Saturday, June 30, 2012

Sweet Potato Slips: How to make Sweet Potato Slips at Home in Water

Sweet potato slips are expensive. Why not plan ahead and start growing your own slips? Start about 2 months before the sweet potato planting season, which is after the last frost once the soil warms up. You will need an organic locally grown sweet potato. Do not buy the sweet potato from a big box store, instead seek out a small local co-op or organic food market. Often corporate sweet potatoes are treated with some sort of "no sprout" serum. Gross. Weird things put on/into veggies: another reason to grow your own food or shop locally.

Materials

-Organic Sweet Potato
-Jar or Glass
-Water
-Toothpicks

Instructions

1. Fill the glass with water
2. Place the toothpicks around the center of the tuber. The toothpicks are there to elevate the sweet potato, so the roots do not grow against the bottom of the glass.
3. Set the glass in an eastern facing window to receive beneficial morning sun. Yet, protecting it from the hot relentless afternoon sun.
4. Be patient, watch, and wait as the sprouts emerge and the shoots come forth.

Sweet Potato in Water waiting to root and produce shoots:

Fast Forward

Sweet Potato with roots, shoots, and slips:

Once the Potato has Produced Slips

1. Carefully twist the slip(s) off of the sweet potato.
2. Place the slip in water.
3. Wait for the individual slips to grow roots.
4. Once the roots seem stable place in a small pot with soil.
5. Let the slip get use to the soil for a few days, then transfer into garden.

Sweet potato slips placed in water to grow roots:

Slips with small roots:

The stages involved in producing sweet potato slips:

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Breaking out of the Plastic Container: Creative and Unique Garden Planters

I usually write about vegetable gardens, but these unique and creative planters are just to romantic not to share. Each one feels like it belongs in my secret garden. Some of these ideas for planters could be fun diy projects, others are a little more dreamy. I do not suggest planting anything you will be eating in these alternatives to normal flower beds. Use only non-chemically treated materials to house your healthy vegetable plants.

My favorite part about these planter boxes is the idea of repurposing instead of throwing away. These products once had a monetary value and took from the earth's resources to produce, so they should be reused instead of discarded. The more you can reuse resources already available to you, the less money you will have to spend. You will save more money to do the things you really want to do, like travel the world. Stop feeding into viscous consumerism. Find value in yourself and your creative spirit as appose to useless consumer goods.

Old Bird House turned into a Flower Bed

Mossy plant covered VW Bug

Antique free standing bathtub turned into a coffee table planter box

Old windows used to build a hanging house flower bed

Log from a dead tree hollowed out for flowers to grow

You can plant herbs or shallow rooting veggies in this. The composing wood will help infuse carbon into the soil.

Toy truck turned cactus garden

Unwanted windows used to build a beautifully dreamy green house

Cupcake tray used to grow starts and plants

Suitcase turned flower bed

People are doing amazing things with pallets. One example: Pallet Gardens

Chair meant not to be sat in. Cactus bed made out of old wood chair

Canoe garden with trellis for vertical gardening

Guitar turned planter box

Piano overgrown with beautiful flowers and plants

Flowers in an antique baby stroller

Lockers being used to house and protect plants instead of products

You can use concrete cinder blocks as planters creating funky geometric landscape architecture

*Pictures from Pinterest

Friday, June 22, 2012

Zone 9 Gardening: When to plant Seeds and Starts by Month

Are you a zone 9 gardener? Have you been wondering what seeds you need to start year around? This is a list of when to plant starts and when to sow seeds for people gardening in zone 9. When it says, STARTS it means when what seeds to start indoors during that month. Based on the size of the plant wait 4-8 before transplanting outdoors. Seeds mean sow directly into the soil you will be planting.

1. Nutrients seem beneficial to plants, but they are ONLY good for the plant if given the right PROPORTIONS. You can give your plant TO MUCH NUTRIENTS!

Do your research. Know what you are putting on your plant and why. It is easier to give a fruit or vegetable plant to much nutrient than giving it the right amount.

Plant Therapy

To fix my little phosphorus overdose problem, I flooded the strawberry plant to wash out all of the excess nutrients. Then I built it a new home: a wood raised bed.

Undercover Strawberry Plant Investigation

As I was transferring the strawberry plant from it's old container to new raised bed, I noticed that the soil was way to WET. Besides the fact that the strawberry plant was over fertilized, it was also suffering from pour drainage. Strawberry plants need to be planted in soft fluffy drainable soil. The container I had the strawberry plant in was plastic and not letting out enough water. Plants roots need oxygen and if they are drowning in water they are not getting enough oxygen. The second thing I learned from giving my plant to much nutrients:

2. Strawberry plants need to be planted soil and containers that drain.

If the soil is clay like or if the container holds in water the roots may suffer from root rot. To make sure you avoid drowning your strawberry plants, mix perlite into the soil manure mix.

