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Tag: herbs
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Permaculture Paradise: Val and Eli’s Garden!
Val and Eli take us on a tour of their magical permagarden in Jacksonville FL. They have created a wonderful, natural space filled with self-sustaining fruits, vegetables, herbs, medicines, colors, water, fragrances, and wildlife. This is the very best fast food!View more permaculture videos here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA302F7D0CEA4F65A
Val can be reached at 904-476-6388, www.meetup.com/Permaculturejax.com, and at www.thefoodparkproject.com.
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Container: Herb Gardening, Made Easy: How To, Grow Fresh Herbs, At Home, In Pots (Beginners, Guide, Green House Plan, Medicinal, Homegrown Use, Natural … Tiny House, Backyard Farming Book 5)
Amazon best sellerHerbs are the spice of life. They can turn an ordinary meal into a mouth-watering feast. As much as we love to cook with herbs, we often don’t buy all the herbs we’d like because of their high cost. But there is a solution–Dr. John Stone and his new book Container Herb Gardening…;
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Amazon best seller
Herbs are the spice of life. They can turn an ordinary meal into a mouth-watering feast. As much as we love to cook with herbs, we often don’t buy all the herbs we’d like because of their high cost. But there is a solution–Dr. John Stone and his new book Container Herb Gardening Made Easy, the ultimate go-to guide for container herb gardening. From knowing the benefits of growing your own herbs (and there are many!) to the actual process of creating your container herb garden, Dr. Stone’s concise and easy to follow blueprint is the answer to all your container gardening prayers, this guide even includes plans on how you can quickly make your own greenhouse with very little time or expense. Get your copy today and let the leading expert in container herb gardening guide you into a plentiful harvest of herbs.
Here Is A Preview Of What You’ll Learn…
- The Benefits Of Growing Your Own Herbs
- The Basics Of Growing Herbs In Containers
- Useful Tools
- The Potting Soil
- Selecting The Right Container
- Watering Container Herbs
- How To Grow Herbs Indoors
- Eleven Herbs You Can Grow In containers
- How To Make Your Own Miniature Green House At Very Little Cost
- Much, much more!
Readers say…….
“Gardening is one of my passions. I have found this book to be full of practical advice for starting an herb garden. Dried herbs simply don’t compare to growing and having your own, fresh herbs available. Maintaining your own garden gives you such a feeling of tranquility. This book is full of practical advice and makes an emerging gardener feel as though they can tackle this project. I’ve always had problems keeping my herbs alive, watering too much or too little or having the wrong soil mix. Many different common herbs are addressed and information is given in a clear format as to the care and handling of them all.
I highly recommend this book to any gardener looking to start an herb garden!!!!”…….Julie Armat.
“Having Herbs on hand and in easy reach all the time is great. The knowledge of knowing what each herb likes and dislikes (light, water, etc.) helps get every thing off to a good start. I will be going back to this book many times”…….Frannie Vice
“This very short book makes growing container herbs seem so easy. It wasn’t time consuming but packed alot of information in a small space. Kinda like a container herb garden. I didn’t realize some are perennials, so I can count on them to regrow every season. This very concise book made me feel like this is something I could do”……………..anne
Get Your Copy Now!
Tags: Garden In A Small Space Pot Plant, Natural Living Decorating On A Budget, Green Diet Cooking Book, Indoor Plants Organic Gardening, For Beginners, Ideas, 101
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IT’S HERE Our new book ‘The Minimalist Gardener’ has arrived. Get your copy hot…
?? IT’S HERE ? Our new book ‘The Minimalist Gardener’ has arrived. Get your copy hot off the press#minimalistgardening #minimalist #gardener #growyourownfood #grow #permaculture #nodig #nature #minimal #edible #productive #growing #garden #herbs #urban
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Backyard Garden ‘Cash Crops’: Make Money with a Home Garden
There’s not a thing wrong with growing beautiful flowers and donating them to senior citizens on your block. But for people who want to make a profit from a backyard garden, it’s time to ditch the roses and start making some real money.The fact is that just about anyone with an average-sized yard can create a profitable garden. Depending on what the “crops” are, the financial yield can range from small change to a significant amount of money. Much depends on the quality of the soil, the local climate, and the regional market for various herbs and “cash-crop” plants. Very little depends on the innate talent of the gardener because the basic skills are easy to pick up.
