Gardening

As it sounds, this method involves a deeply dug garden bed. The preparation is more labor intensive but the yields much greater…up to 4 times that of a conventional bed.  Deep bed gardening aka the Chinese method or the French intensive method  has been around for hundreds of years used …

I recently came across Incredible Vegetables from Self- Watering Containers by Edward C. Smith. This book goes into detail why self watering container gardening has been more successful (for the author) in many cases than traditional in ground gardens.

While anxiously waiting for the first ripe tomatoes of the season a problem was spotted.

Clay garden soil is composed of 0-45% sand and silt and 50-100% clay. Clay soil has low permeability and high water retention. Clay soil will absorb less than .25″ of water in an hour and does not drain well, often times resulting in water logging.

What strange creatures. I wasn’t sure what  I was looking at the first time I saw these guys on my broccoli leaves. They were so densely packed they looked like some sort of dusty mold growth with virtually no color. Gray/white patches that seemed to prefer the curled parts of …

Loamy garden soil is composed of 25-50% sand, 30-50% silt, and 10-30% clay. This is considered the ideal soil because it drains well, holds moisture and is full of nutrients. 

Sandy soil is composed of 80-100% sand and less than 10% each of silt and clay. Sandy soil is highly permeable and a poor water retainer. While it can absorb upwards or 2″ of water an hour, it tends to drain through quickly which can leave plants thirsty.

Finding out what kind of soil you have naturally in your garden will allow you to improve your soil with composts, insects etc. to reach the ideal growing conditions. There are a number of soil types. The most common are:

This wasn’t a tough question for me. Our soil is very clay and our land was overgrown with trees, shrubs and bushes. Plus, I had my mind made up at the start of my interest in gardening that I would have a raised garden bed because of how much easier …

Starting a garden for the first time is a lot of guess work. Take a chance and keep my fingers crossed..at least its been that way for me.

The gardening section in my library is still small. I find a lot of information online as its so easily accessible but I like to have hard copies of useful information as well.

The Dream- Five years from now having a garden that runs like a well oiled machine with the variety of fruits and vegetables that your local market has. With this picture comes the knowledge to troubleshoot problems and keep the plants thriving. I see this as a luxury in day …