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Tag: Organic gardening
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Tour of our permaculture kitchen garden
Welcome to our permaculture kitchen garden in the Netherlands where we grow lots of vegetables in raised beds without digging.
Please let me know if there’s a topic you’d like me to make a video about!Website: http://www.growntocook.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growntocook/ -
Thriving Backyard Food Forest, 5th Year Suburban Permaculture Garden
The Backyard Permaculture Food Forest is now producing hazelnuts, grapes, european pear, asian pear, raspberries, strawberries, eggplants, and the list goes on and on!!Subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/user/thepermaculturgarden?sub_confirmation=1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/james.prigioni
LAWN TO HIGH PRODUCTION FOOD FOREST: https://youtu.be/7ByAh_0CIW8
CUCUMBERS, Everything You Need To Know! https://youtu.be/2dq2OQsFCjM
5 TIPS FOR BUILDING HEALTHY SOIL: https://youtu.be/7-Tyz7fGeZo
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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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Tomato Gardening: Tomato Container Gardening Guide for Beginners – How to Grow Home Grown Tomatoes in Small Spaces & Containers (Vegetable garden, homesteading, … garden, urban farming, organic gardening)
Learn More about Tomato Container Gardens And How to Make your Very Own!Set up a tomato container garden right in the comforts of your own home. Don’t have enough space in your garden, or even a garden at all? Then container gardens are the perfect solution. They don’t take much space and can be done…;
Vegetable garden, homesteading, greenhouse gardening, container gardening, herb garden, urban farming, organic gardeningPrice: Free
Learn More about Tomato Container Gardens And How to Make your Very Own!
Set up a tomato container garden right in the comforts of your own home. Don’t have enough space in your garden, or even a garden at all? Then container gardens are the perfect solution. They don’t take much space and can be done even in households with no garden space.
This book contains information on tomato container gardens and the ways to set one up, take care of it, and other tips.
Having container gardens is a growing trend; millions of households are beginning to plant their own container gardens. It saves a lot of space, helps control pest problems, overcome soil issues, and most importantly, lets you enjoy homegrown produce fresh from your own container garden. Growing tomatoes in containers can be incredibly rewarding and satisfying.
Here Is A Preview Of What You’ll Learn…
- Choosing a Container
- Choosing a Tomato Variety
- Setting-up the Container Garden
- Advantages and Disadvantages of Container Gardening
- Common Mistakes When Growing Tomatoes in Container
- Final Thoughts and Tips
Download your copy today!
Start your Own Tomato Container Garden and Get Fresh Tomatoes Now!
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The Permaculture Home Garden
Inspired by her own training in permaculture, Linda Woodrow has devised a totally integrated organic system of gardening that combines science with common sense. In The Permaculture Home Garden she draws us into a warmly welcoming household where everyone shares the planting, helps to tend the hens, and relaxes after a satisfying day’s work. Step-by-step instructions and helpful diagrams make it easy to plan and plant a garden to suit your taste and space – a garden that not only looks wonderful but also yields bountiful fruit, herbs and vegetables. -
Rodale’s Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: The Indispensable Green Resource for Every Gardener
Rodale BooksPrice:
$26.99$16.26 Free ShippingRodale’s Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening has been the go-to resource for gardeners for more than 50 years―and the best tool novices can buy to start applying organic methods to their fruit and vegetable crops, herbs, trees and shrubs, perennials, annuals, and lawns. This thoroughly revised and updated version highlights new organic pest controls, new fertilizer products, improved gardening techniques, the latest organic soil practices, and new trends in garden design.
In this indispensable work readers will find:
– comprehensive coverage for the entire garden and landscape along with related entries such as Community Gardening, Edible Landscaping, Horticultural Therapy, Stonescaping, and more
– the most in-depth information from the trusted Rodale Organic Gardening brand
– a completely new section on earth-friendly techniques for gardening in a changing climate, covering wise water management, creating backyard habitats, managing invasive plants and insects, reducing energy use and recycling, and understanding biotechnology
– entries all written by American gardeners for American gardeners, with answers for all the challenges presented by various conditions, from the humid Deep South and the mild maritime coasts to the cold far North and the dry Southwest
Rodale’s Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening by Fern Bradley has everything anyone needs to create gorgeous, non-toxic gardens in any part of the country.Used Book in Good Condition
$26.99$16.26 -
Using Weeds to Read the Soil: Some Basic Concepts to Get Started
Using Weeds to Read the Soil: Some Basic Concepts to Get Started
April 14, 2017by Jonathon EngelsWeeds are becoming a more and more appreciated component of gardening. We have been reintroduced to eating the weeds, with things like dandelion leaves becoming a niche crop. Also, we are encouraging plants that, up until recently, were viewed as weeds (dynamic accumulators like comfrey and pioneering legumes) to revitalize our soils. And, many gardeners are once again celebrating weeds as a means of reading the soil.