How to Begin with a Simple Plot or a Greenhouse
Start out small and slowly add to your garden’s size and sophistication, experts suggest. The National Gardening Association points out that even a very small plot, measuring no more than 10 feet by 15 feet, can yield approximately $600 worth of produce in a single year. That’s after an investment of about $75 on seeds, water, plant food, etc.
Saving $525 on the annual grocery bill is nice, but how can gardeners bump that number into the thousands? Research has shown that the number-one motivating factor for starting a home garden is “saving money on groceries.” That means people want to know more about this valuable topic.
One key point that amateur gardeners need to remember is to plant the foods they enjoy eating. The more items in a garden that end up on your plate, the more money you’ll save in the long run.
After doing some research and then deciding exactly what to plant, note that a small greenhouse is also a great investment and can usually pay for itself in one year or less, especially if you build it yourself from scrap lumber and a few purchased supplies.
The Best “Cash Crops” for a Home Garden
So, what to grow? Besides opting for the foods you eat, perhaps there are a few items that sell briskly at the local farmer’s market. Buying seeds and starting some plants indoors is a smart way to begin. The National Gardening Association has a very helpful chart, here, about what the cost is to produce various levels of yield for common garden crops.
Depending where you live and how long winter lasts, it is possible to earn some serious money by growing “specialty crops,” things that are not common to the average household garden. What are the best cash crops for a 600-square foot backyard garden?
On an investment of less than $300, you can grow lavender, bonsai plants, gourmet mushrooms, garlic and specialty herbs. All have ready markets and are easy to grow. Gourmet garlic comes in four varieties: porcelain, purple-stripe, elephant and rocambole. Because garlic tolerates a variety of weather conditions, it is one of the highest profit crops for home gardeners.
Specialty crops can be sold at a farmer’s market or to local retailers and gourmet food stores. Lavender can be sold to local florists and boutiques that use the fresh plants to make all sorts of beauty products.
Bonsai plants and gourmet mushrooms are also an easy sell. Local florists often depend on nearby residents to supply them with fast-selling items like bonsai. As for gourmet mushrooms, they are perhaps the most profitable of all crops on this list. Sold fresh at farmer’s markets or in local stores, it is easy to build up a small network of buyers for your high-quality, home-grown shiitake or oyster mushrooms. Because they can be grown indoors and are thus “climate-proof,” mushrooms are a home garden favorite of entrepreneurs all over the U.S.
Money-making Medicinal Plants and Organics
All of the above-mentioned cash crops can be grown as organics to increase their prices at market, but remember to follow organic guidelines for pest control, watering, and plant food throughout the growing cycle. Organics bring much higher prices and some sellers at farmer’s markets specialize in organic produce. Making a business connection with a few organic sellers can boost your home garden’s profits significantly.
Medicinal plants and herbs are another high-profit category for home growers. Some of these items are a bit finicky but can be grown in a backyard garden. Currently, the most in-demand medicinal herbs are Chamomile, Echinacea, Feverfew, Lavender (see above), Marigold, Lemon Balm, and Basil.
Actually, there are more than a hundred medicinal herbs you can grow but the above seven are the most popular with most local health stores and other retail buyers. The main advantage of growing herbs and specialty crops like mushrooms and garlic is the tiny amount of space needed for a profitable yield.
Facts and Myths about Home Garden Businesses
Myths about home gardening abound, and unfortunately keep many people from giving this fun endeavor a try. Here are some of the most common myths, with their “debunking” facts immediately following:
“It’s too expensive.” A home garden can be started on less than $100 of seeds and supplies. Then, it pays for itself about five times over within the first year.
“It’s too much trouble and hard work.” You can devote as much time as you want to a profitable home garden, but the minimum is about four hours per week. That averages out to a tad more than a half hour per day, hardly a major time commitment. As for the “hard work,” a portable, low-slung chair or thick, washable cushion and good posture make the job easy and fun. No need for backbreaking labor with a home garden.
“Home gardening requires lots of technical knowledge.” If you can read and understand simple instructions, there are literally thousands of gardening manuals and books for beginners online and off. Most are either free or very low cost. Building a backyard garden is not corporate farm management or brain surgery. It’s simple to learn, and very rewarding.
“It’s hard to make a profit with a backyard plot.” In reality, it’s hard not to make a profit with a small garden. Even if you consume everything you grow, your grocery bill will be lower and you will probably be healthier from eating all that unprocessed, home-grown produce.
Let the Learning, Earning (and Fun) Begin!
