kelp meal as a fertilizer and soil conditioner

See how an unlikely kelp meal is so good for your plants and lawn

We Are Loving Vegetable Gardening

Image by VeggieGardeningTips via Flickr

Many reasons exist as to why individuals decide to take on vegetable gardening as a hobby or interest. Some individuals find vegetable gardening relaxing and a great way to let go of the days’ stress, while others do it for the food.

Our family took on vegetable gardening because we know the effects some of the produce can have on people succeptible to sprays and poisons, myself included.

We see people at the farmer’s market who grow enough vegetables in their garden to sell to others. This is great because they produce organic vegetables that never see poisons.

This means we can get safe healthy vegetables that we aren’t growing in our home garden.

They make money grown vegetables where I make money writing about vegetable gardening among others things through my home gardening tips website.

Others I see when I am travelling around Moncton and New Brunswick are selling produce in road side stands.

Vegetable Gardening Tip

If you are thinking about starting your own vegetable garden the main tip I would offer is to take it slow. Don’t take on more than you can handle and ruin a great experience.

We started growing tomatoes, peppers and potatoes but at that time we didn’t have a vegetable garden in the ground but instead we created a container vegetable garden using big pots.

Each year since we started vegetable gardening we have increased the size of our gardens.

This year I even took one of our raised beds and turned it into a strawberry/squash bed. The strawberries will be done by the time the squash gets too big.

Join A Vegetable Garden Seed Club

Not sure what to grow? Well my wife and I joined Mike The Gardener’s Vegetable Garden Seed Club.

Mike sends me 4 packages of seeds each month. I looked forward to them each month, especially through our long cold winter months. It was fun planning what I would grow for this year.

Once I’ve made a list of the vegetables I want to grow I made a plan of how to plant them so that I would get the most produce.

That means I don’t let plants over shadow each other, like I did my first couple years. But knowing what you’re going to plant means you can check into what vegetable garden pests you may encounter based on what you’re going to plant and be prepared.

Loosen And Build Vegetable Garden Soil

Without a healthy root system your vegetable garden may not produce the best yeild so pay attention to the soil, even if you’re creating a container vegetable garden.

Give your vegetables a real good chance to grow strong by ammending your garden soil with healthy compost or topsoil.

If your soil is heavy clay like ours is then you might want to add some peatmoss along with your compost or topsoil. This will help airate your soil and allow your veggie roots to spread and grow.

Vegetable gardening does a few things for us.

1. We get fresh air and a bit of exercise.

It’s nice to have things to do in our yard other than lay in the sun and burning. Vegetable gardening has gotten me out of the house into the fresh air.

I also get a bit of exercise but when my back says enough I can still go to my raised bed gardens and sit down to work. Gotta love saving your back at the end of the day.

2. Saving money on the grocery bills.

Vegetables aren’t getting any cheaper these days so anything we can do to save a bit of money is great.

Remember I said I belong to Mike The Gardener’s Seed Club, well that saves me money because I don’t buy seeds and/or starter plants which saves even more money.

3. Learn how to preserve vegetables for winter

We grow enough tomatoes we couldn’t eat them all so we gave most of them away but now instead we preserve them for use in the winter.

We still have enough that we can give tomatoes to friends and family.

4. Grow an organic vegetable garden.

I grew up on a farm from the age of 8, which is the same year I started getting migraines. We never knew what was causing them.

Many years of suffering later I learned it was the poison being sprayed on our vegetable garden. Thanks a lot Dad.

Grow your vegetable garden organically by using natural remedies to take care of garden pests.

Vegetable Gardening Tip

We have friends that have started vegetable gardening now and we talk to each other about what we will grow. This way we can try not to grow the exact same things our friends are growing.

This means we can exchange vegetables.

I can grow lots of tomatoes while another gardening friend may be great at growing peppers so we trade off with each other and have more produce than we would have.

I work from home making money doing a variety of things. About the only thing I don’t do is grow enough vegetables in my garden to sell them. However you may have the time and desire to work from home and make money like I do. Check out my work from home ideas blog and see what grabs your attention.

Related articles

• Introduction to Vegetable Gardening (backyardgardeningtips.com)


• Vegetable Garden Finally In The Ground (backyardgardeningtips.com)


• Double Digging Our Vegetable Gardens (backyardgardeningtips.com)

vegetable garden is easy to grow

vegetable garden tips, knowing where to put, what to plant, the formation of a vegetable gardens.

Double Digging Our Vegetable Gardens

Image by Paul Stainthorp via Flickr

We only started our little vegetable garden a couple of years ago. We soon discovered we had concrete for backyard soil. Okay it’s not concrete but it’s heavy dense clay that’s almost concrete. We could barely grow grass in our yard.

It took some labour but I dug it up to about a foot deep, maybe just a bit deeper and then started amending the soil with fresh top soil, compost, manure and peatmoss.

Each year since I have dug it up deep and amended the soil again. We add more peatmoss and the compost we had created since we started. It’s great to have compost and it’s so much better than putting all our yard and kitchen waste at the road side to be put in the landfill.

How To Double Dig Your Garden

The idea is simple however be prepared to work a little.

I start at one end of my garden and start digging a trench that’s about a shovel or spade depth. I flip the shovel full to my left as I am right handed and move through my garden left to right.

Once I reach the opposite side of the garden I have a trench that’s about 10 or 12 inches deep. The content or dirt is piled along the one edge.

Next I start digging again, in the same trench, and dig another shovel depth and just turn it right in the trench.

Once I reach the opposite, which is back where I started, I start a new trench to the right of the first one and take that dirt and put it right into the trench to my left.

