weeds pretty good. There might be a few little ones hanging in there yet, but all in all it is pretty clear. So, now that there is bare soil it needs to be protected from the sun so that no weeds will grow there again. Also, the little ones that were missed need to be cut off from the sun so they die off. All we need to do is cover the soil with a nice layer of the organic mulch made at home.

I like to lay a nice thick layer (3"-4") since it was basically free anyway. The more the better in my mind as it is going to prevent weeds from growing and also feed the plants for quite some time. The mulch will also slow the evaporation of water from the soil. You will notice that the soil will stay wetter longer after laying the mulch. You can use this method around any plants to prevent weeds and feed the plants. Just be sure that the good plants leaves are above the layer of mulch. You do not want to stop the sun from reaching your good plants.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Making Organic Mulch

Are you tired of weeding and feeding you plants all the time? I sure get sick of pulling weeds all the time. They grow so fast and make the garden look terrible. Not to mention ruining the fertility of the soil for the plants you want to grow big and strong. Here is a way to make your own organic mulch which will provide a weed barrier, plant food, and help preserve water.

All you need to make a nice mulch is grass clippings. Your going to cut your grass anyway, so throw a bagger on the mower and your half way to making mulch for the garden. Put the clippings in to some type of composting container like a barrel or a garbage can. Preferably one with a lid on it. Put the bin full of clippings in the sun for a few days, turning or stirring it one or two times a day. Depending on how much sun it gets, it should only take a few days, maybe a week, to be ready.

Once you can clearly see the clippings have changes in color and also smell like a farm, it can be used. You are basically partially composting the grass clippings and then using them for mulch.

When your ready, check out my post on how to lay the mulch. I have pictures to show how I prepare the soil for mulching and how much better it looks when it is done.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Volunteer Plants

I was recently asked what the term "volunteer tomato" means. This simply means you have a tomato plant that is growing somewhere you did not plant it. Don't get all stressed out and think something is wrong because this is normal to happen. It can occur for several reasons, but you may never know for sure what caused yours.

First, we have to understand that tomatos have been grown domestically and wildly for thousands of years. This length of time has made the tomato plants very hearty and adaptable. Ones growing without anyone caring for them may not produce very good tomatos unless the climate is right, but they will grow none the less.

So, if you have a volunteer plant growing somewhere, it just means a seed got to that location at one point. Typically, it is a seed from the previous year. It may have ended up their after an animal ate one they got away with, or maybe a seed dropped during planting, or maybe even a tomato that was dropped during harvesting. There are a million ways it could have gotten their.

I have already found a volunteer tomato plant sprouting in the gravel of our driveway. If they are hearty enough to grow in a gravel driveway, do not be suprised to see one pop up in your lawn or other location in the yard. Really this can happen with any plant, but not all plants are as willing to grow just anywhere.

So don't think you are doing something wrong when plants happen to pop up somewhere you did not plant them. It happens sometimes. You can take care of the volunteer or just pluck it out. Maybe you would like to leave it alone and let it go naturally for comparison to the ones you are going to take care of. The choice is up to you.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Free Food or Not?

Last night I received an email from a disgruntle person in Maine, USA. I had posted an ad title "Free Food" to attract traffic to this blog. The person went out of their way and childishly emailed me this message:

"It ain't FREE FOOD if you have to grow it. There is a lot of work that goes into farming.

Do not attempt to grow a brain."

 

 

According to Webster Dictionary one definition of free is "not costing or charging anything". So lets figure out if my gardening is free according to this universal definition. Whether or not I am growing a garden I have to eat just like everyone does. Many of the foods I come across have seeds in them as I am sure most people eat something with seeds at one point or another. If not, healthy eating is obviously not a concern. If there is something I want to grow, I will save the seeds from that item whenever I eat it.