With no more than a backyard and desire to make a few extra bucks, anybody can start a profitable home-garden business. Depending upon how much time and effort you want to put into the endeavor, the activity can become a fun hobby or a full-blown avocation.
Many retired people spend time in their gardens every day. Being outdoors and staying active is also a smart way to maintain overall good health. If approached with realistic expectations and the right amount of planning, home gardening for profit can be a healthy and exciting way to earn extra money.
https://www.selfrely.com/backyard-garden-cash-crops-make-money-with-a-home-garden/
On – 03 Feb, 2017 By Lester Beltran
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How to Plant Efficiently With Permaculture Principles
The term permaculture is being passed around fairly frequently in agricultural circles these days. To make a complex idea quite simple, when it comes to growing things, permaculture seeks to do it as efficiently and low-impact as possible. Where organic gardening could still be cultivating rows of single crops, permaculture looks for ways of mixing useful plants to create beneficial relationships that craftily replicate nature.
Think about it this way: When you see a natural forest, left to its own devices, the plant (and animal) life is healthy, abundant and diverse all own its own. There is no need for fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or whatever else because the symbiotic relationships between the flora and fauna, including insects, regulate themselves such that the entire ecosystem maximizes its functionality.
With permaculture, often referred to as lazy farming, practitioners seek to mimic these natural systems. Rather than tilling up soil, planting in rows and weeding like mad, trees, vegetables, bushes, herbs, vines, tubers and even weeds can all (and have for millennia) grow well without so much human effort to keep them separated and meticulously groomed.
Good Guilds! What an Idea!
In fact, all of this grooming is contrary to how it’s supposed to happen, which is why gardening has the reputation of being such a laborious undertaking. It doesn’t have to be. With the right ideas and planning in place, several different species can be grouped in such a way that they not just work in harmony but actually fulfill each other’s needs. These groupings are called guilds.
The most commonly recognized guild for many is the trio used by Native Americans: corn, squash and beans. But, why did they do this? Well, these plants help each other out, in turn all yielding better crops. Corn provides a pole for the beans to grow on. The beans provide nitrogen to soil (the main ingredient in most fertilizers), with sugar from the corns’ roots to feed the nitrogen bacteria. The squash grows along earth, covering the ground so that weeds are minimized, insect-devouring animals have a place to hide and the soil stays moist, protected from the sun.
This trio, though, is quite a simple sample of the relationship complexities guilds can actually maintain. In fact, guilds can be composed of a dozen or more different perennial plants (those that don’t require annual cultivation), including multiple trees, an entire harvestable crop of vegetable bushes, greens, flowers, herbs, and roots. They can, in essence, be the beginning of an entire self-sustaining eco-system.
How to Make a Your Own Mega-Productive Permaculture Guild
Now, observing the fact that nature produces its own recurring plant groupings over time, with the slow unfolding of particular plants and animals gathering into wonderful little extended families, permaculturalists try to replicate similar relationships, only they do so with plants that are also useful to humans.
While coexisting corn, beans and squash is a great concept, full-on guilds have much more going on. Specifically, there are seven layers to think about. Forest guilds are centered around a large tree (overstory), often a fruit or nut tree, surrounded by smaller trees (understory) interspersed with shrubs, such as berries. Below that, plants get green and herbaceous, including culinary herbs and salad greens, and there will need to be something covering the soil (groundcover). Then, there are vines, climbing up things, and tubers growing under things.
Of course, this not just a random collection of plants but rather a careful puzzle-plotting of pieces that perform well together. Each guild can be composed a different components when growers understand what roles each plants are playing and what is needed in return.
Here’s a basic fruit tree guild, something that could actually be created in most suburban backyards:
- At the guild center is an apple tree.
- Around it, you’ll need nitrogen fixers, which can come in the form of ground cover, such as clover, maybe even some small legume trees, like pigeon pea, spaced around the edges. These fertilize everything, provide ground cover, mulch, and yield more food. Maybe throw a hazelnut tree in there.
- Inside the mix, incorporate pest-deterring plants, such as chives, basil and mint, and on the edges, use pest-distracting plants like dill and sunflowers.
- Next, it’s important to have a weed deterrent, which usually equates to a plant with big leaves, like squash or cucumber, or a guilder’s favorite: comfrey, which has deep taproots to pull nutrients up from the depths, medicinal uses, and nutrient dense leaves for mulching and fertilizing.
- Include vertical and underground elements, like wild yams, which are shade tolerant vines that supply edible tubers.
