Healthy Self Reliance
Do you know how to grow green beans? Would you like to know how to grow them? Green beans are a popular, warm-season, home garden vegetable crop. They grow well in most soils. Like most vegetables, green beans grow best in well drained soil and plenty of sunlight. Soil Preparation Work the soil 8 to …
Roots of many plants, like carrots are “storage” places, so if you are going to eat them, grow carrots organically. You don’t want icky pesticide poison stored in your food! Okay, so my friend grew up in Mississippi and says “I’ve never seen uglier carrots than you grew last year!” I said, “you are just …
The Allium family of plant includes onions, garlic, shallots, leeks, and scallions The latin word allium literally means ‘garlic’. Alliums are herbaceous perennials with flowers produced on scapes, a flower stem. Hardiness: Alliums can be grown in Zones 3 to 9, depending upon the species and the cultivar. Alliums aren’t terribly picky: Most alliums grow …
This is a series of articles with information on how to grow tomatoes; from sowing seeds through to how to use up all the fruit you can’t eat fresh at the end of the season…. it’s all here! Starting Tomatoes from Seed What could be more delicious than fresh tomatoes straight from the garden? If …
Bean blossom drop can occur when temperatures stay consistently over 90 degrees and/or if the plants are stressed. There’s not much you can do about the heat except wait it out. It may help to put a breezy row cover over them to provide some shade. The plants may start producing again when the weather …
My father once said… I am a gardener, NOT a farmer. There is a difference. As if to provoke the obvious question, “What is the difference?” I never asked. But had anyone asked if my father was a farmer, I would have said “no”. I just mindlessly agreed with him at the time. If I …
Summer squash, winter squash, pumpkins and gourds belong to the Cucurbita family. Members of this family may cross-pollinate with each other. (Insects can bring pollen from other plants to female flowers.) However, the first year of a cross, the resulting fruit is completely normal looking and tasting. Only the end result seed carries the crossed …
Do you have to separate watermelons (Citrullus lanatus) from other types of melons to keep them from cross-pollinating? No, other types of melons like cantaloupes or honeydew (Cucumis melo), and cucumbers (Cucumis sativus) can all be grown close together without fear of crossing. However, each of these items will cross within their own species. So, …
Do you want to save your own bean seeds for growing next year? Do you want to re-grow the same fabulous beans next year that you grew this year? It may not be as easy to do with any other plant than the “bean bunch”… ya know why? Beans are self-pollinating and rarely pollinated by …
seed packet
Wow… May already. Where did the time go? The gardening calendar for May provides a list of recommended food growing tips and
As I mentioned in the last calendar update, April and May, about growing organic food, more people garden in April and May than any other time of the year.