Get Rid of Gnats!

Is there anything more annoying than gnats in the house? Not to me! Gnats are the only part of spring that I dread indoors. They're nearly impossible to clap between my hands and seem to torment me when I'm trying to concentrate. Here's a little cheap test to get rid of them that I'm going to do next time they welcome themselves uninvited:

Plan A Beautiful Vegetable Garden

Looking for new ideas you can do this year in your backyard? This Plan A Beautiful Vegetable Garden by Jack Staub is a really good read full of inspiration for any vegetable garden!

Growing Healthy Seedlings Indoors

Back to basics time! With each new spring season comes picking seeds and seedlings that are meant to grow into happy little plants. I know I'm not alone in wondering each year: "What am I forgetting", "How did I do this last time?" and saying aloud, "Oh yes, that's right, I'm supposed to (insert memory here) first".

There seems to be just enough time between seasons to forget at least one important tid-bit. So here it is, for me and for you: Growing Healthy Seedlings Indoors, a nicely laid out back to basics instruction (or reminder) guide for starting seeds indoors to get those seedlings going without waiting so long for frost free nights!

How to Grow a Pear Tree Against a Wall

I don't yet have my dream garden space, so instructions like this are great finds I like to share with others who don't have a seemingly endless amount of garden space either: How to Grow a Pear Tree Against a Wall by HGTV Gardens. (steps 1-4 included with pictures even)

Are onions truly easy to grow?

Onions are for everything from hamburgers to soups, sandwiches to omelets, so many ways to use them! With a vast variety of onion types: sweet, hot, pearl, red, yellow, white... there's a type of onion for nearly any use! But are onions honestly easy to grow? So says Bonnie Plants: "If you can poke a hole into the ground, you can grow an onion from a little plant."

Space for Fruit Trees

If I had it to do all over again, I'd have planted a new fruit or nut tree (or at least bush) every year. By now I'd have a fabulous collection of yummy things (and healthy) from which to choose simply by walking outside my house. Now I have 2 cherry trees, 2 blueberry bushes (that are debating whether to hang on through the winter or be pulled out in the spring) and 1 extremely slow growing apple tree. And now I have a supreme desire for more than 6 hours of sunlight in as much of my garden as possible. Yet I still wish for fruit trees, but they sure do create shady areas. Enter the solution: Apples and pears: growing and training as cordons by the Royal Horticultural Society.

I was searching of course for something completely different at the time I happened upon the images of these apple cordons, but I was hooked as soon as I saw them. They're basically apple trees (and pear, as well as other fruit trees) that are trained to grow in a particular fashion, such as up against a fence, along a wire trellis - more 2D than 3D and definitely space saving! And the fruit can be full size, too, it's not like a bonsai tree. There are even books (with good reviews, too) see cordon fruit tree books at Amazon.com & a lot of them have sneak-peaks inside, too for even more ideas!

Grow Seeds Faster

The end of the winter season is near torture for me waiting for the timing to be right for planting seeds indoors - for later transplanting to the garden after the average frost date for my area, which happens to be in April! Frankly I'm going going nuts but have traded nearly all temptations from planting to more elaborate garden planning. I'm surely biting off more than I can chew but that's nothing new. This Grow Seeds Faster – Imbibition by "In the garden with judy" however is something new to me!

I got so excited I dug right into my seed packets and picked out 5 plant types for which I had extra seeds. (read: ripe for experimenting) I carefully selected 5 random baby food jars I had lazily tucked onto a shelf last year "just in case", and filled them about a quarter full with water. I boiled and cooled the tap water first in hopes of eliminating any probable chlorine the day before. After I soaked the seeds overnight, I carefully used a spoon to, well, spoon them out, and place them ever so carefully onto pre-moistened seed starting mix.

With a big grin on my face I got to label the very first containers of the season. Now it's time to wait and see if any of them sprout - and how FAST they sprout. Most have 7-10 days listed on the seed packets, but hopefully soaking them beforehand will indeed make the seeds grow faster! Oh it's so nice to find potential short-cuts when impatience is nearly overwhelming.

Do you think about seeds?

