Plant Labels

Have you ever wished for a cheap sturdy plant label? Look no farther than you closest window. Okay maybe not your window, but if you have a source of old Venetian window blinds, you have an very good source of labels. First remove the strings that allowed you to raise and lower the blind slats. Once you have removed them and have the slats themselves free, you can cut them into lengths of whatever size you wish. We cut most of our every 6". Grunt stacks them up about an inch high and runs them through the bandsaw. But they can be cut with scissors. Once you have the label the length you would like you can turn it into a hanging label by using a hole punch. (And yes a single paper punch will make a hole in them.) Run heavy cord, twine or twist tie material to form the hanger. You can use either a marking pen or pencil to write on the surface. If using a pencil, I would choose either a carpenter's pencil or a primary pencil as they have a wider lead. At the end of the season you can use an eraser for pencil writing or tape over the writing using either duct tape or masking tape. In fact if you go to your local thrift shop or dumpster dive, or are lucky enough to live near one of the hardwares that custom make the blinds to width, you should find a cheap enough source that you would not have to salvage the old ties.
Personally I figure that I should wear out the old stuff first.

Seed Starting Tips #5 - Fighting damp off and other soil diseases

A couple of tips for helping to prevent damp off in your starting trays.

The first is if you haven't planted yet. 24-48 hours before you intend to plant you starter tray, make up a solution of 1 TBSP hydrogen peroxide (get it at the drug store) to 1 quart of water and drench you soil. Let it drain well and discard the excess water.

The second tip is for after your seedling start emerging. Get yourself a container of Thyme. Take a enamel or glass pot and a couple of quarts of water. Bring the water to a boil. Toss in a handful of dried thyme, turn off the heat, cover and let it steep until the water cools to room temperature. Strain out the the thyme leaves and use the resulting thyme tea to water your seedling. Thymol (the active ingredient in thyme tea is a mild antiviral, antibacterial and antifungal ingredient) and an ounce of prevent = a pound of cure.

Soil Preparation - Part 5

Tools continued:
7. Hoses - needed to move water first from your source and secondly to water you plants. Make sure you have a good quality hose that is long enough to reach all of your garden area. If you can afford it, snap off/snap on couplings come in real handy.
8. Watering hoses - Very few plants really like getting their heads wet and so my advice is to consider drip irrigation. It will reduce a lot of disease problems and it doesn't have to be expensive. Find a couple of old garden hoses that shall we say are past their better days and leak some. Take the leakest 1 and cut it into 1" - 1 2/2" (these become the dripper end caps of you emitters and prevent the water washing out the soil around you plants root ball), and next purchase (this is the most expensive part) a couple of hundred feet of micro tubing (1/8" diameter or smaller, some are actually sold as gallons per hour and if you have this type I would suggest using the 2 gallon rather than the 1 gallon type as it doesn't plug up as easy), plus an end cap for you better hose. Cut the microtubing at a 45 degree angle into pieces approximately 8"- 1' long. Make your self an awl out a regular 2 1/2" nail driven through a small piece of wood (you can shape it fit your hand comfortably) and puncture a piece of the dripper end cap in the center. Take care not to push the awl all the way through the piece of hose, only one side so that the microtubing end is inside the cap. As you with draw the awl, force one of the precut pieces of microtubing into the opening. The hose should shrink back around the microtubing and form a tight fit. Do this for all the pieces you have cut into sections. Now take the second hose and pierce it at roughly 8" or 9" intervals, (again only through one side and not right out the other side of the hose) . As you make the holes, insert a capped piece of microtubing in each one. When you get done you will have a hose that you can lay along the base of you row and water the plants from the bottom. Since we use raised beds we place one of these hoses along the base of the plants when we transplant in the spring, it stays there all summer and then we raise it off the ground when we turn the garden in the fall. If you aren't set up the way we are, just roll it up in the fall and lay it back out in the spring. An even cheaper way of doing a large area is to use 3/4" plastic piping that you can purchase in 100 foot rolls (or longer) and cut to length.

We will continue with tools and accessories tomorrow.

Soil Preparation - Part 4

Now we will resume our regular programming. Today's topic is about some of the tools you will need and maybe a few extras that you will definitely like to add to your collection. For those of you who are taller you may want the longer straight handles on your tools. However if you are short like me, I find the D-handles much easier to work with. The only exception to the above suggestions are the Spading fork and Border shovels and there even you taller people might like the D-handle as it is easy to reef on the tool.

