Don’t till the dirt!!! September 30, 2008
Posted by liajo in How to tips.Tags: composted, dirt, fruits, garden, gardener, Mother Earth News, plant, potato, potting mix, soil, till, vegetables
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I was web surfing last night looking for some advice on potato growing. I ran across a great site with lots of useful information about potatoes and other vegetables and fruits. I decided to look around the site a little more and clicked on an article about “how to start a garden.” In the first paragraph the new gardener was told to till the earth as deep as they could. I wanted to scream.
When will well meaning gardeners stop giving such advice?? You should never till the earth. There is an entire micro ecosystem under there that we can’t even see, but whose homes we are destroying. These little critters are vital to the health of any garden.
The easiest and quickest way to a new garden is to lay bags of potting mix on the ground open holes in them and plant directly in them. Check this out on www.MotherEarthNews.com. If you want a “traditional” garden then very lightly hand till the earth to a very shallow depth. Next layer on a three to four inches of good composted soil and plant. Never and I mean never till the earth as deep as you can.
Pruning tomatos September 14, 2008
Posted by liajo in gardening mistakes.Tags: fruit, garden, plant, pruning, soil, tomatos
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I make a lot of gardening mistakes and NOT pruning is one of them. I should have pruned the tomatos about six weeks ago, I just couldn’t make myself to it. I know pruning is good for the fruit, but the object is to grow plants. Pruning doesn’t seem to agree with that objective.
I did prune the tomatos this weekend. It took a good couple of hours but I am pleased with the results. Now there is better air circulation around and between the plants, and light can get down to the soil. I know that I will see the results in more and bigger tomatos.
Maybe next time something needs to be pruned I’ll remember this.
Bee garden September 11, 2008
Posted by liajo in general.Tags: bee, bee's, fall, garden, sunflower, vegetable, yard
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One of the nice things about fall is that I get a chance to go outside for no purpose at all. I don’t need to water or pull weeds and it’s cool enough to just sit and enjoy the gardens. I was doing just that this afternoon when I spotted a bee in the sunflowers.
He was going to each open flower. He would land and stay there a few seconds before moving on to the next flower. I watched him for a good ten minutes as he worked in the sunflowers.
The sunflowers were a new addtion to the yard this year. I planted them just on the other side of the fence from the vegetable garden. Me and the bee’s are gald I added them.
Different gardens September 9, 2008
Posted by liajo in general.Tags: balconies, containers, garden, gardeners, gardening, pinto beans, plants, roof tops
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I had a really hard time picking a theme for this blog. The outdoorsy ones were just to cliche, and I didn’t like the layout. I love the layout of this theme and it’s a bit unexpected for a gardening blog. The theme does highlight one point I’d like to make about gardeners and gardens. We come in all different sizes and shapes from all different parts of the world.
I currently live in a rural community 30 miles or so from Denver, Colorado on a nice sized lot. I have also lived in a couple of city apartments and on five acres that had once been part of a pinto bean field. No matter where I lived, I gardened. I will always garden. The scale of the garden may change from a plastic tub on a balcony to rows of ploughed fields, but the need to garden doesn’t go away just because your dirt is under layers of concrete.
Next time you go to the city, take a look up at the roof tops and balconies. How many do see with plants growing in all types of containers?
Moving Day September 7, 2008
Posted by liajo in general.Tags: gardening, nature
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In nature all things evolve. Like nature, my blog about gardening has evoled. In order not to die out I have moved to wordpress.com instead of wordpress.org. The .org was a mistake, my husband got confused when I asked him for help in setting up a blog. I’m going to leave a link to my .org site and I hope all my .com friends use the link as a way to read all the great articles I’ve already writen.
playing n the dirt 