How to Build a Grow Box

Here is a video showing how to build a grow box.





Happy Gardening!

Growing a Greener World

The following post is from a guest writer to my blog named Joe Lamp'l. Thanks Joe for the great advice!

Summer is officially here and with temperatures on the rise, now is the perfect time to be outdoors! A 2012 study conducted by NASA revealed temperatures all across the United States have been hitting all-time record highs and rising! The Month of July is typically the hottest month of the year, and with the average household using about 60% of their daily water use on gardens and lawns; Now is the perfect time to learn about water conservation and what we can do to protect our landscapes while saving millions of gallons of water this summer

The EPA estimates that about 7.8 billion gallons of water – or anywhere from 30 to 70 percent depending on the region – are used outdoors in the U.S. each year. And as much as half of that is wasted due to inefficient watering methods. Today’s homeowners should know the methods that allow them to efficiently utilize their natural resources, which as a result saves them money on their utility bills and minimizes their time spent on upkeep.

Learning how to properly maintain and keep lawns and landscapes healthy, green and thriving is not easy as temperature rises in summer, especially for the water conscious landscaper.  Certified Landscape Professional and Master Gardener Joe Lamp’l of ‘Growing A Greener World’ shares his expert advice to help bring out the green in everyone’s yards. Joe Lamp’l offers consumers water conservation tips and techniques to help build consumers’ master garden or landscaping plans, such as:

 

•          Simple tips on how to keep yard and garden weed free


•          Ways to keep your lawn and garden healthy while minimizing outdoor water consumption and maintaining sustainability.


•         Which plants help achieve optimal water efficiency


•         Easy methods to properly water our yards


•          Tips you can share that will benefit everyone when they start to tackle their lawn and landscape

 

 

ABOUT Joe Lamp’l:  

As a Certified Landscape Professional and Master Gardener, Joe Lamp’l combines his television experience and expertise of landscaping, environmental stewardship and passion for living a more eco-friendly life, as creator, host and executive producer of the award-winning national public television series Growing a Greener World®. The show, which is entering its fourth season, focuses on the stories of people, places and organizations that are doing good things for the planet, with an emphasis on landscaping topics. He also serves as a landscaping and sustainability guest expert on national morning shows like NBC’s TODAY Show, ABC’s Good Morning America and The Weather Channel, among others.

 

 

5 Things You Should Be Doing in the Garden Now

What should you be doing in your garden right now? There are many things you could be doing in your garden right now and really it depends on what your particular garden needs but here are a few ideas for you.

1. Adding organic matter. I add organic matter AT LEAST twice a year. One is in the fall we grind up our leaves with the lawn mower and spread them all around the grow boxes after they are all cleaned out for the winter. Then we also add a nice thick layer of mulch around
   
   

How to Easily Start Vegetable Seeds Indoors

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erCwntbfVO8&w=560&h=315]
Watch this video to learn how easy it is to start your own seeds inside!

Happy Gardening!

Check out our video about making your own light garden.

How To Easily Rotate Your Crops

So why is it necessary to rotate the crops in your garden? Simply, it will help slow down or stop the spread of diseases and pests in your garden, and improve the soil of your garden. Pests and diseases usually attack plants of the same family, and can linger in the soil to pop up again the next year or two. So by proper planning and rotation with plants of different families then  you can help prevent the survival of those pests and diseases from year to year.

Top 5 Vegetables That Grow Well In Shade

Having enough space in your yard to grow every thing can be a big problem for a gardener. Especially because most of those vegetables and fruit like to have full sun! I have good news for you. There are some vegetables that do well in part shade. Of course they will need some sun during the day say about 3 hours to get what they need from the sun. Planting some in the shadier areas of your yard will save those sunny spots to grow the sun lovers like tomatoes, peppers, and squash plants.

The trick to knowing if your plant will do OK with less sunlight is this: If the vegetable is grown to eat the leafy part, or possibly the roots, they do well without as much sun. If the vegetable is grown to eat a fruit that is produced by the plant, it needs lots of sunlight. Growing these vegetables in part shade might also help to keep the soil from drying out so quickly.

3 Important Things to Consider When Choosing a Location for Your Vegetable Garden

1. Sunlight- How much sunlight will your plants need. Most likely if you are growing vegetables they will need AT LEAST 8 hours of sunlight a day during the growing season. If you have a shady yard, this can be addressed by building a grow box with a bottom and on wheels that you can move throughout the year to get enough sun light. Or you could consider growing your vegetables interspersed in the landscaping of your yard.


2. Proximity- Having a location that is close to the kitchen door is ideal,

Why Tomato Plants Get Diseases

We have always planted most of our tomato plants all together in the same grow box, or close together. Last year, after planting our tomatoes, they started going wonderfully like always, but then somehow one of them started looking dried out and soon died. So I pulled it out and threw it away quickly. However, it sadly and slowly it started to happen to the tomato plants closest to it. There were 3 left at the end of the season that were left untouched with disease. I had a tomato plant in the front yard, and it was very healthy all year. So as I analyzed what went wrong, I realized that if I had not planted them all together like that, they would not have spread the disease to each other as easily. So one of the lessons I learned this year:

The 3 Best Vegetables for Your Home Garden

How do you choose what to plant in your garden? Well that all depends on what you like and what your family will eat. Here are 3 vegetables that most people like to grow in their home gardens, and one of the reasons why is they taste so much better when home grown and they are also easy to grow and get a bountiful harvest. So if you can only grow 3 vegetables in your garden this year- try these 3.