I use strictly rainwater to water my garden. I do not know about anyone else but I don't pay for it to rain. Maybe my bill has just gotten lost all these years. So, anyway, my water is free. The ground I use is part of the property I pay for to have a place to live. The dirt is free by definition since I am not paying for dirt.

My fertilizer is made from compost, water, and other naturally growing items. Therefore, all my plant food is free also. So that is everything needed, other than labor, to grow food. So far, I would say it is free. I do all the labor and don't charge myself for it, so labor is free too. Wow, I am at a whopping cost of $0.00 so far. Oh, wait that's all there is so I guess the food I will get from the garden is FREE! Sorry to disappoint you "Michael" but my food harvested from my garden is indeed absolutely free.

As far as the work, yes it is a lot of work to be a farmer, but I am a gardener which is much less labor intensive. I am not saying it won't take any work to grow a garden, but whether you grow it or buy it you have to work for it. Unless someone is just giving you money for nothing, which makes you a mooch anyway and you aren't going to care whether it takes work or not.

A little bit of work, which is also free, in the garden pays for itself ten-fold or more even if you have to pay for seeds or a little water. Check out my page "Why Garden?" for an example of how much money you can save and other benefits of gardening.

I hope this guy realized what he said is foolish and my garden is proof. As for the growing a brain comment, I have a college degree so apparently I grew that just fine too. Don't be foolish like this guy and go out and start growing your FREE food!

If you need idea, help, or want to argue more about whether it is free food or not, feel free to comment below or shoot me an email through my profile. Good luck and happy gardening!

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

How and Why to Use Mulch

I have visited several friends gardens lately and noticed the same thing with them all. There is one thing I do that I noticed most others don't. I like to mulch around my plants as soon as they are tall enough to allow a nice layer of mulch below the foliage. Mulching is a bit of work but also has many benefits like weed control, fertilizing protection, and water conservation.

The first benefit of mulching is plant protection. Do you ever notice when it rains or you are watering that the ground splashes up onto the plants? With some plants this is not a big deal, but with other plants it can harm them greatly. The ground splashing up onto the foliage can cause damage if it sits there too long. The layer of mulch will prevent the dirt from splashing up.

While preventing the splashes, the mulch will absorb much of the excess moisture and release it slowly. There is nothing growing in the mulch mix so it will not use the water, gravity will slowly pull it out and down to the plant roots. This also provides a layer of shade to prevent the water in the soil from evaporating. You will need less water once the mulch is down compared to a garden with no mulch.

I recommend using organic mulch made at home from grass and leaf clippings. I'll have another article later today on how to make the mulch.

To apply mulch, simply put a nice layer down around the base of the plants. I like to make it 2-3 inches thick if the plants allow. Remember to keep the good plants foliage above the layer of mulch to receive the sunlight while cutting off the weeds below to cut them off from the sunlight.

As the mulch decomposes, it will provide a nice balanced diet for the plants. It finishes it's composting cycle while protecting your plants.Food, protection, and weed control all wrapped into one. Mulch does take some work now, but saves so much more later on.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Keep Beet Greens

Many people do not realize when they trim their beets and throw out the greens they are wasting more good food. The leaves are a great additive to a salad. It is more of a bitter taste so don't make your salad with only beet leaves.

Beet leave have a nice red veiny look to them that adds a nice colorful cheer to any salad. Don't let my comment about being bitter let me scare you away from using them. They do not over power the taste of the salad when used in moderation. There is no sense in getting rid of good food from the garden. Beet leaves are full of goodies for your body.

To use them, simply cut the stem off and soak the greens in some ice water for about 5 minutes or so. Pat them dry with a paper towel and put them into your salad. All that is left is enjoying more of your harvest than ever before.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Thinning Beets & Carrots

 Video Demonstration

You may not want to consider it, but it is important to remove some of the plants you have starting to grow. When I first started to garden, I refused to thin because I felt like I was wasting some of the seedlings that began to grow. Now, after a few years, I realize it is very important to get some of them out of the way for the good ones to grow bigger.