1. Spading or Digging Fork - This fork has 4 prongs, that are roughly 1/2" - 3/4" wide by 1/4"- 3/8" thick and roughly 8-10" long. In my opinion the thicker and longer the prongs, the better. Also make sure that you get one with a sturdy handle (I prefer a metal one) that is topped with a D. This is one of the two "work horses" use around our place. I use it to bust up new soil, and turn the beds spring (lightly) and fall (deep turning working the mulch into the soil for more humus). It is also very good for lifting out plants after you have sliced around them with a shovel or spade.

2. Border shovel - This is useful for cutting tough turf, and other odd jobs such breaking up matted compost and manure. I cannot stress enough to get your tools with the best metal and handles you can afford. Especially if most of your gardening will be done by hand or you are doing large areas. It will pay for itself in the long run, especially if you take care of them properly.

3. Digging Spade - This is another of the garden "work horses". As the name implies, it is used to dig in your garden. Especially if you are doing a deep or double digging job. You will find it handy when loading or unload you compost or manure to move it to where it will do the most good.

4.Hoes - For those of you who do not used raised bed gardening, a good hoe is essential. My personal preference is a Draw Hoe, as it can be used for multi tasks. Weeding, hilling, soil movement and chopping, all come to mind as I picture this variety of hoe in action.

5. For those of you who used the raised bed method of gardening, I would suggest a Hand Mattock, with the hoe blade on one side and cultivator on the other. (By now you probably have gathered that raised beds are usually more hands on, with out the massive back aches of a flat garden, but we won't go in to the pros and cons of the two types of gardens here at this time.)

6. A bale of binder twine or heavy twine of some type. This will be used in a variety of places.
Marking straight rows. (Cut the twine to the length of your rows plus a foot. Tie a sharpened stake at each end and then shove one end at the beginning of your row, walk out to the end of your row. Wrap excess string around second stake and embed. Take you hoe or a marking stick and slide it along the taunt string and voila - a straight row is marked.)
Tying up plants or securing them to supports.
Using as supports for bean poles - One center pole with strings run down from the top and spaced 18" to 3' in diameter and pegged at that distance, will make a lovely bean pole teepee.
Making bundles of plant material easy to transport to compost bins.
I am sure once you put your mind to it you can find a hundred and one things to do with twine. (And if you do please either leave a comment or contact me at grungysgarden@gmail.com as I would love to do a blog post of what can be done with twine later on this summer. Thank you in advance.)

This post is getting long and I will continue it tomorrow under Soil Preparation - Part 5.

Soil Preparation - Part 3

Still getting short of time digging that garden? Another quick and easy procedure is for your melons and squash. It is very similar to planting your potatoes, but slightly more work.

First locate where you would like your squash/melons to go. You should allow at least 8 feet for vining varieties and 3 feet for bush types, between each "hill"or section. Take your spade or shovel and slice and cross slice an area about 36" X 24" rectangle at the center of the section. (Please remember we are working towards 3' wide beds.) Pull out the sod and knock off as much dirt as easily possible. (You can add this turf to your growing pile of composting material we discussed in Soil Preparation # 1.) Dig the soil well with your spading fork(at least 14 " deep) and remove any stones and rubbish. Now is the time to incorporate soil enrichments as melons and squash are heavy feeders. Use 4-6" compost, or well rotted manure plus 2 Tablespoons of Epsom Salts, and a handful of bone meal. If you soil is already on the acidic side, up to a teaspoon of lime, can be added. Good general garden soil has a pH of 6.5 - 6.8, although plants can grown in soil slight on either side of this pH range. Since you have added bulk and "fluffed" the soil, water it and let it set for a couple of days to settle back down as far as possible. You will still probably have a small mound or "hill", which is what you want.

In a short growing season, start your melons/squash in paper pots (1 seed per pot and 3/4"-1" deep) in a heated "greenhouse" up to 3 weeks before the soil is warm enough. (I usually figure about a week before the last frost is due in my area.) For those of you who are blessed with a longer and warmer growing season, you will be able to plant directly in the "hill".

Assuming that it is warm enough, now it is time to plant your melon and squash. Again plant at the 3/4"-1" depth, if direct seeding. If you are transplanting by the paper pot method, tear off the excess "collar" of paper, dig you hole at the depth of the pot and gently (REMEMBER: squash and melons do NOT like their roots disturbed) transplant into the hole, mounding the soil slightly over the soil of the pot. Plant 3 plants to a hill in a triangle shape about a foot apart from each other. Water them in well and keep the soil moist. At planting time, since there are many insects that love to eat fresh growing tips of both squash and melons, we cut the bottom out of 1 gallon milk jugs and a hole in the cap (leaving a 1/8" rim on the cap), place them over the seedlings and bury the bottom of the jug about 1/2" into the soil, run a stick through the mouth of the jug into the soil, then take a piece of tulle or remay put over the top of the stick and milk jug and secure with the cap. This allows the excess heat to escape and prevents the wind from blowing your milk jugs away.