5 Reasons to Grow a Vegetable Garden

There really is no possible way to put a number to the benefits of growing a vegetable garden, but if you are thinking of putting one in, here are 5 reasons that you absolutely have to.

1. It gets you moving. You have to do some lifting, and moving around to put in and maintain a garden although it can be as much or as little work as you want, the work is great to keep your body moving.


2. Relieves daily stress. Our modern world has countless benefits, however those pay it's toll and we live in a very stressful world. Being part of a growing process brings you back a little bit and can help aliveiate that stress in your life.


3. Produces yummy fruit and vegetables to eat. Tomatoes, peas and corn- oh my!

What is Your Favorite Vegetable to Grow?

We all have our favorites in the garden.  Please take a second to let us know what your favorite vegetable to grow in the garden is.

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Planting Lettuce

Lettuce is one of my favorite veggies to plant in my garden. You can harvest them early, and a homegrown salad just hits the spot. We have had an unseasonably warm winter, so I decided that I am going to go ahead and plant my lettuce now and cover with the row cover. Here is some instructions on how to plant lettuce. Happy Gardening!

There are two different types of lettuces that can be grown in the garden.  Varieties produce better leaf lettuces, and those that produce better heads (All varieties, if left to grow, will eventually produce a head).  Both can be sown indoors 4 weeks before transplanting in mid-spring, or directly sown outdoors when soil is ready to work.  Leaf lettuces that will be harvested continuously are best sown directly outdoors and thinned to ½ inch (1.25 cm) apart in long rows.  Head lettuce should be planted in diamond patterns to maximize space, giving between 8 to12 inches (20 to 30 cm) between plants.

Lettuce is a cool, weather plant and can be planted early in the garden.  It can tolerate light frost, but should be protected with row cover when temperatures dip below 30 degrees F (-1 degree C).  Plant seeds every 2 weeks for a constant supply of young lettuce leaves or continuous harvest of heads.

Lettuce should be grown quickly to ensure the leaves are sweet and don’t grow bitter. Prepare the soil in the fall by turning in 1 inch (2.5 cm) of good compost.  Fertilize every few weeks after transplanting with a good, nitrogen rich fertilizer. 

Lettuce should be watered lightly in early spring, until warm temperatures dry the soil.  Keep soil moist from that point, but not wet.  Lettuce has shallow roots, so cover lightly with mulch 2 inches (5 cm) deep.  It is also best to plant with other vegetables that will offer some shade in the hot, summer months.

Garden Design Contest!

We are going to have a contest to see who can come up with the best garden design. If you win, you will win a full year subscription to the online garden planner!

To participate, you will need to sign up for a free account at The Gardener's Spot Garden Planner. Choose the setting to allow others to see your plan in the account page, and then when you are finished designing it, there is a tab at the top to publish it. You can publish it to Facebook on The Gardener's Spot Facebook page. Be sure to "like" us while you are there, and tell all your friends about it too! Then those who receive the most votes (likes) by February 29th will win the free membership. Here is a short video to help you get started. Good luck, and start planning!

Preparing your soil in the spring

Soil is literally the foundation of your garden. A great foundation to your garden will bring a great harvest. The key to good garden soil is deep, loose, fertile and well-draining soil.

How do you obtain this, you ask? Well, no matter the kind of soil, clay, sand the very best thing you can do for your soil is to add lots and lots of organic matter every year. Organic matter is anything that is no longer alive( accept meet and dog and cat feces carry too much disease). So things like leaves in the fall and small wood shavings and anything that was green at one time counts as organic matter. That includes steer manure and composted plants.

If you are starting a new bed for your garden in the spring, then make sure you add lots of organic matter, and every year thereafter. You can buy bags of steer manure and peat moss to mix into the soil if you do not want to make your own compost. Things like wood chips are considered organic matter, but they take such a long time to break down that they are not the best option to add to your garden soil. After the plants are planted in the early summer, we add a nice compost as a dressing on top of the soil and around the plants to help keep moisture in the soil and cool the roots of the vegetables. We do not gather this up, but rather leave it and add more next year. This would count as adding organic matter. They we add chopped up leaves with the lawn mower in the fall with a little nitrogen fertilizer to break it down. Free excellent organic matter- it cant get better than that. 

Here is a picture of leaf mold which is leaves just broken down from a few years ago. This makes an excellent amendment to the soil.

What we are about

One of my passions is Gardening and growing things. It is just amazing to watch something grow that you planted and are taking care of. It is even more fun for me to grow something that I can eat. I just LOVE going out to my garden in the morning or afternoon and deciding what we will be eating for dinner based on what we have ripe in the garden. Or when I am cooking a recipe that calls for a seasoning or herb, and I can run out to the garden and snip the herb it calls for. Food just tastes so much better when it is fresh out of the garden. That is why I am creating this blog, so that I can share my excitement and what I have learned with you. I will share experiences I have, and also share some how to articles so that you can start your own garden and experience this fun, amazing feeling I get when I garden!