Geoff Lawton says weeds are not the problem but rather symptoms of glitches within the soil. In other words, weeds have arrived because the soil has some sort of deficiency or condition that both allows them to thrive and prompts nature to repair systemic damage. Nature will move towards a permanent, stable system, and weeds are part of that process, especially in troubled landscapes.
With each problem, there are particular weeds that characteristically appear, and if we learn to read these weeds, we can assess unfamiliar landscapes and recognize the sources of troubles within our own systems. Then, we can begin to speed the soil’s recovery into something more stable, and in the meantime, we can cultivate appropriate plants to aid this process and provide production, as well as utilize weeds that are already present.
While each landscape, soil type, and climate has its own particular set of pioneering plants, there are some basic ideas that can help us begin to understand more how to use the weeds to read the soil. From there, we can research and make more practical and informed decisions as to how we might move our projects in positive directions.
The Root Systems
The root systems of weeds can tell us a great deal about soil conditions. For example, weeds that have deep taproots, such as dandelions and burdock, generally indicate soils that are compacted, preventing plants with lesser roots from taking hold. These taproots break up the soils and eventually, as they decompose, create pathways for water, nutrients, and weaker roots systems. On the other hand, weeds that have spreading, hairnet root systems or clumping grasses are likely there because soils are loose and erosive.
So, when there is an abundance of weeds, we can start by noticing their root systems as these might indicate soil conditions that we can either address with rehabilitative gardening techniques or by choosing appropriate plants to grow in the conditions. This can also lead us into identifying the weeds that are present and learning what other things they might be telling us.
The pH Balance
Just like crops, some weeds thrive in different levels of acidity and alkalinity. We wouldn’t plant blueberries in a soil that we know is alkaline because we recognize that blueberries are particular to acidic soils. Well, certain weeds—plantain, hawkweeds, sheep sorrel—could help to indicate more acidic areas, whereas others—goosefoot, true chamomile—signal the likelihood of alkaline soils.
A shrewd gardener would use these signals to help with choosing what crops he or she might try to cultivate in an area. If the soil is acidic, berries might be a great choice, but if the soil is alkaline, different cruciferous vegetables are likely a better option. Similarly, noting these bits of information can be guidance for what not to plant in an area, something that might prevent wasting time and resources.
The Soil Types/Conditions
The ability to recognize the weeds we are looking at can also give us an assessment of the type of soil it is growing in and the conditions of that soil. If it’s sandy, we might see sandbur, cornflower, or dog fennel, but a heavy clay soil is more likely to yield wild garlic, plantain, and creeping buttercup. Wet soils—cattails, sedge, marsh mallow—will have different weeds than dry soils—potato vine, Virginia pepperweed.
Again, this can aid cultivators greatly by knowing whether to plant crops that thrive in sandy soils over clays or wet soils over dry. Recognizing these needs before investing the time and money needed for a garden can mean the difference between low-maintenance success and hard-working struggle. Taking a moment to familiarize with the weeds common to a place is just a good idea.
The Nutrient Profile
When we stop looking at weeds as only pests and recognize they are plants, we realize that, like all plants, they have certain nutritional needs and outputs. The existence of certain weeds can provide clues to what the soil nutrients is like. Chicory, purslane, and lamb’s quarter (all edible) indicate rich soils, but sheep’s sorrel and broom sedge might mean the opposite. Thistle could mean deficiencies in iron and copper, or the growth of ferns and blade grasses will show up in places that have been burned, indicating a lack of available phosphorus.
Learning certain sure indicators of nutrient abundance or absence can lead growers as to which soil amendments they might need to make, as well as which crops—one’s that like similar nutrient profiles—they might want to plant. This could help in moving the soil slowly and deliberately back into a more balanced system with more biodiversity.
The Weed Community
In the end, it’s important to remember that no one weed necessarily provides all the information we need to assess soil, but using the community of weeds growing in an area will provide a more complete view of what the soil type and conditions are, as well as what sort of issues need to be addressed or considered in developing the land. Identifying the prominent plants in a space and where the meaning behind each weed overlaps could provide reasonably accurate results.
The unfortunate thing is that different climates and locations have different weeds and often different names for the same weeds, so this might mean buckling down for some research before being able to read the weeds well. Luckily, there are plenty of books to reference, as well as local experts and online sources. The point is that learning what weeds we are looking at and what they are saying is an effort most certainly worthwhile.