This is a great way of turning your soil and aerating it at the same time. Over time, as I do this for the first couple of years and then I will continue doing this every 2 or 3 years.

Our garden soil is getting so rich now I don’t even need to use my foot to get the shovel in the dirt. You wouldn’t know it’s the same area that not so long ago seemed like concrete.

Related articles

• Vegetable Garden Finally In The Ground (backyardgardeningtips.com)


• Taking Care Of Those Vegetable Garden Pests (backyardgardeningtips.com)


• Vegetable Gardening For Beginners – Planting a Beautiful Vegetable Garden at Home (yourvegetablegardeningtips.com)


• Our First Vegetable Container Garden (hbb2obm.com)

Jun 24, Organic Tomato Fertilizer

Healthy plants from an organic tomato fertilizer that also works for several kinds of greenhouse and herbaceous fruit. To enjoy all the health benefits of your tomatoes visit here.

Jun 23, Practically Green - organic gardening

New pages on organic lawn care are now online.


And you'll save money:

1 - by not using chemical weed killers,

2 - by re-using the organic matter and organic fertilizer that's already in your lawn cuttings.

But remember:- if you want to recycle lawn cuttings you simply can't use selective weed killers on your lawn. There's more about composting grass cuttings here.

The June Drop

Small fruit fall to the ground this month as your bushes cast off surplus. When the birds find these they'll discover all the rest too. Don't forget to protect your fruit bushes.
See below for help on protecting plants.

Gardening Weather

The weather is always a mixed blessing. And UK weather has been dry dry dry which has at least kept the slugs and snails down.

Rain now couldn't be better. It helps to swell up your outdoor fruit and potato crops.

However, a large down pour onto dried out soil can lead to soft fruit splitting.

Keep a steady water supply to tomatoes and keep outdoor fruit weeded and well mulched.

Crop Readiness

My tomatoes are early this year - the fruit are swelling as I write. Broad Bean pods look ready for picking too but need a little longer for the seeds to swell.

Seeds

The dry days have delayed some seeds. But keep sowing Salad Leaves, Beetroot, Pak Choi, Chop Suey Greens, Spring Onions, Runner Beans, French Beans, and the like... ... Sow in succession for a steady supply.

Spring Rush To Summer Care

Except for the successional sowing noted above, the rush to sow and plant early and maincrops is complete. I still have some summer flowers to sow.

Now it's time to: protect your crops, stake up plants, pinch out shoots for shape, keep plants watered and fed, as well as dead heading, and of course harvesting.



Find plant protection netting here.

More later...

Happy Gardening :-)

Jun 23, Organic Lawn Care

You can up the look of your whole garden by organic lawn care. Improve your green areas, work on problem areas, learn about different lawn styles, get the right tools and help with this expert lawn care guide.

Jun 23, Lawn Care Advice

Find essential lawn care tips to improve your green areas. Discover the cause of problem lawns and find the answers here. You really will see the difference in the quality of your grass.

Jun 23, Lawn Weeds

Eradicating lawn weeds can be a difficult task. This page examines the problems of different lawn weeds and some of the organic weed control methods used on lawns.

How To do herb drying

To quick herb drying, To air-dry herbs

Vegetable Garden Finally In The Ground

Jenny asked who’s buried in our veggie garden.

I didn’t think I was ever going to get out into the backyard to prepare our home garden for vegetables but the rain carried right through April and then through May.

Couldn’t even walk close to the garden

Our yard and vegetable garden was just a big mud hole. Never seen it like that in the 5 years we’ve lived here. Lots of water in early spring but not this late.

I did eventually get out and dig up the garden and add a bit of compost and peatmoss. I even increased the width of our vegetable garden by another foot, with the assistance of my son.

Last week I sectioned the veggie garden into rows and pulled the dirt up so each row would have lots of loose dirt to expand their roots.

Levelled it all off and then decided the rows were too wide so I raked it all even again and re-spaced the rows. Jenny laughed and said they had been fine the first time.

Well messing around like that cost me day light and I had to leave the planting until the following day. Of course it rained and rained for the next three days.

Today the weather guy called for possible rain this afternoon so I was outside bright and early. It looked like it was going to start pouring any minute and it still looks like that but hasn’t rained yet.

Our little garden is planted now. Hope it’s not too late to still get great results. We did fine last year even though it was later.

Finished Planting Yesterday

I planted a lot of tomatoes from seed this year but they were still pretty tiny once they were in the garden.

The goal is to have enough tomatoes so we can try canning some.

I also planted a lot of Green Peppers and a few types of Hot/Sweet Peppers.

Lots of Peas and Beans. This year, once they get big enough I will stake them up so they can grow vertically. They got quite messy last year and crawled into everything else.

I wanted to grow corn and have the peas and beans climb the corn but our yard seems to be too wet for growing good corn. That or we did something wrong the last time we grew corn.

Related articles

• Introduction to Vegetable Gardening (backyardgardeningtips.com)


• Taking Care Of Those Vegetable Garden Pests (backyardgardeningtips.com)


• Your Home Vegetable Gardening (yourvegetablegardeningtips.com)

Jun 4, Growing Lawns

Many varied and interesting ways of growing lawns are explained here. You can compare the best greens and conventional lawns with functional lawns and wonderfully beautiful alternative lawn styles that are quiet exciting for an organic gardener to grow.

Jun 4, Practical Lawn Mowers

Find how lawn mowers work out on your kind of lawn. Practical advice on selecting machines for sloping lawns, fine lawns, rough grass, large and small areas... Check their advantages and ease of use here.

Jun 4, Lawn Mowing Practical

Learn the essential tips & tricks of lawn mowing. You don't have to be an organic gardener. The 'straight forward' approach with various lawn mowers & lawns is described.