I think about them in spring and fall. Either for planting times or wondering how to save them. But mostly I wonder what will happen if I ever run out. Will I be able to successfully capture them with good timing in the garden? How will I know which seeds are ready to be "saved"? Is it too late to save them after they've already been scattered by the wind onto the mulch - or plain soil top? How long will they really last in a zip lock bag? Should I store seeds in mason jars instead? Or in paper bags in a dark cupboard? Will this particular type of seed need light to start germinating? Oh so many curiosities overlap each other and lead to even more!



Today while I was searching for answers to the above for the few seeds I wanted to plant today - and many subsequent questions, I found that some seeds travel up to about 60miles per hour (initially) and travel without help from an ant or bird for up to about 49 feet away from the seed pod on the plant. Here's the techie-type scoop on this and generalities about self-dispersal of seeds.

Companion Planting Guides

From reducing or eliminating the need for garden pest treatments, to adding color and texture to an otherwise mundane space in a garden, companion planting is a win-win technique for improving a garden space. Here's my most recent find at Burpee.com in their growing tips section: Companion Planting Guide

Organic Tomato Seeds

Missing Summer? Me, too! Simply looking at the tomatoes for these organic seed packets brings back memories of last summer! Organic Tomatoes Seeds I can almost hear the birds chirping and hear the squirrels scrambling along the fence tops already! The little rodents love watching me dig holes and plant seeds - almost as much as they enjoy sneaking around to steal fruits & vegetables when I'm not looking. Though they don't seem to be too interested in the tomato plants, they will at least try one or two. Oh but how I do miss spending time gardening. There's still a thick blanket of snow on the ground but I'm already prepping to plant seeds. Now's the time to get a jump on Spring so there's plenty of seedlings ready to transplant once the weather warms. After a slight disappointment with Roma Tomatoes last year (the flavor simply wasn't as good as expected) I'm going to focus on cherry, yellow pear, and beefsteak varieties of tomatoes this year. Oh I can hardly wait to walk out, pick one, and eat it right there in the sunshine!

Eggshell Seed Starters

I confess I'm not this cute & clever when I'm starting seeds yet using Eggshell Seed Starters for starting seeds indoors seems like a fabulous idea for people who are indeed good at being cutesy with their seed starting!

It does seem more logical to be able to transplant the entire seed starter container, whether it's an eggshell seed starter or paper egg container seed starter because those can be set directly into the dirt. However I have tried the egg container method before and not been successful with it at all! The humidity levels here are too high and I tend to over-water, so for me the paper (or cardboard) of the egg containers tend to attract mildew.

I prefer the plastic seed starting containers that I find free from time to time. They look like this when I'm cleaning them & filling the cells with seed starter soil:

Yes the upside down containers are drying though not sure why I dry them before I fill them up with seed starting soil just to get them wet again. It's just become a little routine - out with the old, in with the new! Once the seeds are sown and sprouting they look promising:

Those are ice-cream sticks for seed labels, which work wonderfully! I do use Sharpie pens because even with weeks of watering over the sticks the plant names remain easy to read.

Cheap Indoor Seed Starting

What's the best way to start seeds indoors for transplanting outside after the weather stops freezing? Maybe there is no "best" way, but here's good comparisons of different ways to try.

Seed Starting: a Comparative Study on Cheap Indoor Methods

Seed Starting Tips

Have you been starting seeds indoors this week? I have because it is the 1st week of Spring! Here's a handy little article for sharing ( Seed Starting Tips – Learn About The Best Time To Start Seeds ), especially this part:

" The plants that should be started the earliest are broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and head lettuce. Sow seeds for these indoors 10 weeks before the date of the last frost. "

I have about 100 different seed types this year and while it's fun to look through them all to pick & choose what I want to try in the different soil types, it's important to remember what should be started earliest. I didn't plant any of those types of seeds yet because I was working on getting the companion herbs & flowers started first. So I'm thankful for the reminder & now thinking about organizing seeds not only by type: companion, herb, root, etc. but also by when to start the seedlings!

Cold Frame VS. Hot Bed

Know the difference? I didn't! I thought I've been wanting a cold frame, as it turns out I need a hot bed. Ohio State University Extension Fact Sheet: Cold Frame, Hot Bed Construction And Use (and here's a handy PDF from Purdue University)

Extinct tree grows anew

from ancient jar of seeds unearthed by archaeologists story by TreeHugger. Hm, about those seeds that are marked for 2013 season? Now I'm not convinced they're only good for 1 year.