5 Books to Help Getting Started with Reading the Weeds:
•Weeds and Why They Grow by Jay L. McCaman
•Weeds and What They Tell Us by Ehrenfried E. Pfeiffer
•Weeds: Guardians of the Soil by Joseph A. Cocannouer
•Weeds: An Earth-Friendly Guide to Their Identification, Use and Control by John Walker
•Insect, Disease & Weed I.D. Guide: Find-It-Fast Organic Solution for Your Garden by Deborah L. Martin
Feature Header Image: Dandelions (Chris Alban Hansen)
https://permaculturenews.org/2017/04/14/using-weeds-read-soil-basic-concepts-get-started/
On – 14 Apr, 2017 By Jonathon Engels
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Organic Gardening For Dummies
Wiley PublishingPrice:
$19.99$14.22 Free ShippingOrganic Gardening For Dummies, 2nd Edition shows readers the way to ensure a healthy harvest from their environmentally friendly garden. It covers information on the newest and safest natural fertilizers and pest control methods, composting, cultivation without chemicals, and how to battle plant diseases. It also has information on updated equipment and resources. It helps readers plant organically year-round, using herbs, fruits, vegetables, lawn care, trees and shrubs, and flowers. The tips and techniques included in Organic Gardening For Dummies, 2nd Edition are intended to reduce a garden’s impact on both the environment and the wallet.Organic Gardening For Dummies
$19.99$14.22 -
‘You started a quiet revolution’: Tributes flow for permaculture ‘father’ Bill Mollison
Tributes are flowing from around the world for the Tasmanian man who co-founded the global permaculture movement.
Bruce Charles “Bill” Mollison — known as the “father of permaculture” — died on Saturday in Hobart, aged 88.
His system advocated agricultural ecosystems that were sustainable and self-sufficient.
Mr Mollison rose to prominence after publishing Permaculture One with David Holmgren in 1974.
The book advocated a system “working with, rather than against nature” when producing food, and favoured cultivating species suited for local conditions.
He founded the Permaculture Institute in 1978, his ideas influencing hundreds of thousands students worldwide.
Well-known horticulturalist and former ABC Gardening Australia host Peter Cundall described permaculture as “an all-encompassing method of actually living without in anyway disrupting the environment”.
“It was the way of the future, and this is why it became so exciting,” he said.
“The greatest contribution Bill made was as an outstanding marketer and a brilliant public speaker.
“So he not only toured different parts of Australia, but then went overseas and went to Africa, India and other places.”
Mr Cundall said the biologist helped grow Tasmania’s reputation as the birthplace of the environmental movement.
“Tasmania is in many ways unique because it started this whole business of trying to live within our environment without destroying it,” he said.
Mollison unlike any other academic: co-author
Mr Holmgren lived and worked with Mr Mollison as they were writing Permaculture One.
He told 936 ABC Hobart Mr Mollison was unlike any other academic at the University of Tasmania, and it was his “ecological thinking” that struck the young student.
Mr Holmgren said there was a lot of interest in what the pair were doing in the late 1970s.
“It was also a time with a huge interest in what we would call sustainability today,” he said.
“There were six mainstream publishers who approached a rambunctious Tasmanian academic and a completely unknown graduate student wanting to publish Permaculture One in 1977.
“Bill was actually really the father of the permaculture movement because of his genius in setting up the teaching system that he described and it all being outside academia.”
Mr Holmgren said he would be remembering Mollison at the Australasian Permaculture Convergence in Perth in next week.
“It will be a huge point of reflection and a celebration of his contribution,” he said.
‘You started a quiet revolution’
Social media has been flooded with tributes, and a page “In Memory of Bill Mollison” has been created on Facebook.
“May his words and teachings of permaculture continue to spread like chickweed in our gardens,” read a post on the Facebook page Women Who Farm.
“Thank you Bill for providing humanity with an education that no other leader has been able to achieve. RIP,” Glenn Shannon Kett wrote.
“You started a quiet revolution. You have sown the seeds of change, and you will live in the bounties of nature, in every flower, in every tree, in the soil and the water, and in every hand that nurtures nature,” wrote Vani Bahl, a Facebook user from California.
The author won numerous awards for his work and was also the first foreigner invited and admitted to the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Mr Mollison was born in Stanley in 1928 in Tasmania’s north-west, and left school aged 15 to work in a number of jobs, including as a shark fisherman, seaman, forester and mill worker.