In order for the plants to grow more freely, you have to give them the space they need. Plants will not grow as well if there is another plant right on top of it. You have to remove some of them to give the others room to grow. You can try to transplant them, but I typically just throw them into the compost bin.

When I plant, I typically put 2-3 seeds per spot just in case some do not grow. When they all do grow, the thinning process must be completed. In each spot, find the best looking one and leave it alone. Take the other couple out of that area. This way you get to pick the best of the crop to finish growing. Less plants with more room will produce more than more plants with less room.

Timing usually is not too critical, but you do not want to wait too long as the roots underground may start to intertwine and then when you try to pull one you wind up pulling the ones you wanted to keep. So, thin them out before they get too large, but also wait until they are well set into their growth pattern. Give the plants the room they need and the bounty will follow.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

My Garden has Shingles

Video Demonstration

Don't get scared, these shingles are serving a good purpose. I found a new way to use some of the extra crap taking up room in my garage. I had a pile of unused shingles in my garage that don't match the roof on my house. What am I going to do with them now?

I plant my plants on top of mounded rows, click here to read why. Pulling the weeds on top of the mounds doesn't take all that long, so it is not so bad to do. Now, what about the walking path between the rows? I do not want to spend hours pulling weeds from a walking path, but it also looks terrible with tons of weeds growing in the garden. I'm going to choke them out.

As you can see in the video, I simply laid shingles along the path right over the top of the weeds. Weeds are just like any other plant and needs the sunlight to grow. The shingles will totally cut them off, and they make a nice walking surface. I just overlapped them a little bit to make sure the weeds are covered well. I don't see a need to nail them together or anything. This way they should still be good for next year, granted they can take the walking on. I'm not a roofer so I'm just guessing.

Other options would be to use a dark colored plastic tarp or sheeting, or lay some untreated wood down. Wood will most likely rot through the season, but if it is something you have laying around with no other use, why not? The idea is to cut the sunlight from the weeds, thus "choking them out". I hope you can use this to figure out a way to control your weeds in unused areas of the garden.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden! 

Rain Barrels Illegal?

I was recently asked by a reader if collection of rainwater was against the law in certain areas. I was shocked to find out that it actually is unlawful to collect rainwater in a couple of states. Utah, Colorado, and Washington all have laws in place prohibiting the collection of rainwater according to NaturalNews.com http://www.naturalnews.com/029286_rainwater_collection_water.html.

This is just ridiculous to me. Our planet is in need of people willing to do more to protect the natural resources that are left and being over consumed. I can not believe that the government would ban people from collecting the rainwater that falls onto their houses. Do government officials really think this is a bad thing?

It has to be about the money. What other explanation can there be for these preposterous laws? The people that care enough about the planet to try and conserve water and their carbon footprint on this planet are costing the government money. They use less water from the treatment plant, therefore the city or county operating the plant makes a little less money. This is a perfect example of why our planet is in such a predicament with natural resources.

I believe in water conservation and think it should be a responsibility of all citizens, not a right or a privilege. I can not think of one good reason that collecting rain water should be banned. According to the same article stated above from NaturalNews.com, the local governments have been working to change the laws to fit today's needs. Many are letting small scale collection units be setup like one at a person's home. Large scale projects, however, are still prohibited.

There is a news story that can be found here on YouTube.com regarding a setup that sparked the attention to the legality of rainwater collection. This guy just wanted to save water by using rainwater to wash cars. What is wrong with that? It's good they worked with the guy on it afterward, but I think it is wrong that he has to buy water rights for the rain falling on his building. He paid for the building and the property it is on which is rights enough by my standards.

Thank God it is not illegal in my state. You can check you area here: http://www.harvesth2o.com/statues_regulations.shtml. Some states have no regulations, some just limit the amount to a few thousand gallons, and other actuall offer incentives to collect rainwater. Incentives are a great way to get people wanting to conserve water. All states should be offering incentives or at least letting people conserve if they want to. I only intend to increase my capacities and urge you to do the same, laws depending I guess.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Flat Garden or Mounds?