Break out the mower and again mow the intervening strips of grass (both between the rectangles and the pathways) as short as possible. Cover with 2 or 3 layers of cardboard and the put mulch 2-3" deep over the top of the cardboard. Water the mulch well to cause it to cake up and form a cap over the cardboard and help exclude any sunlight.

Done the way described above, you can plant your squash and melons with only a 3' pathway between beds. Again you can mow the grass strip in between beds, cover with cardboard and mulch with grass clippings, hay or even sawdust to help kill back the grass and weeds under you cardboard, and by fall you will have a much easier time of turning those pathways into gardens.

An addition tip here. If you are using sawdust on your pathway. Sprinkle it liberally with high nitrogen fertilizer (the first number of the 3 that is on the bag label), as it will help break down the sawdust into rich compost. Do this once a month all summer.

Now that your squash and melons have taken off and are filling the milk jugs full of lovely green leaves, it is time to let your "babies" face the world. Carefully remove the jugs (and store for next year). When the plants start putting out runners (on vining types) or you see the first flower bud on bush types, top dress you "hills" with another inch or so of manure or compose. If you are unfortunate not to have either available, then sprinkle a small handful of slow release fertilizer around the plants on your hill, remembering both types are very heavy feeders.

A couple of notes here.
Squash and melons of the same family cross readily so if you have more than one variety, and want to keep your seed "pure" you will have to bag both male and female blossoms and do the pollination yourself. You can reduce the chance of cross pollination, by also planting different families together in your rows. ie a Pepo type and Maxima type of squash should not give any viable seeds.

Happy growing and keep your eyes out for squash bugs. We are blessed that they aren't around here. But if you live in an area where they exist, a suggestion would be to make hoop houses down your rows and cover your melons and squash with floating row cover that is pinned down on all sides.

Soil Preparation - Part 2

Still a lot of work to do and time is catching up with you. Well today's tip is the "Easy Way To Plant Potatoes" with the subtitle "A Lazy Person In The Spud Patch".

If you have fresh lawn or pasture that is going to be turned in to a garden, the following tip will interest you. It really is killing two birds with one stone.

First mow your grassy patch as short as you can. Then take a shovel or mattock or Portuguese Hoe, and and literally rip a strip back about 2 inches thick and 4-6" wide and long, for each hill you wish to plant. Place your seed potato on the bared earth and push the strip back over the potato, upside down. Now mulch the sod well at least a foot and a half on both sides and between each plant, leaving a small opening, where you first entered the sod. The potato will push it's first sprout out here. Water the area well, and allow Mother Nature to take her course. Plant the potatoes about a foot to 16 inches apart in your rows. Keep the soil moist and once the sprouts are up and reaching for daylight, keep adding mulch a little at a time until you have a reasonably thick mat that is 4"-6" thick.

Keep adding mulch as needed, as a lot of the potatoes will be formed on the surface of the turf, and can still be sunburned through light mulch. Once the potato vines have bloomed and started to die back, comes the time to dig them. Pull back the mulch and starting at least a foot and a half on either side of where the sprouts emerged, use your spade or digging fork, proceed to dig your potatoes. Do not be surprised at the size of the spuds. We grew one that fed a family of 4, two meals. But be careful as there may be lots of potatoes under each plant and most will be large and easy to spear or slice.

The advantages are that you get your first crop without the digging and prep work, you kill back the grass in the sod, and as you dig the potatoes you are preparing your land for next year's garden.

Happy planting.

Seed Starting Tips #4 - Starting mix

You've got the seeds, the pots and now what to use for potting mediums. I generally make up two slightly different potting mixes.
The first is used for starting small seeds that I will be transplanting into individual larger pots. I use a large tub for mixing my starting mixtures in, so this will be in gallon (4L) measures.
4 parts peatmoss (4 gallons)
2 parts perlite (2 gallons)
1 part fine vermiculite (1 gallon)
2 Tablespoons of all purpose fertilizer (I use Miracle-Grow 20-20-20)
2 Tablespoons superphosphate
1/4 cup of lime
Mix it well and then add a gallon of warm, preferably rain or snow water or tap water that has sat overnight to get rid of the chlorine. Turn it over and over again until the moisture is evenly distributed through out the mixture, and the put in planting containers.