He spent his final years at Sisters Beach on the state’s north-west coast.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-26/tributes-flow-in-for-permaculture-father-bill-mollison/7878118
On – 26 Sep, 2016 By Ted O’Connor
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Permaculture Puts Organic Gardening on Autopilot
BY: TIM O’NEAL
Organic food and farming have seen a huge increase over the past ten years, and for good reason. Farming and gardening techniques that use fewer harmful, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are better for the environment and better for human health. Permaculture methods of growing food reach far beyond these benefits. Growing food organically is just the starting point.
According to a report from 2014 by Stephen Daniells titled US organic food market to grow 14% from 2013-18, 81% of American families reported buying organic food at least sometimes. For many people, the barriers to buying organic food are accessibility and cost. Growing organic produce at home overcomes both of those issues. Permaculture practices are a great way to achieve the best results.
What is Permaculture
Permaculture (permanent + agriculture) was developed in the late 1970s by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. It’s a set of principles and techniques for food production at any scale that focuses on mimicking natural systems, instead of competing against them. It puts humans into the system as engaged participants, departing from the conventional agricultural approach of conquering nature. The principles can be applied to container gardens on apartment balconies, large scale agricultural operations, and anything in between.
Practitioners of permaculture believe that it is more than a set of gardening techniques. It is the simplest and most direct way we can repair many of the global problems we face today – environmental destruction, poverty and food scarcity, water shortages, among others.
Co-founder, Bill Mollison, says, ““The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.”
From Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual, there are three core tenets:
Care for the earth: Provision for all life systems to continue and multiply. This is the first principle, because without a healthy earth, humans cannot flourish.
Care for the people: Provision for people to access those resources necessary for their existence.
Return of surplus: Reinvesting surpluses back into the system to provide for the first two ethics. This includes returning waste back into the system to recycle into usefulness. The third ethic is sometimes referred to as Fair Share to reflect that each of us should take no more than what we need before we reinvest the surplus.As stated in the third tenet, one central element of permaculture is to return waste back into the system as a benefit. The most direct way to do this is to compost garden and food waste onsite to add nutrients and organic material to the soil. If done well, this can eliminate the need for fertilizers.
There is also a strong emphasis on providing habitat for pollinators, other beneficial insects, and birds. The idea is to mimic a forest setting, or some other mature ecosystem, where pests and diseases are kept in balance by a harmonious relationship among organisms up and down the food chain. With this approach, there’s no need for chemical pest control.
Permaculture concepts can be applied beyond a single garden or farm to include a neighborhood, village, or an entire city. A permaculture system is designed for resiliency. This means that if one element fails the rest of the parts can fill in to keep the overall system intact. A society designed around permaculture principles is built to withstand destructive forces.
While it is a relatively new approach to food production, permaculture relies on concepts from traditional approaches to agriculture. There are methods from all over the world that have been highly productive and sustainable over long periods of time. The revolution of industrial agriculture has worked to eliminate many of these techniques. Permaculture incorporates them back into the modern system to ensure resiliency.
Achieving a productive garden using organic practices is an important goal, for the health of both humans and the environment. Permaculture provides a tested, ethical method for achieving that goal. It also assures us that the benefits of growing healthy food for ourselves isn’t limited to the space of our gardens.
As Bill Mollison says, “If we do not get our cities, homes, and gardens in order, so that they feed and shelter us, we must lay waste to all other natural systems. Thus, truly responsible conservationists have gardens.”
For a great introduction to some permaculture ideas, check out this video by Toby Hemenway.
https://thehomestead.guru/permaculture/
On – 21 Mar, 2017 By The Plaid Zebra
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Fertilizing Corn In The Home Garden: An Organic Approach
As garden crops go, corn is among the heaviest feeders. To support tall growth and good ear formation, corn crops often need supplemental additions of nitrogen; there’s typically not enough of this nutrient available in garden soils to support such a large-statured crop. Fertilizing corn in the home garden is an essential summer chore, if you want a hearty crop of plump ears.
When To Fertilize Corn In The Summer
Test your garden soil every few years to ensure its pH is at the correct level to support the growth of most common garden crops, including corn. The best pH for most vegetables is between 6.0 and 6.5, and ensuring your soil’s pH fits in this range improves the availability of most nutrients to your corn plants.
That said, even when the soil’s pH is in the suitable range, supplemental nitrogen fertilizer is often necessary when growing corn. Adding yearly additions of well-composted manures and using legume cover crops will add a good bit of nitrogen to the soil, but when your corn plants reach two feet tall, it’s time for fertilizing corn in the home garden.