Update

About 8 days after treatment

The strawberry plant looks a lot healthier and is now producing nice beautiful flowers and strawberries again.

Check out my new video where I start a Strawberry Patch in my first 15x15 garden plot!

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Top 5 Reasons Why Growing your Food Rocks

Gardening: Who knew it had so many positive Benefits

Change your life, Save your life through Gardening

Gardening, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Starting seeds, building planters, raising plants, protecting plants from pests, and watering the vegetables takes effect, but nothing worth doing is really ever effortless. My vegetable garden has become my sanctuary a place to escape to when I feel confined indoors. Watching the plants get bigger, flower, and produce vegetables is so rewarding. I did not start out, thinking, I am going to start a vegetable garden. One plant led to another and before I knew it, I was obsessed with starting seeds, researching what to grow, and transferring plants into larger pots to provide enough room for their roots. It takes some time to get your garden established, but once it starts producing it is so exciting to be eating food you grew yourself. I love telling my boyfriend, "the eggplant is from my garden." Below is the Top 5 Reasons why Growing your Food Rocks!

1. You know what is being put into/onto your Vegetables

Since the whole organic food movement swept the nation, there are article after article about what pesticides are doing to your health, so health conscious people started buying organic. Yet, even buying "organic" fruits and veggies from the store is somewhat misleading. There may still be chemicals on the fruits and veggies to detract pests, just not the special supper harmful chemicals reserved for non-organic vegetables. I also wondering, why dole produces organic and non-organic produce, why wouldn't they just grow all of their vegetables organically? Supermarket organic products seem more like a marketing ploy, than really healthy chemical free food. When you grow your own food, you are in control of the soil, nutrient, and pest detergents.

2. You're helping the Environment

When your food needs to be flown half way around the world it takes it's toll on the environment. By buying local and growing your food, you can help reduce your carbon footprint. Now that's something to feel good about. The environment you live in will dictate what you can grow. It is true that some locations have better growing conditions than others. Yet, I believe what you are able to grow in your area, is what your body needs to help you survive in that area.

3. Survivalism: Preparing for a Post Apocalyptic World

Imagine a world where nothing is organized, nothing is available, and you are left to fend for yourself. You will be ahead of all those who did not learn to grown their own food when conditions were peaceful and now considered utopic. Your hard work, good looks, charisma, and green thumb may help promote to the leader of a group rugged survivalists, the only people not starving to death.

4. Exercise disguised as Fun!

Some people do love getting up and running for miles, then starting their day, not me. I tend to fit my exercise into every day activities that I enjoy: swimming in the river, hiking to new exotic locations, biking instead of driving, and gardening. Face it, the less time you spend indoors on the couch the more exercise you will be getting, which leads to a happier, healthier, sexier body.

5. Definitely increases Overall Happiness

If you are depressed or just need more happiness in your life a garden will give you an excess dose of joy. You will now have a reason to get out of bed, something to do, and something to look forward to. You're garden needs you. Feeling needed and wanted will make anyone feel better about themselves. Related to the previous benefit, you will be getting more exercise. Exercise is the number one way to beat the blues.

So, Garden for your health. Garden for your Happiness. Garden for the Environment. Garden because your skills may someday save your life!

Monday, June 18, 2012

Vertical Gardening: A Solution for Urban Gardeners dealing with Limited Space

Gardening when Space is an Issue

I live in an apartment, so gardening space is limited. My mother sent me this video about growing cucumbers in a small raised bed with a trellis by John Collier from Growing your Greens. It is a perfect solution for people who do not have a lot of space to garden. I decided to build my version of this raised bed for my first home urban garden. This is a picture of my raised bed vegetable garden after I first planted the plants:

My vegetable planter box as of June 18, 2012:

The planter box is 4 feet long and 18 inches wide. There are two rows with a total of 14 plants. The row along the trellis is not only cucumbers, but two other vining plants: melon and tomatoes. Vining plants are perfect for urban gardens because they can be grown vertically. The vegetable plants not along the trellis are pepper plants. Peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes can be grown together because they have similar water, nutrient, and soil needs.

This is a list of vegetable plants that are crawlers, thus perfect for vertical gardening: tomatoes, peas, beans, cucumbers, squash, melons, blackberries, grapes, and kiwi.