Different plants work better in different climates, so find out what’s growing in your area. Once it’s all going, the lazy farmer more or less just gets out of the way, visiting for a harvest here and there, occasionally chop and drop mulching the place to keep the organic matter thick and nurturing. But, in fact, the guild can take care of itself and you.
Lead Image Source: Renaud Camus/Flickr
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/lifestyle/how-to-plant-efficiently-with-permaculture-principles/
On – 15 Oct, 2016 By Jonathon Engels
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8 Reasons to Include Rosemary in the Garden
Growing food at home is much more than vegetables alone. Culinary herbs are not only one of the easy crops to cultivate, but they improve the flavor, as well as the nutritional content of the dishes we cook. What’s more is culinary herbs have tremendous functional quality within gardens, as well as medicinal qualities, especially preventative measures, within our bodies. Dried or fresh, if we are producing herbs in the garden, we have easy access to them for much less cost.
Rosemary is a familiar culinary herb, one that pairs particularly well with potatoes and artisanal bread. It also often works its way into holiday dishes, like stuffing or gravy, and those with rosemary plants at their disposal regularly use it as an air freshener or home decoration. Along with basil, oregano, thyme and mint, rosemary is nearly a standard in even the most rudimentary herb and spice cabinets, so it only makes sense that we include it in our home gardens.
But, there are so many more reasons…
1. Flavorful Harvest
Rosemary performs well in the kitchen, and a little bit can go along way to elevate dishes. It pairs particularly well with starches and works wonders on squashes and stews. Inventive mixologists also utilize it in drinks, like lemonade, and innovative chefs have accented with it in desserts.
2. Health Benefits
In addition to enhancing the flavor of many of our favorite dishes, rosemary also delivers a wallop of health benefits. Like most culinary herbs, rosemary is loaded with anti-oxidants and vitamins, and it contains natural compounds that are anti-inflammatory and anti-septic. It is also a notable source of minerals, such iron, potassium, manganese, copper, magnesium and potassium.
3. Perennial Plant
Perennial plants are great additions to food gardens because they can provide food but don’t require that we cultivate them year in and year out. Many culinary herbs are perennials, and rosemary is most certainly one of those. Other advantages to having perennial plants is that they help to stabilize soils and feed soil life, and they prevent gardens from looking empty when the annual crops have been removed.
4. Lovely Aroma
Larisa Blinova/ShutterstockRosemary has a very distinct and powerful aroma, one that we readily identify in cooking and often in air freshening. Within aromatherapy circles, the scent of rosemary is known for being stimulating, helping sniffers remain alert and retain memory. In direct contrast, rosemary is also known to have relaxing effects that decreases stress levels.
5. Pest Prevention
Once again, culinary herbs can be somewhat lumped together in that nearly all of them are great for pest control in the garden. Rosemary is particularly powerful because of its aroma, which distracts pests from finding the plants that they want. Essentially, the more smells we can add to our garden, the more confusing it is for pests to hone in on specific plants.
6. Pollinator Attraction
While pests are being confused by rosemary, beneficial insects and animals, such as hummingbirds and bees are attracted to rosemary when it is in bloom. Rosemary flowers in late winter/early spring, which means it provides pollen when not many other plants are. This makes it attractive to wildlife looking for an early start.
7. Drought Resistance
Rosemary is native to the Mediterranean climate, which is why we find it so often in Italian food, but as gardeners, this tells us that it is able to sustain itself in a climate without an abundance of rain. It grows very well in Southern California, but for those of us not in this climate or one’s like it, it can make a low-maintenance pot plant or easily cared for garden addition.
8. Heat and Cold Tolerant
Maren Winter/ShutterstockRosemary is more or less a desert plant, hence the drought resistance, but that also indicates that it can handle both hot and cold temperatures well. Deserts have the reputation for being hot, so rosemary’s ability to withstand sizzling conditions should be no surprise. On the other hand, deserts are also notoriously cold at night, when the sun stops baking them, so rosemary is remarkably resistant to cold weather, well below freezing, as well.
All of these benefits come without even acknowledging that rosemary is a beautiful, evergreen plant that will keep the garden looking good year-round. It comes in both upright and creeping varieties, making it available for hedges or hanging over garden walls. It’s a great addition for both aesthetic and culinary gardens. Now would be a great time to get one going.
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/lifestyle/reasons-to-include-rosemary-in-the-garden/
On – 10 Apr, 2017 By Jonathon Engels