Organic Products For Fertilizing Corn
If you want to avoid using chemical-based fertilizers in your veggie patch, you’ll need to turn to organic nitrogen fertilizers to give your corn plants a boost. The following sources of nitrogen are plant- or animal-based and require soil microbes to break them down into a form of nitrogen the plants can use. Thankfully, upon adding one of these fertilizers to the corn patch, all the necessary soil microbes work very quickly to break down these products and release the nitrogen to your growing corn plants.
- Alfalfa meal: Made from dried alfalfa plants, this plant-based fertilizer is about 4 percent nitrogen. It’s often used as an animal feed supplement, too, and it promotes a balance of healthy soil microbes.
- Cottonseed meal: A coarsely granulated product made from the hulls of cottonseeds, cottonseed meal is about 6 percent nitrogen. Once in the soil, it rapidly breaks down and provides a burst of nitrogen to plants within a few days of application.
- Blood meal: Derived from dried blood from slaughterhouses, blood meal contains about 12 percent nitrogen. It acts quickly in the soil and begins to provide nitrogen to plants almost immediately.
- Feather meal: Another animal byproduct from slaughterhouses, feather meal contains approximately 14 percent nitrogen. It’s inexpensive, though it takes a bit longer for the microbes to mineralize than some of the other organic nitrogen sources discussed here.
- Soybean meal: With a nitrogen content of about 7 percent, soybean meal is another option for fertilizing corn in the home garden.
- Fish fertilizers: Liquid fish fertilizers as well as granular fish-based fertilizers are good nitrogen sources for the corn patch. Though they can smell bad, fish-based fertilizers are mineralized by soil microbes very rapidly. Depending on the formulation, they can contain between 5 percent and 10 percent nitrogen.
How To Fertilize Corn
Adding nitrogen to your corn plants is as simple as side-dressing the rows at the recommended application rate shown on the product’s label when the plants are approximately two feet tall. Lightly scratch it into the soil’s surface so the soil microbes can quickly access it, and then water it in.
A word of caution: it is possible, of course, to overfertilize corn plants. Do not add any more fertilizer than recommended on the label. A single application is all that’s necessary, except in the case of extreme nitrogen deficiencies. Conduct a soil test every few years to ensure all essential plant nutrients are in the proper balance.
http://www.hobbyfarms.com/fertilizing-corn-home-garden-organic/
On – 22 Jun, 2017 By Jessica Walliser
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Transitioning the Vegetable Garden from Spring to Summer
— Gardening Tips —
This is the time of year when I transition the vegetable garden from its spring crops into summertime. It’s the time of year when we never seem to have enough room in the raised beds nor enough time to do all of the work we set out to do in a given day.
In the vegetable garden, the broccoli rabe is at its peak, and the lettuce is, too. The beets will be ready for harvesting, pickling, and canning in about three weeks or so. Strawberries for jam are just starting to arrive and are protected thanks to the bird netting that keeps my nemesis, the local crow murder, from eating the harvest before I get to them. Peas twin on the Vine Spine Linking Trellis and start just starting to flower. Onions and garlic are maturing and the radishes are almost finished.
Newly planted carrot and parsnip seeds peek tentatively above the earth. Tomato plants expelled from hothouse splendor now wave from behind the safety of their cages. And waiting on the porch for truly hot weather are the flats of sweet potato plants who need heat and plenty of it to be happy.
Among the herb garden plants, the catnip is ready for harvesting, and I’ve already cut and dried another pint of oregano. I have cinnamon and Genovese basil plants ready to set outside and parsley and dill have been moved from the safety of their flats to the garden beds. I mix parsley and dill into the herb garden, the butterfly garden as food for hungry caterpillars, and in the vegetable garden so there is always plenty for us all.
We’ve been busy weeding all of the flower beds in the perennial garden. It is hot, dirty work. Last year, I got behind in the weeding and the weeds took advantage of my laziness to creep into every nook and cranny among the plants. Hubby and I have worked out a system whereby I week from 7 to 8:30 each morning and then he mulches the area afterward. When we finish the entire garden in about two weeks I will start again, tidying up the areas we’ve already done.
Our goal this year is to keep the garden in top shape as long as we can. The heat is always a problem and keeps me from gardening longer, but I have learned the hard way that a little sustained daily effort accumulates into success.
May is a busy month, but I have found time to update the monthly gardening tip sheets available free here at Home Garden Joy. I have also started a new short gardening book that I think you will enjoy! Stay tuned, be sure to join our email list for the latest information, and keep gardening and growing!
http://homegardenjoy.com/site/2017/05/transitioning-vegetable-garden-spring-summer.html
On – 18 May, 2017 By Jeanne