If you build a raised bed with a trellis post your pictures! You do not need to have a lot of land to grow your own food. There are many alternatives urban gardeners can use when starting a garden to maximize the space available. Growing your own food is fun and rewarding. Check out my top 10 Reasons Growing your own Food Rocks.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Nitrogen Deficent Zucchini: Progress after Treatment

So my Zucchini Plant is Suffering from Nitrogen Deficiency

I've concluded my container zucchini plant is not getting enough nitrogen in it's diet because it's leaves and fruit are yellow. To treat the plant organically I am giving it bat guano. Watch as I experiment for the first time with treating a plant that does not have enough nitrogen.

The diet: 1 tablespoon bat guano mixed with 1/4 gallon water (I used a Gatorade bottle)

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

***After day three I decided to put it in a larger part. Based on square foot gardening a zucchini needs a 3x3 foot space. A one gallon pot is not big enough to grow a healthy zucchini plant. Once the zucchini plant was planted in a 5 gallon bucket it perked up and started growing it's first healthy zucchini, pictured below. It must be noted that when the zucchini plant was moved to a bigger pot, it also got a fresh dose of vitamins and minerals from the soil manure mix.

Case Solved!

To recap: If your container zucchini plant does not look healthy

1. The container may not be big enough
2. It may have drained it's soil of it's nutrients and needs more

Zucchini Plant Problems: Help! Yellow Leaves, Yellow Fruit. What is wrong?

Growing Zucchini in Container: Zucchini Plant's leaves and fruit turning Yellow

My zucchini plant use to be the star of my garden. I started it from seed about a month and a half ago and now it is easily the biggest plant I have. It is in a 5 gallon container with a soil manure mixture. I water it daily for about 20-60 seconds. Lately I've noticed that the larger leaves are yellow. I had small zucchini coming it. It was so cute and green, but it stopped growing and turned yellow.

This is my yellowing zucchini plant:

Night View:

New healthy zucchini growing in:

Poor small pollen deficient yellow zucchini:

The Diagnosis

There are two direct problems with the plant. 1.The yellowing of the zucchini plant's leaves points to nitrogen deficiency. 2. The plant is not being pollinated. I will first address the nitrogen problem.

Zucchini plants are heavy feeders and crave the vital NPK nutrients. N stands for nitrogen. Nitrogen promotes leave growth and vegetation. P stands for phosphorus which promotes root and shoot growth. K misleadingly stands for potassium which promotes flowering and fruiting.

Since my zucchini plant is in a pot it has quickly drained all the nutrients out of the soil manure mix. This is an important lesson for first time container growers. Since the plant has a limited supply of dirt, you must replace the nutrient with fertilizers routinely.

To organically, quickly, and effectively treat my zucchini plant I'm giving it bat guano. Mix about a tablespoon into 1/4 gallon of water (I use an old Gatorade container). Watch as the leaves transfer from yellow into a nice healthy green. Wait 3-4 days and repeat if the leaves are not the desired color. You can see the progress of the zucchini plant as it turns from yellow to green after it's treatment here: zucchini plant treatment

Now I will address the pollination problem. If your zucchini looks like the picture below then it has not be pollinated and you will have to manually pollinate the plant.

Zucchini plants have both male and female flowers.

This is a picture of a male zucchini flower's stamen, which holds the pollen:

This is a picture of a female zucchini flower's pistil, which collects the pollen. The easiest way to decipher an male zucchini flower from a female zucchini flower is that the female flower will be attached to a zucchini vegitable:

To pollinate the female flower use your finger or a q-tip to collect pollen from the male flower, then wipe it on the female flower's pistils.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Introducing My First Garden: Apartment Gardening in Containers made Possible

Welcome to My First Garden

Take a look around:

The garden is growing nicely and is really enjoying the hot Chico, California weather. I have planted the typical summer vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, melons, strawberries and cucumbers. I also have some cool weather crops in my garden because when I decided to start the garden I didn't really know what seeds to start, so I just picked out veggies I wanted to grow: kale, swish chard, and broccoli. Join me in my gardening adventures! These pictures were taken about a month ago:

I can't believe how big it has gotten since I have taken those previous pictures. Look at it now (picture taken June 16th):

This is my first garden and these are my experiences. I'm Emily Marie follow me as a beginner learns about growing a home garden. My goal is to be able to grow enough food for my and my boyfriend, so we can eat fresh local organic veggies instead of produce bought from the supermarket. I want to live a healthy lifestyle, help the environment, and eventually become urban suburban survivalist (until I get my own farm land).

I live in an apartment, so the space is limited. This blog will be especially helpful to people who will be growing gardens in small spaces and container gardening.