I have always wondered why people would take the time to plant their veggies in mounds? In past years I have simply planted a flat garden which was very easy, to set up anyway. This year I took the time to make mounds in rows to plant my veggies.

There are several benefits I have already noticed with using the mounds. It is still early in the season, but I see things going even better this year than last. Some things are just easier to do when you mound the rows.

Irrigation is one thing that has become much easier. I made the mounds with a bit of a raised edge on the outsides. This keeps the water near the base of the plant rather than running off to another area. I will use about the same about of water daily as I did last year even though my garden has nearly doubled in size.

Planting was easier as I like to dig a trench and layer compost on the bottom where the roots of the plants will be. I dug the trench along the center of the mound, laid compost, and planted on top of the compost.

Weeding is way easier as I only have to hand weed on the mounds. In between the mounds I can use a rake to yank the weeds out without worrying about damaging the plants. In the flat garden I had to hand weed everywhere or I would wind up hitting the plants with the rake.

My opinion is to use mounds if you want to make things easier in the long run. It takes a bit longer to get the garden set up, but the times saved in the future makes the effort seem minimal. I will be using mounds from here on out.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

Growing Seedlings

So, you want to try starting your garden from seed this year. That is a great idea as it is neat to watch how the plants grow from start to finish. When you buy them pre-grown, you miss the most exciting part of the plants growth cycle. It is amazing how much a plant can grow from day to day and it is much easier to see in the first few weeks of the plants life.


Starting your seeds indoors is how many people must do it just because of how the climate is in that region. In Wisconsin, I rarely plant outdoors before Memorial Day weekend. It is far too cold at night for a good germination process. 2012 was my first year of exception as I planted outside almost 3 weeks early and plants are doing very well.


I typically use one of those mini greenhouses that can be found at most stores as early as January. If you have any fine compost at home use that mixed in with a cheap bag of potting soil, or try to buy a little better potting soil if you do not have compost to add. I like to plant 2 seeds in each cell just in case one does not do so well and I can choose later which looks more healthy and keep the best of the bunch.


Try to use a good water and water often to keep damp but not soaked. By good water I mean not tap if possible. My best luck came from using water from the fish tank. The fish secretions add nutrients to the water that are very beneficial for your seedlings. If you do not have a fish tank, try to use rain water or melt some snow in a bucket. If you must use tap water, the seeds should still grow.


Thin as needed, transplant as needed, and grow your own plants from seed this year. Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!

The Best Ways to Fertilize

There are far too many ways to fertilize your garden than I am willing to go into. Most people want to keep it simple so they just head to the local nursery and buy a product from them. Some are organic, however the price on the organic vs synthetic is going to be significantly more. That is fine if you like to waste money. As I ad to my blog and you read more here, you will see that I garden with the smallest of budgets.
All the ways I feed my plants are completely organic. I will not use any chemicals on my plants at anytime. The whole reason I love to garden is the fresh organic goods that come from it. Far better than what can be bought in stores. Here are my favorite two and the two I use most often.
The best way to get good healthy plants is starting with good soil. Now don't panic, this doesn't mean you have to go buy a ton of fresh soil. Simply start a compost bin and use what you make yourself to create better soil. The compost from the past fall should be tilled into the soil a couple weeks ahead of planting. Watch for my blog post on how to make a compost.
After planting, the compost tilled in will not be enough to feed the plants all season. My preference to feeding weekly is using a compost tea. It keeps it simple since I make compost to add into the soil, why not make a little more and use it to make a liquid fertilizer? I will also post on how to make the tea.
Moral of the blog is to save your money and do it yourself. This is the only way you truly know what is going into your fertilizer and soil mixes. The benefits of good gardening are great for any lifestyle.

Remember, Mother Earth smiles when you garden!