The second mix is for transplanting seedling after they have their first set of true leaves, or for very large seeds that are planted individually into pots such as beans, peas or corn.

Take 1/2 of the previous starting mixture and add the following:
3 gallons peat moss
1 gallon perlite
1/4 cup of lime
2 Tablespoons all purpose fertilizer
2 Tablespoons superphosphate

Again add 1 gallon of warm water, mix throughly and put in planting containers.

Happy puddling and gardening.

Seed Starting Tips # 3 - need more pots?

It's getting that time, when the fingers are itching to get into the soil. You have gone through all your starting containers, drew up your list of what you want to grow and discovered that you have more seeds that will need to be started indoors, than you have starting pots. What to do? Spend a small fortune buy more seed starting pots or kits? Or would you prefer a cheap source of pots that you can make while you sit in front of the TV in the evening, or convince the kids that this will be a really great craft project. And most of all you have the necessary equipment just laying around. You will need a ruler, a pair of scissors, a pencil, some old newspapers (make sure that they have vegetable oil printing - most black and white are this way today in North America), a cylindrical object that is about the same diameter as the transplant pot you want and at least 1 and 1/4 the height of the finished pot, and some masking or scotch tape.

Measure the diameter of your form (the cylindrical object). Say for example it is 1 1/2" wide. Figure how tall you want your pot to be. For example 3" tall. Then take your ruler and measure your newspaper in strips that are 4" wide. (3" (pot height) + 3/4" (1/2 the diameter of the form) + 1/4 of an inch for overlap. Cut the newspaper into strips and then roll the strips around the form 2 1/2 times. This will give you the length of strip that you will need for each pot. Cut as many strips as you want pots.

I mark the height of the pot on the form with a permanent marking pen, so that it is easy to know exactly how high up the form I need to put the top of the paper strip.

Take your strip, wrap it two and a half times around the form. Tape (just a short piece) the edge closed so it will hold while you are doing the next steps.

Go around the bottom of the strip of paper folding it in towards the center. It will overlap and this is what you want. When you have all of it folded in, take another small piece of tape and secure it closed. Slide the new "pot" off the form. And volia - a new pot. If you only need the pots for a short time say 2 weeks you can now put them in your tray and fill with dirt. If however you are planting something like tomatoes which may be in the pot for up to 6 weeks, take an old baggie (I find that sandswich baggies slashed across the bottom to let water flow freely in and out), slip your pot into it and fill with dirt. Paper pots will allow roots to grow through the edges and into the next pot if you do not have a barrier. You could also uses a column of plastic wrap secured with tape or a rubber band to form the barrier.

Fill you watering or insert tray with dirt filled pots, plant your seeds or seedlings, water well, and often as necessary, and happy gardening.

When it comes time to transplant out,remove the plastic barrier and tear off the very top of the pot so that no paper is above the surface of the soil. It should tear off fairly easy at the soil line. You want to do this, so that the paper will not act as a wick and draw the moisture away from you plant's roots. And transplant right away so everything stays nice and moist.

I find that it is easy to make pots up to 3 1/2" in diameter and and as small as 1". They can range from 2 1/2" to 6" tall, which will give you a lot of options for whatever types of seeds you want to start. For example squash or melon seeds, I would use the 3 1/2" wide by 2 1/2" tall pots. On the other hand, corn and beans which have long roots, probably would be started in a 1 1/2" wide by 6" tall pot. Just consider the root structures of your plants, how long they will be in the pots, and the ease of transplanting. Remember you transplant the plants, pots and all.

Seed starting tips

Soon it will be seed starting time, and today's tip is about pre-germination of your seeds.

What you will need is seeds, plastic ziplock type lunch baggies, paper napkins or coffee filters (you could use paper towels but seedling roots have a bad tendency intermesh in fibers). Open and layer you paper flat. Sprinkle the seeds lightly over the 1/2 of the surface, carefuly fold over once or twice, spray or sprinkle with water to moisten the paper and slip into the baggie. Stand on its end or hang vertically in a warm place. Check baggie / paper daily and as the seeds germinate, transplant into soil medium. This will allow you to get a great start and only grow viable seed. Happy growing.

The above method also is a great way for germination testing. Use anywhere from 10-100 seeds (depending on how detailed you want your precentages).